Easy and Inexpensive Ways to Make Big Profits

by Charlie Cook

What’s one of the most common misconceptions held by small business owners? It’s that to generate a ton of leads, sales and profits you need to spend wads of money on marketing.

It’s no surprise that most people think this. You and I are constantly exposed to high powered top dollar ads in magazines, on TV and now even on the Internet. They’re slick and cost a fortune.

The result? Far too many entrepreneurs and small business owners get stuck in the trap of trying to spend their way to profitability. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, you’re right, it is.

You can’t spend your way to profitability. Obviously, the more you spend on marketing, the less you’ll have left over for profits. And the price of a website, or a brochure or a mailing bears zero correlation with it’s chances of success.

I know there are plenty of smart people working at a host of marketing firms but their primary goal is to get you to spend money with them – which presents a conflict of interest.

Let me tell you the truth about small business marketing. Some of the best ways to generate leads and sales and increase your profits are FREE or practically free.

Remember, if you want more money in  your bank account, you want to focus on profits, not just sales.

Let me give you two examples of no-cost marketing:

1. Referrals

Most people don’t have a referral strategy. They don’t ask for referrals and they don’t know how to help their happy clients provide them. With a little bit of knowledge and a simple system for generating referrals you can bring in tons of business.

And what does implementing a referral strategy cost? Nothing! It’s free.

2. Writing Articles

When I first started my business, I had no clients, barely any cash and thus no marketing budget. I couldn’t pay for ads but I had plenty of time to sit down and write. And write I did, one article a week.

Then I started sharing these articles regularly with my prospect list. The result, pretty soon my prospect list was bigger and I had all the clients I could handle.

Yes it did cost me in time but other than that it was free. And I still use this strategy to grow my business and you can too.

That’s just two ways to grow your business without spending a dime. There are hundreds more of free and low-cost strategies you can  use and the person who knows these the best is Jay Conrad Levinson.

He’s the originator of “Guerrilla Marketing.” Jay was the first person to acknowledge that small business owners and entrepreneurs couldn’t just try and clone the Madison Avenue model of marketing and that an alternative strategy was needed.

When you listen to the audio you’ll hear Jay share an amazing number of ideas. He’s identified over 200 different “marketing weapons” (100 of them are free).

What’s the most important thing you’ll discover when you listen to Jay?

The secret that most small business owners miss is that to be successful you don’t don’t need to invest lots of money to grow your business. It just takes time, energy, knowledge and imagination.

I know some business owners who spend thousands if tens of thousands of dollars each month on ads and on marketing. And in most cases they barely break even on their investment.

Instead, savvy people like you spend less than $50 a month to find out how to grow their business, they seek out the knowledge of how and where to focus their marketing efforts to maximize their profits. Now that’s what I call smart thinking.

Okay knowlege is important, but it’s what you do with it that matters. The first step is to use it to write your marketing plan. Without a plan, you’re just shooting in the dark. With a plan you have something to focus your efforts, something to commit to and stick to.

I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Create your marketing plan. Every small business owner knows they’re supposed to have one but 96% don’t! Why?

Most people will tell you it’s not that they don’t think a marketing plan is a good idea, it’s just they don’t have time. Balderdash!

According to Jay, writing your marketing plan can be done in 5 minutes, I’d allow at least 15-30. You do have 15-30 minutes to invest in the future of your business don’t you?

Here it is. My version of Jay’s plan. Just write a sentence for each of the following:

Your 9 Steps To Success

1. Define the purpose of marketing

2. Research your competition

3. Clarify your competitive advantage

4. Identify your niche in marketplace

5. Define your target audience

6  Clarify the Benefits of your products and services

7. Select the marketing weapons you’ll use (after listening to the CD)

8. Determine your marketing budget

9. Identify Marketing Partners

Your Action Steps

a. Create a marketing plan

b. Clarify roles and responsibilities

c. Start slow and implement your plan

d. Keep track of what’s working and what’s not

e. Keep improving your marketing strategy and plan and who knows how successful  you can be.

FREE REPUTATION REPORT
(VALUE: $200)
In less than 67 seconds, discover your company’s online reputation score and how to improve your reviews to attract more clients. Based on an analysis of the review sites that matter.
orb-logos2

CLOSE