What\u2019s one of the most common misconceptions held by small business owners? It\u2019s that to generate a ton of leads, sales and profits you need to spend wads of money on marketing.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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\u2019re slick and cost a fortune.<\/p>\n
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\u2019re right, it is.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t spend your way to profitability. Obviously, the more you spend on marketing, the less you\u2019ll have left over for profits. And the price of a website, or a brochure or a mailing bears zero correlation with it\u2019s chances of success.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 which presents a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Remember, if you want more money in\u00a0 your bank account, you want to focus on profits, not just sales.<\/p>\n
Let me give you two examples of no-cost marketing:<\/p>\n
1. Referrals<\/strong><\/p>\n Most people don\u2019t have a referral strategy. They don\u2019t ask for referrals and they don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n And what does implementing a referral strategy cost? Nothing! It\u2019s free.<\/p>\n 2. Writing Articles<\/strong><\/p>\n When I first started my business, I had no clients, barely any cash and thus no marketing budget. I couldn\u2019t pay for ads but I had plenty of time to sit down and write. And write I did, one article a week.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n That\u2019s just two ways to grow your business without spending a dime. There are hundreds more of free and low-cost strategies you can\u00a0 use and the person who knows these the best is Jay Conrad Levinson.<\/p>\n He\u2019s the originator of \u201cGuerrilla Marketing.\u201d Jay was the first person to acknowledge that small business owners and entrepreneurs couldn\u2019t just try and clone the Madison Avenue model of marketing and that an alternative strategy was needed.<\/p>\n When you listen to the audio you\u2019ll hear Jay share an amazing number of ideas. He\u2019s identified over 200 different \u201cmarketing weapons\u201d (100 of them are free).<\/p>\n What\u2019s the most important thing you\u2019ll discover when you listen to Jay?<\/p>\n The secret that most small business owners miss is that to be successful you don\u2019t don’t need to invest lots of money to grow your business. It just takes time, energy, knowledge<\/span> and imagination.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s what I call smart thinking.<\/p>\n Okay knowlege is important, but it\u2019s what you do with it that matters. The first step is to use it to write your marketing plan. Without a plan, you\u2019re just shooting in the dark. With a plan you have something to focus your efforts, something to commit to and stick to.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard it before. Create your marketing plan. Every small business owner knows they\u2019re supposed to have one but 96% don\u2019t! Why?<\/p>\n Most people will tell you it\u2019s not that they don\u2019t think a marketing plan is a good idea, it\u2019s just they don\u2019t have time. Balderdash!<\/p>\n According to Jay, writing your marketing plan can be done in 5 minutes, I\u2019d allow at least 15-30. You do have 15-30 minutes to invest in the future of your business don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n Here it is. My version of Jay\u2019s plan. Just write a sentence for each of the following:<\/p>\n \n 1. Define the purpose of marketing<\/p>\n 2. Research your competition<\/p>\n 3. Clarify your competitive advantage<\/p>\n 4. Identify your niche in marketplace<\/p>\n 5. Define your target audience<\/p>\n 6 \u00a0Clarify the Benefits of your products and services<\/p>\n 7. Select the marketing weapons you’ll use (after listening to the CD)<\/p>\n 8. Determine your marketing budget<\/p>\n 9. Identify Marketing Partners<\/p>\n \n a. Create a marketing plan<\/p>\n b. Clarify roles and responsibilities<\/p>\n c. Start slow and implement your plan<\/p>\n d. Keep track of what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not<\/p>\n e. Keep improving your marketing strategy and plan and who knows how successful\u00a0 you can be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Discover how Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing techniques will make big profits for your small business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/ic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Your 9 Steps To Success<\/h4>\n
Your Action Steps<\/strong><\/h4>\n