18 Reasons You Don’t Have The Money You Want!
For the last several years I’ve been coaching conscious business owners in a variety of different industries, including fashion, design, PR, technology, self development, brick and mortar, direct selling and more, and while they all have different focuses and customers, their struggles are often the same.
Many people are struggling and not able to see how they are getting in their own way or missing the “how-to’s” to finally shift out of wantrepreneurship into entrepreneurship. They want an aligned, magnetic business but they don’t know how to create it, and…..since business is all about the money conversation (whether it be with clients, vendors, etc), there are common areas that business owners struggle with as it relates to money.
Here are the common money struggles that I’ve seen impact their businesses over the years:
Some time back, a lot of business folks jumped on the bandwagon deriding the traditional ready, aim, fire approach to planning and decision-making. The thought process being that people were getting tied up in their underwear going ready, ad nausea, and never taking decisive certainly not a good thing. So instead, the pendulum swung to the other end of the spectrum. It became more fashionable to advocate shooting from the hip and taking action any action--for action sake. Hence, the rise of cowboy marketing .Let's assume that you've got a really exciting, new product or service. Maybe you've come up with a unique new pitch and concept to re-price and/or rebundle your current products and services e.g. with a time limited offer. Let's assume that you've got the right target audiences chosen as well.
Now you're itching to pull the trigger on some a big promotional barrage to get the word out using direct mail, or print advertising, or email, or fax, or other media etc. or various combinations.Before you pull that trigger and unload with your big promotional campaign, go over the following checklist so that you'll be ready for what may happen next-generation of leads, inquiries, and buy orders.
I keep seeing companies that finally get the itch to tee up some potentially good promotions. They've got a good solid product (or service), package, and price. But they ignore the needed preparation for what is going to happen next. They aren't ready because they have not carefully planned for the consequences. As I've mentioned so many times in previous Debunkers, Marketing is not just promotions. It's a team selling game with the end result being a buy.So before you pull that trigger trying to hit new or existing clients for more business take check off the items below. Make sure that:
1) Your messages are consistent across all of your marketing vehicles
. For example, if you're doing a big direct mail campaign and print ad campaign directing people to visit your web site, you can't have a site that is filled with dated, conflicting product and/or pricing information. Nothing confuses and turns off a potential customer more than key messages that don't match up.
2) Your own people know about the campaign and how to respond to inquiries from new prospects and existing customers.
Develop a set of 10-15 questions and answers applicable for Sales and Administrative folks (and possibly IT or whoever else might field an inquiry). Do some informal testing to see if they are paying attention to the FAQ'S. Get them excited about the campaign-it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone in the company.
3) Your products are super easy to buy
. As Harry Beckwith says in his classic book, Selling the Invisible, Some Marketing experts recommend that in creating a direct mail program, you should devote half your time to creating the reply form. The same goes for any online ordering form and ordering process. You almost can't make it easy enough for your customers to buy. The buying experience needs to be fast, easy and understandable (without lots of complicated options and instructions), and minimally invasive (without gobs of extraneous information required).4) Your ordering and fulfillment systems work at scale
. If you're taking web-based orders, make sure that your tech folks have pounded on your ordering system and stress tested it for at least double the volume you might optimistically expect. Make sure that you've got enough manpower to handle the load of potential inquiries and orders and a contingency plan to ramp up just in case the business is a lot more than anticipated.
5) You have a plan for IMMEDIATE follow-up:
a thank-you letter, note, phone call or email and possibly additional valuable information based on key contact data that you are capturing about those new prospects. You've created some interest and a good impression ,now create some monies.