Whether you sell sunglasses, hearing aids, sports training, legal services, or financial advice,
the place to focus is on your prospects’ needs. I know of one entrepreneur who thought that the sunglasses parents were buying for their young children were a joke. So she came up with a line of quality unbreakable sunglasses for young kids, and her business is growing wildly.
Every product or service you create and market should be designed to meet an apparent or perceived need of your target market. No need, no sales. High perceived need, high sales.
The same is true of your marketing. It should be focused on your prospects’ needs. Focus your marketing on yourself, and you’ll struggle forever. Focus on what they want, and you’ll get their attention and their business.
2. Relationships
Your biggest competitive advantage isn’t the quality of your products or services; it’s the number and strength of the relationships you have with prospects and clients. It’s the amount of confidence you command. So, where should your marketing be focused?
Focus 80-90% of your marketing efforts on relationship-building activities.
Typically, most marketing is aimed at getting the sale, not at building relationships or confidence. Big mistake! People need to first know you and trust you before they’ll buy from you. They need to be sure you’re the best company to buy from, and your product or service does what you say it does. Where confidence flows, money follows.
How do you gain someone’s confidence so he or she will buy from you? You help them get to know you through repeated contacts and demonstration of your expertise.
3. Profits
Most entrepreneurs and business owners’ attention is squarely focused on increasing sales when instead they should be focused on profits. This can be a fatal mistake, skewing your marketing efforts and distracting you from what you should be paying attention to.
Whether you are testing a headline, an ad, a sales letter, a website, an up sell strategy, or a follow-up strategy, the question you should be focused on is, “What will help us maximize our profits?” Yes, you could send out ten thousand postcards and get a few more sales, but if your response is low, your marketing costs are going to decimate your profits.
The solution to making more is to continually test and improve everything you do to market your business, so that each month, you’re generating more leads, more sales and yes – more profits!
