Owning Your Business' Space

Which space does your business (or product) own? This is a fundamentally important question for all businesses for four reasons:


1, It encourages you to think about your prospects geographically

2, It forces you to define your prospects by type and/or sector

3, It makes you develop your unique propositions

4, Because to ‘own’ that space you have to continually be in people’s hearts and minds


If you can’t define your space, you can’t ever own it and you’ll struggle. Or fail. However, if you can define it (from 1&2) and you can clearly communicate your benefits over and over again (3&4), then you’ll become the choice of the people that you’re aiming at and you’ll stake out your territory.

Overly simplistic?

Why? Show me an easier way than doing this? Sure, it won’t negate competition or suddenly cure all the world’s problems, but it’s a lot, lot easier than wasting time, money and opportunity on soul-destroying hit ‘n’ hope marketing campaigns.

A Different Perspective on Your Clients' Attention

Imagine that the people you wanted to present to; the buyers, decision makers or budget holders that you want to be in front of to make sales, sold you their time. So rather than making appointments in the ways that you currently do – through whichever sales & marketing approaches you’re currently using – you just had to book and pay for their undivided attention whenever you wanted it. Kind of like an ‘Attention Credit’.

You’d have to think about whose time you wanted to buy the most and at which price points, so you’d pick your target audience very accurately to suit your proposition and your likely lifetime profitability. You certainly wouldn’t go and make dozens of poorly researched appointments or pay over the top to sit in front of people who wouldn’t be interested in what you do.

These Attention Credits would not be cheap to buy either, so you’d be forced to think about how well you’re going to communicate when you get there. Why would you pay for an hour and a half’s worth of blabber when you could communicate everything so much better in 45 minutes?

If buyers sold you Attention Credits it would pay you to properly target your marketing, to research your clients properly before you met them, to communicate in the most effective manner possible, and to continually test and measure what you’re doing. You’d create an outstanding process to ensure you were getting the very best return on your investment.

Not so different to what’s happening in the real world then. Shame that we just don’t feel the pain of the marketing cost & the poor communication in the same immediate way that we do the pain of a ticking meter.

It's Snow Excuse Not to be Selling

Is it deep and crisp and even where you are?

Snow has covered much of the UK overnight and more is forecast. Of course this causes major disruption to all our normal activities but it does provide big sales and marketing opportunities (not least, of course, if you’re stocking shovels). If it hasn’t affected you where you are it may well be that it’s affected some of your customers.

Many people who are usually in a busy office may be at home today and will have only their inbox and their mobile to keep them company (apart from perhaps overly-excitable, off-school children). No colleagues by the water machine or office politics issues to take their attention. Even in full offices today, normal business won’t happen in quite the same way. Customers will be away, deliveries and meetings won’t take place, and there will be a very different atmosphere.

So take advantage. What can you do to keep in touch with your customers today? What can you do to help them? Could today be the day when you just call the people you need to keep in touch with but never seem to get round to doing? Could you review your marketing plan or your sales pipeline? Could you send a relevant, personal email to people? Could you write that direct mail letter you’ve not got round to? Could you do a sales plan that helps you with your major objections? These are the days when you can gain a real advantage over lazier competitors.

The other big advantage you have is that people remember the conversations they had and the things they did on days like this. So if your customers have snow – even if you don’t – they are far more likely to remember whatever you do today.

Take advantage.

Then go tobogganing in your lunch hour.

They Don't Believe You

When people don’t believe they don’t act. You don’t get many Sikhs going to church on a Sunday morning, and you won’t find many environmentalists queuing up to buy a 4x4. Strangely though a Sikh may be welcomed into a church very warmly and many 4x4s are actually quite green with good mpg/CO2 figures, clean engines, and long life cycles. But it won’t happen if people don’t believe.

When people do believe they’ll act in utterly incredible and even unjustifiable ways. They’ll camp outside your shop of a cold night waiting for it to open, they’ll fly to the States to buy the latest Apple i-whatever so they can have it three months early, they’ll rave about you. In extreme they’ll do frightening things that are totally justifiable only in their own minds – like deliberately blowing themselves up and killing innocent women and children in the process. Belief is sometimes frighteningly powerful.

People make their decisions around what they believe and what they don’t. What they believe about you, your claims and your industry. The time share business suffers here. Time share holiday homes – what a great idea – but we all believe we’re going to get ripped off so we avoid them. If their claims get bolder – however true they might actually be – we only believe them less.

If people aren’t buying from you in the numbers you’d like it’s probably because at some level they don’t believe you. It’s not that they’re wrong, it’s just you haven’t convinced them otherwise yet. It’s (probably) not that they think you’re lying either. You just haven’t got them to really ‘get it’ yet.

