Many business owners think that marketing is the answer to all of their problems, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are three strong pillars holding up every successful business, as described in this article.
There are several problems with focusing only or mainly on marketing: if you’re running a business without strong financial management and excellent, strategic leadership and execution, you might as well just give up now. This video also demonstrates these points:
You’ve Got The Leads – Now What?
Good marketing brings you leads, but if you don’t have systems and procedures in place for great lead nurturing and conversion, sales and customer service, and then retention once the customer is yours—good marketing alone will be a huge waste of money.
Manage All Aspects Of Your Business
Great marketing can be cost-effective, but only if the rest of the company works! If you don’t understand your financial statements and plan out your budget for each type of income and expense, then compare your actual results each month and analyze the trends and use them to make strategic decisions, you will not be as successful as you could be. You could even be TOTALLY unsuccessful with great marketing because the lack of capable financial management is a huge reason most businesses fail.
You Can’t Get What You Want If You Don’t Know What You Want
If you don’t spend time developing clear strategic plans, job descriptions, and key performance indicators for your team—then effectively coach them to achieve them—your marketing dollars will be wasted.
Amazing business comes from THREE strong business pillars, not one:
1. Financial Mastery In Your Business:
- Understand your financial statements.
- Be able to account for every dollar coming in and out.
- Forecast revenue, expenses, and profit.
- Measure your actual results every month, and pivot based on the difference between forecasted and actual results.
- Analyze the profitability of different segments, customers, types of service/product, etc.
- Make changes every month based on your financial statements so that you move towards your goals.
2. Intelligent and Strategic Leadership and Execution:
- First of all, you need to work on your leadership skills. This means being kind, connected, emotionally intelligent, and a great role model.
- You need very clear roles and goals, and you need to hold people accountable.
- You must have a strategic plan, scheduled action items, and EXECUTION on every action. Without execution you have nothing.
3. Effective Marketing and Sales:
- Remember that marketing is simply “authentically sharing who you are.”
- Develop an effective marketing plan using targeting and messaging based on actual data, including past results, secondary research, and primary research.
- Do a competitive analysis periodically and ensure you have an effective unique selling proposition and competitive advantage. Remember that price is NOT a good choice for a competitive advantage.
- Have an AMAZING follow up and lead conversion process. Over 80% of business is done between the 5th-12th follow up! 5 – 12!!! Marketing to get leads and then neglecting the follow-through is a huge waste of time and money.
- When you’re selling, remember my three rules:
- Be authentic.
- Have the customer’s best interest at heart, 100% of the time.
- Don’t be attached to the outcome.
Now, please don’t get me wrong, I LOVE marketing, and it is one very important pillar of business. BUT, if you ONLY focus on marketing, you will neglect the other two of the three legs that are holding up your metaphorical table.
If you need more help to find ways to improve your three strong business pillars, contact TMH Business Coaching and Consulting today for a confidential, free, no-obligation consultation to propel you forward. Also, please feel free to add yourself to our weekly coaching tips email!
