“Our product has uses in almost every business from mom and pop stores to large telecommunications companies. When I wake up each morning I don’t know where to start, who to call. What can I do to bring in more business?”
– Tom from Portland OR
What’s the biggest problem that most small business owners struggle with every day?
It’s a lack of focus!
Now I don’t know if you’ve been watching the winter Olympics this year but my DVR has been working day and night. Last week I watched Lindsey Vonn preparing to start her downhill race, getting ready to throw herself down the mountain at speeds of 80-90 miles an hour in hopes of beating her fellow competitors by a fraction of a second.
What’d Lindsey do at the top just before she launched out of the starting gate? She closed her eyes, put her hands together in front of her, twisting and turning her hands as she visualized each turn on the course and how she wanted to ski it.
And then she did it, winning the gold!
Can you imagine if she’d just dropped down the mountain without any idea of where she was going or how she planned to get there? It would have been a sure disaster. She likely would have skied off the course or worse, been surprised by a bump and crashed and ended up with a bunch of broken bones.
Focus is the key to success in the winter Olympics, on the slopes. And the same is true in business! You can’t survive long without it.
Interested in getting help to focus your business and your marketing efforts to make more with less effort this year?
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If you want to succeed you need to be clear on the following:
1. Where you are going? What’s your purpose in life and in turn the purpose of your business? Are you just trying to make a buck or are you trying to make a contribution and help your clients?
Yes, greed can be a motivator, but people who are just focused on greed rarely attract a loyal following of clients for the long term. If you want your prospects and clients to know how you can help them, you need to first be clear on your purpose yourself.
2. Who are the people who you can help the most? And of these people in your target market, who are the ones that present the greatest opportunity; one where you can create long-term win-win
relationships?
One of the most common mistakes small business owners and entrepreneurs make is trying to appeal to everybody. People who appeal to everybody, end up appealing to hardly anybody.
The goal in marketing isn’t to get everyone to like you – it’s to get the people who are most likely to be your best customers to want to work with you. You need to be clear about who you are marketing to, and, yes in the process you’re going to alienate some people.
3. Do you have a clear plan of how you’re going to achieve your business goals, e.g. market your business? Lindsey Vonn had a clear idea of how she was going to ski the course and every other Olympic athlete has a clear plan for reaching their goals.
4. Do you know which tools to use to attract more clients and increase your profits in this economy? Lindsey had tested around 100 different pairs of skis to find the right ones. Her final choice was a pair of men’s downhill skis.
Knowing which ski is the best match for a particular skier is key to winning and the same is true in marketing.
For every small business, while there are hundreds of ways you could market your business there are only a few that will fit you and only a few you need to master to be successful. You don’t need to know every marketing tool out there. For example using twitter may be the right tool or it may be totally worthless. The key is to know which marketing ideas and strategies work for your business. Then you need to master them and use them over and over.
That’s what Lindsey did to win gold and that’s what you can do too if you’re serious about winning at business this year.
How about you? Are you serious about winning in business this year? If you are and you’ve got an ongoing business you think could be doing better – let’s talk.
Apply for one-on-one marketing coaching >>
– Charlie
P.S. Many of my clients come to me and tell me that their business is the best kept secret in their industry. They want to know what to do about it, how to get known and get sales. I show them the key strategies to use to get going. Click here to get started >>
P.P.S. Want to know how I spend my free time in the winter? Watch this slideshow >>
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