10 Tips to Get Your Business Airborne
e-Marketing Company
with the runway that you have.
Don't Be Everything to Everyone
1. Focus on a single product or product line. Study successful
businesses in your market, and you'll find out they all share a common
heritage: They started out with a single product or product line. If
you have multiple product lines or a catalog of products and services,
you may have to sacrifice them for the short term.
2. Focus your sales and marketing on the most promising product or
service. If you find that a product or service is selling well early-
on, take advantage of this success. Get early wins, and build on them.
Gather testimonials and case studies. Launch a PR campaign around your
recent success.
3. Narrow your target market. Hopefully you defined your target market
in your original business plan. Revisit the plan to see if you've
actually been selling to the market you originally defined. In many
cases, what you planned for and whom you sold to will be different.
Make a decision to either adjust the plan to reflect what's working,
or redefine and narrow your target market. This keeps your sales and
marketing efforts focused. When you get up each day, you'll know who
you are trying to help and what you can do for them.
Stop Testing New Ideas
4. Evaluate the advertising and marketing that you've been doing. If
you've been running numerous campaigns in numerous types of media,
stop and analyze which one has been the most effective. Continue to
advertise and market with the campaigns that have worked the best so
far.
5. Fine-tune and expand existing programs. Continue testing and
refining the marketing activities that have been bringing in leads and
sales. In fact, instead of trying any new ideas, apply the money and
time to programs that you know work.
Leverage Existing Relationships
6. Look at current relationships. Do you have existing relationships
that can help you increase sales quickly? Is there a joint marketing
or sales program that you can enter into with your existing suppliers?
7. Look for complementary offerings. Perhaps you have partners with a
product offering that's complementary to yours. Propose a joint
venture. You can bundle both companies' products and services together
to form a new solution. This gives you a fresh reason to approach one
another's customers or prospects. The result is a quick introduction
to an expanded target market and additional cash flow.
Use Your Time Well
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Visit our Sales & Marketing Channel for even more strategies to bring
in the business.
8. Determine whether you're building your business. Author Michael
Gerber, who wrote a series of books on the "e-myth," suggests that
many entrepreneurs get stuck doing their business instead of building
their business. Take a look at how you have been spending your time,
and check to see if you've been caught up with all the administrative
demands or been able to break free and focus on what builds your
business.
9. "Grade" your opportunities. Take a look at all the opportunities
that you're presently working on, then grade them A, B or C. Mark A as
"revenue producing," B as "needs to get done" and C as "enjoy doing."
Grade your opportunities by value, and complete them in order.
10. Focus on what you do best--don't diversify. Keep focused on the
goal at hand; get your business off the ground. Once you're airborne,
you'll have lots of time to evaluate other ideas.
Some of these tips may seem counterintuitive. When bills are still
coming in and sales aren't, there's the urge to "take whatever you
can." That may give you a little more time by extending the runway,
but it doesn't help get your business off the ground. Ultimately, it
takes you away from the controls and doesn't increase the speed of
your sales. Stay focused; work smart. In business, you don't get
airborne unless you're at the controls and applying full throttle.
Get more out of your business. Visit: www.e-marketingcompany.com
Our Secrets To Success course will show you how.
Sincerely,
Scott Richard Adams, CEO
e-Marketing Company