If you own or run a small business and are not happy with your results, or if you feel that the profits you are entitled to always seem to be just out of reach, your day is about to get a lot better.
Before I explain why, I want you to know something: there is nothing for you to buy here. I’m not saying that I’m not in business or that I’ll never place a value on or expect to sell my knowledge and skills for a reasonable amount, because I will.
But that’s not what I’m doing here. It is my opinion that many of the issues businesses face when it comes to profit and loss stem from overlooking the basic fundamentals of marketing.
One of these fundamentals is having a solid marketing plan. Perhaps that’s why basic keyword research on Google for marketing plan related terms, shows that almost 65,000 people searched for marketing plan information last month. You see, in various reports between 20-75% business owners report that they don’t have a detailed, written marketing plan.
Chances Are You Are In This Group Somewhere Too
If I asked you to locate your plan, maybe you have one and maybe not. If you have a plan, perhaps yours is based on theories that are taught at universities by people who’ve never done any marketing.
The kind of plan I’m advocating is one based on real world information that is extracted from your current business operations, and while there are many different things to consider, I can reduce the essentials to just five.
On this page I’d like to share with you just one of my five keys to a profitable marketing plan that will help you grow your business significantly. The other four keys are also available to you for free, should you decide you want them, but it’s probably a good idea that you hear me out on this one before you decide if you’d like me to send the others. Does that sound fair enough?
So let’s begin with a simple question: Why are your sales and profits lower than you want them to be?
I’d say that it would come down to one of five things:
- You don’t know how you got where you are now
- You don’t know your top 20′s
- You’ve lost the clarity of your goals and dreams
- You’re unable to recognize your ideal client/customer
- You don’t have mastery over your 3M’s (Market-Message-Media)
Today let’s look at the 4th on my list of critical keys: You’re unable to recognize your ideal client or customer.
If you don’t know who your ideal customer is, you’ll end up attracting any customer, even ones that you don’t want. When you end up serving anyone and everyone, you cannot strategically grow.
I’m Sure We’ve All Served The ‘Wrong’ Customers Before, Right?
If you said ‘yes’, you would probably admit that they were harder to please and consumed more resources than you budgeted for, which resulted in a low margin sale or even one where you lost money.
When you know who your ideal customer is, you spend a lot less time chasing after customers who when you catch them, give you a sour stomach. And you should know that I’m not exempt from this issue either.
In a fit of forgetfulness I took a client recently who was less than ideal, and to make matters worse, the project was at a low margin to start with. A dozen or so hours into our work, Miss Micro Manager was complaining about everything we tried to do to position her for the success she claimed to want.
After dropping her like a hot rock, we discovered that one of the things she really wanted was to reduce her budget even more and was going to extremes to cancel her agreement with us to hire her friend who would work for less than we would.
The point is that when you’re clear on who your customer is, how they buy and especially how much they’re worth to your business, you can set up a program that runs on auto pilot to attract them.
And when you are strategic in pursuing ideal customers/clients, you end up with the wrong clients a lot less often.
Who Is An Ideal Client?
An ideal client is someone who you enjoy working with and who is profitable to you. With ideal clients you can even calculate their lifetime value in both purchases and profits as well as in referrals.
When you don’t know the lifetime value of your ideal customer, its also impossible to allocate the proper marketing budget to attract one.
Business management consultant, educator, and author Peter F. Drucker once said “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer”. Let me say it in my own way: Growing your business is about acquiring customers and then keeping them, hopefully for years to come.
When you set out to acquire ideal customers through marketing, how are you supposed to know what you’d be willing to pay to get one, when you don’t know what one is worth to you, long term?
I’ve got good news for you though. The key to recognizing your ideal client is right in front of you. However, many business owners (perhaps even you) don’t have this information and they operate day-after-day, year-after-year doing the same things and their profits suffer for it.
Also when you don’t instantly recognize and have a plan to attract mostly ideal clients, you are at the mercy of the selling skills of your local advertising rep. When they come through your door to pitch you on radio, TV or print and are a talented salesperson, you might just go for it. If they want you to paint your name on a bus bench, you might just say ‘sure’. Run a big ad in the phone book? You might say – why not?
As A Business Owner, Never Forget…
The amount you are able to budget for marketing is likely to be finite, meaning that you probably don’t have an endless barrel filled with marketing money – and if its not producing an ROI, then you constantly have to invest new dollars in marketing.
Maybe some will tell you that you’re investing in ‘branding’, but that’s a lot of nonsense. Small businesses will never, ever be able to afford to ‘own a corner of the prospect’s mind’ which, by the way, is the definition of branding.
Direct response marketing and operating with a simple, but effective plan is a lot smarter (and more profitable). But that’s the beginning of another of my ‘keys’, so we’ll save that for another time.
So Let’s Talk About Those Other Four Keys
There’s a lot more to discover about how your business can attract more of its ideal prospects, turn more of them into customers and keep them for a long time but space here was limited. When you accept my offer for the remaining four keys you’ll have the solid and actionable ideas to grow your business right away.
These topics are also woven all through my regular emails, also known as “Streetwise Strategies” and my private and exclusive email list gets them before anyone else.
All 5 of my keys for profitable business growth are contained in a brief whitepaper and I’ll send it over if you provide me with your email address. If you’re like most marketers and business owners, you have a folder full of eBooks and reports that you intend to read ‘someday’. But I know you are busy, so I’ve written this whitepaper so you can read in less than 10 minutes and begin implementing immediately.
Some of what you’ll discover when you read my whitepaper include:
- How to master your 3M’s in the shortest time possible
- How to avoid the profit sucking problem of attracting price buyers
- How to use the secrets from your ‘Top 20′s’ to build a profitable enterprise
- Why Academia level instructors fool so many entrepreneurs like you into seeing marketing as an expense
- How to prosper even when the economy is teetering on the brink of recession
- The one basic secret of successful business owners that you probably would never believe – even if they told you
- How to squeeze every penny you can from stubborn media models
- 3 “no brainer” ways to be able to recognize ideal clients and customers
- How to never again wonder if your business will allow you to ‘scratch your own itch’
- How to avoid the 7 most common and costly marketing planning mistakes
- The most interesting ways of reaching ideal customers ever discovered
- Secret techniques that target your ideal market
- A five-second exercise to remember what motivates you to keep going
- The “X” factor of a “for real” successful entrepreneur
- An “almost magic” way to get into your customer’s mind, quickly and easily
And that’s just the highlights…
Let Me Address The Elephant In The Room
Just so you know, I will never exchange, rent, sell or share your information – ever. Not to anyone at any time. And I hate SPAM, maybe even more than you do.
However I’m confident that if you use just one or two of my keys which have produced better results for small businesses like yours over the last 4+ years, you too will see some exciting improvements. Nothing is so great as proven and tested ideas.
I’m delighted to send you all five keys, plus my ongoing series of ideas, tips and strategies and they won’t cost you a penny. You’ll receive your whitepaper immediately and my Streetwise Strategies at different times throughout the business week. So what can you possibly lose?
5 Simple Yet Powerful Keys To Profitable Business Growth
Just leave your information in the box below and press the button, then confirm your request – I’ll take care of it from there.
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