Show Me The Money!
One of the biggest mistakes that an entrepreneur can make when starting a new business is the ineffective use of limited resources of time and money. Owners of micro enterprises have to be very careful how they spend every dollar of working capital and every minute of their working day, to ensure a positive return on their bottom-line.
There are three elements that must work in harmony to produce business success. First, your product or service must be properly designed to meet the needs of your customers. You must also organize your operations to ensure a smooth delivery of your offering. The third element must be the sales and marketing of your product or service.
The challenge for many new entrepreneurs is that they are so impassioned with their business dream that they spend a large amount of time and money perfecting their service or product and organizing their operations, and forget to concentrate on the marketing of their business.
Marketing = Money
Peak Potentials CEO, T. Harv Eker explains that marketing = money and money = marketing. No matter how great your offering is and no matter how wonderful your service is, if you don’t market your product well, no one will know about it and therefore no one will buy it.
Think about it – how many times have we accidentally come across a great product or service that really fits our needs and we complain to the owner, “How come I never heard about you before?”
Eker confirms that for businesses to become profitable, the operators themselves must develop a marketing-focused approach. He notes that most enterprises are starved of revenue because the owners spend 65 per cent of their time and money taking care of the operations side, and only 10 per cent on marketing.
Eker declares that to see the money rolling in, entrepreneurs need to spend that 65 per cent effort on presenting their product or service to potential customers in such a way that makes them want to buy.
Like many start-ups, I know that I have been guilty of ignoring money-making marketing methods to my peril. I have invested valuable time in designing my services, and spent precious initial capital in ensuring that I am adequately equipped to welcome to all these clients who need my services.
In hind-sight, I realise that I have not put enough time and effort into actually convincing these potential clients that they desperately need my services.
Focus on the money
As Eker declares, entrepreneurs must focus on money-making by accepting responsibility for their marketing efforts. Yes, you can hire people to carry out marketing activities, but you still need to know how to market your own business.
First of all, no one knows your business or cares about it more than you do. Secondly, marketing is a learnable skill, so you don’t have to feel incapable of doing it.
Focusing on the money also helps you to make proper decisions when you have to spend valuable resources. You will learn how to evaluate each request for time and money by looking at the probable return in sales and profit.
Every action must produce monetary results – Show me the money!
If you need a little inspiration to work on your marketing skills and increase your revenue inflows, check out Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. in this classic ‘Show Me The Money’ clip from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaiSHcHM0PA
(c) 2008 Cherryl Hanson Simpson
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