Marketing (Living The Dream of Success) By: Andre J. Carter Your first step in marketing starts with your circle of influence. Your circle of influence is the people you know or come into contact with regularly. This list would include family members such as aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, in-laws & grand parents, doctors, teachers, gas attendants, store workers, neighbors, landscapers, any businesses you may frequent, including restaurants and more. These people are your first line in your marketing efforts. An important but often overlooked strategy by beginner businessmen is self- analysis of your strengths and weaknesses. When you know your strengths and weaknesses you can delegate your weaknesses to others who are strong in that area while you handle the areas you are strong in. If you had a business where you ran a website you may have strong selling & computer capabilities but be very weak at handling customer disputes. This is where you would hire someone to handle customer disputes. Everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are different so I will not go too deep into this subject but only to say you must be aware of what you can handle and what you can not. Another important step in marketing is the writing of a script you will use to speak to your customers. A script helps you define exactly what to say to customers to make the product sound exciting and not just something they may want but something they need. After writing a script practice with a friend, Write down the objections and practice objection handling, then go back to your friend and practice some more now that you know some common objections. You can also record yourself so that you may hear if you sound smooth and convincing, rehearsed or nervous. The key to mastering the art of sales is practice. Only you can ultimately decide how to practice because you are always practicing. It’s just a matter of whether you are practicing on the potential client (big risk of losing the potential client) or are you practicing with your friend or co-worker (NO RISK). The choice is yours. Remember all championship teams practice (The NBA, The NFL etc.). The ones that don’t practice enough or have a winning strategy usually lose. Who knows that you are in business? Do you go out on a regular basis and hand out flyers to your would be customers? Why not? Get your business recognized by everyone you can come in contact with. Handing out flyers and business cards are a must in marketing. It’s equally important to get their name and contact information. This way it puts you in control of when you would like to make contact, schedule appointments and so on. By taking their contact info you can also keep the customer abreast of when you will have a sale thus keeping your place of business on their mind. Measuring success is an individual thing. Only you know what your measure of success actually is. My suggestion is to write down your top 10 wishes for this year and the upcoming years. Think of it as a five-year plan. After you write them down, add up the cost and figure out how many transactions it will take to fulfill all your desires. Example: 1. Mercedes CLS 500 = $85,000 2. 10 new suits = $10,000 3. 50” screen TV = $ 1,000 Total = $96,000 Now that you know the total of your dream purchases, you must add in your day to day expenses such as your rent or mortgage, transportation cost, food cost, current bills, clothing expenses and more. When you add all theses things together you come up with your total expense list minus your savings and investments. Now you must add in the profit of each transaction. Adding your profit will tell you how many transactions you will have to make in order to cover all your expenses. You will be able to measure a proper profit margin knowing exactly where you should be in what amount of time. Basic marketing does not need to be expensive just remember to put your name and contact info on all items associated with your business (Pens, business cards, book marks, stationary etc.) You can advertise for free on Facebook as well as other social networking sites. There are also sites such as craigslist and ebay that products can be sold on. You can Google free advertising websites and get an entire list of sites to advertise on. However you decide to do your marketing remember to set a goal and stick to it. Good Luck! If you liked the article please like my page: https://facebook/AuthorAndreCarter
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 13:53:32 +0000
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