Mistake No.6

Creating The Wrong Message About You

We’ve all heard the expression that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. The fact is though that many small business owners are too hung up about spending money and end up creating a marketing image that looks homemade.

If you want to attract business, everything about your company needs to create the right impression. I’m talking about your letterheads, business cards, printing everything
that your customers or potential customers are going to use to decide whether or not you are worthy of their business. I can perhaps best illustrate this with a story. A few years ago I was attending an exhibition and I spotted an odd looking man in one of the tiniest exhibition stands that I have ever seen. In fact, it looked more like a broom cupboard. (He probably got it cheap-it’s certainly looked like it!) So being curious, I walked over to the exhibition stand then spoke to the man who was dressed with a suit and bow tie. I asked him to tell me about his business and he revealed that he was in fact a management consultant and handed me one of his business cards. The moment that he did, what little credibility that he had was instantly dissolved.

The business card that he handed me was printed straight from his ink jet printer on what looked like reasonable quality toilet paper. To make matters worse, the ink jet printer that he had used to print the business cards was running low on ink for the ‘ card’ that I received.
So the message that he was putting out was that he couldn’t afford a full sized exhibition stand and neither could he afford to pay for any business cards to be printed. What a waste of time. Would you hire him as a management consultant in your business?

- Keith Banfield

Mistake No.5

Looking for New Customers in the Wrong Places

Going back to Marketing 101, we all know that good quality research can cut back on wasted time. One of the key factors in market research is knowing who your customers are and knowing where to find them.

The best of the best in marketing have already got this down pat, but it’s possible to still find marketing strategies which are targeting the wrong places. You’ll find that if you set up marketing strategies in very specific areas which your specific potential customers frequent, it will not only save you a lot of money, it will also save you time and bring in more conversions!

This may seem absolutely ludicrous that anyone would deliberately look in the wrong place for potential new customers and even worse, place advertisements and other marketing in the wrong places too. Surprisingly though, this happens all too often. That is why it’s critical to know who specifically your customers are and where they hang out.

For example, if you are running a business as a mortgage broker and one of your products is a home loan which requires no financial statements and the tiniest amount of paperwork, but at a slightly higher interest rate than normal. Who would this appeal to most? The answer might be self-employed people. (Can you see what we have done here? We have focused in specifically on
one product rather than trying to be all things to all people. This is an important element in marketing.)

So the next question to ask yourself would be: where do they hang out? What do they read? Who else is already speaking to them who is not a competitor? Taking all of this information into account, you could quickly create a list such as:
•Chambers of Commerce
•Breakfast networking groups
•or even Government funded events.
So where do your customers hang out? Isn’t that the best place to put your marketing message?

- Keith Banfield

Mistake No.4

Getting Advice From or Using Companies That Don’t Know What They’re Talking About

In the early days when I didn’t know how to generate all the leads I wanted, the temptation was to hire a marketing company. In fact, I hired not one but six marketing companies in total. It seems that their expertise was in squandering my money rather then being accountable for the results that I wanted them to generate.

Each time, they would promise the earth and then make feeble excuses as to why they hadn’t achieved results. Two that stick in my mind, “I can’t believe it, this has never happened to us before…”, and the other was, “well there are no guarantees in marketing!”

I realise now that this is complete rubbish. If you follow a tried, tested and proven strategy that works for others, it will work for you too. That’s why for example, in our Profit Booster Kit, we are prepared to put our money where our mouth is. If you are going to use a marketing company, make sure that they give you a guarantee

- Keith Banfield