When they do believe, they’ll buy. And they’ll rave about you. That’s what people do.

So if your product really is that good, it really is twice as powerful as your competitors’, how are you going to communicate that credibly? Because unless they’re believing it, you’re wasting your time and probably your marketing spend with it. It’s more than likely something really simple that’s blocking your path. Be honest with yourself and identify it.


Happy selling.

When Should Becomes Must

It’s that time of year again when people are asking what the coming year has in store.

For many businesses next year will be a year when ‘should’ becomes ‘must’. All the things you know you should have done this year but haven’t got round to, your business must embrace next year. Because 2009 won’t be very forgiving for those who don’t. We simply have to maximise the manifold opportunities that are out there.


I’m sure you already know that….


* You should learn about the importance of building and keeping good customer relationships

* You should get good at relationship-based email marketing

* You should become good at demonstrating your expertise

* You should properly embrace the power of the internet / blogging / social media

* Big companies should learn to react like smaller companies can

* You should check your overheads on a regular basis

* You should find the time to congratulate your top people

* You should get rid of deadwood

* You should get really good at managing your staff’s time

* You should make internal & external communications as clear as possible

* Sales teams should become better at using their time

* Sales people should be either sharpened up or shipped out

* You should add new marketing strategies

* You should continually be improving your sales processes

* You should have a proper system for lead management

* Marketing strategies should be continually tested and measured

* You should realise it will never quite be the same as it was before

* You should ensure that everything you do or invest in is adding value

* You should always value your loyal customers more than anything else


…..but next year a big gap will open up between those who take action and those who don’t. Big companies must stop deliberating around the board table and be decisive. Small companies must leverage their power to make quick decisions. All must realise that the new territory is going to feel very strange at first.

Oh, and by the way, you really should put all of this into a plan.

What's Really Stopping Your Customers?

Have you ever stopped to wonder why more people don’t buy from you?

Your company does a great job, you’re passionate about what you do and you know that the people who do buy from you love you. So why is it sometimes such a battle to get more people to do the same?

There could of course be many reasons. You might still be reliant on too few sources of lead generation; your sales skills could be letting you down; or you could just simply be getting the wrong message across. The great news for you here is that tweaking any of these could open the door to an increase in profits for you. But there’s often one thing that’s totally overlooked by business owners and entrepreneurs, and it will completely stop customers buying from you at any price.
It’s risk.

The simple fact is, that to many of your potential customers, buying from you for the first time could well be a considerable risk. You might know that you’re, perhaps, a good florist, but to somebody else you’re the success or failure of a wedding day or a funeral. You might be quite happy in the knowledge that you’re a great courier, but you’re the potential breaking of an important business deal to somebody else.

Taking that first step to buy from you is a huge leap of faith. And it’s never going to be easy for your potential customers to make a huge leap – especially if it’s away from the comfort of another supplier. So we need to break that leap down into far smaller steps. Steps that allow them to walk towards the point of buying from you in a far easier way, until the very last step before they become a full paying customer is just a totally natural progression for them. This is called risk reduction strategy and it’s used all around us by large and highly successful companies. It also often provides us with a far more enjoyable and more profitable way of doing business.

There are many ways you can reduce risk for your customers and all will have a significant effect on your ability to get new customers into your business. Here are a few of my favourites:


• Guarantees or warranties

• Money back offers

• Try before you buy

• Full demonstrations

• Customer testimonials

• Payment terms that show confidence in your quality

• Payment terms that spread the cost of an investment

• Free samples / advice

• Relationship building (people trust those they know better)

• Reduced price (or loss leading) introductory offers


That’s a list that could provide a huge boost to your sales or profits although right now I understand if it looks a bit frightening. Some of that stuff might look expensive or risky for you to do. If you give free samples, won’t that be expensive? If you spread your payment terms out, won’t you have a problem getting paid?

You naturally need to take the options that work best for you, but don’t not take them through your own fear. Once risk is removed for your customers you will find that people will generally be happier to pay more for your goods or services and they will come to you in far greater numbers – you’re now a low risk option for them after all. If you’re still worrying that people will take advantage of you then let me tell you that you’re worrying unnecessarily. Yes, you might just get the odd person who wants their money back, or who has a bit too much of the free sample, but most people just don’t behave like that.

Most people who start taking these steps towards you are doing so with a genuine amount of interest. And if you do get the odd one who takes the Mickey? So what? Don’t get annoyed – put it down to human nature and concentrate on the additional sales and profits that you’re generating.
Risk reduction strategy is one of the most psychologically powerful tools in your marketing armoury and it will give you some very cool results. Don’t be afraid to use it wisely.