Starting up and running a business has become an attractive and achievable alternative to staying in a ‘job’. Working towards your dreams, flexibility in what where, when and for whom you work, are all benefits. But what’s the big thing to focus on when starting your own business?
What is it that every business needs, and that some never seem to be able to find enough of? The simple answer is… Customers!
Getting customers is the first priority of your business. Without them you have no income. Without income you have no business.
Getting customers means the dreaded M word.
That’s right. The key issue facing any new business, the one that will make or break its success, is the ability to market itself.
If you are considering, or have started your own business then it is important to make marketing one of your top priorities, if not your top priority.
This doesn’t mean that understanding and keeping your finances in order isn’t important, or that managing your employees, ensuring you get the best from them, and ensuring you delight your customers with your level of service isn’t crucial either. All of these things are vital, but you also need to have customers coming in and this means that marketing should be what drives both you and your business.
In the current business world you will need to discover new and different ways to do your prospecting and marketing, just putting adverts out there offering big discounts, sale prices etc won’t work anymore, people have seen too many of them.
What is important is for you to employ a variety of marketing techniques which will attract those potential customers who are secretly waiting to buy, but are too concerned about other things in their lives to make a move.
I’m a great believer in the two Vs. That’s Volume and Variety
Get lots of marketing out there and try lots of different types. PPC may attract some customers because it puts your ad at the top of the page whereas there are also people out there that never click on the paid ads as a matter of principles. Flyers may attract some people whereas for others they just go straight in the bin.
Now is not the time to pull back on your marketing efforts.
If you want to survive, and even thrive, then now is the time to take your marketing to the next level. To look at what you have done before and ask “what else can I do?”
Marketing is what drives successful businesses and good marketing can overcome a multitude of other business sins – it won’t excuse them, but it can certainly make up for them.