Marketing is the heart of every business. It must exist, but also it must be functional if we want to deliver results for our businesses.

Some can see it as an expense, some as a basis for business development, and some as something without businesses can’t survive.

However, existence of marketing in business does not guarantee results. Statistically, failures are more than successes. But, failures are not something that must be seen as disappointment. They are the basis for future improvements.

What are the main reasons for marketing failure in small businesses?

Here are some basic reasons.

1. Lack of marketing. When something does not exist we cannot measure success. How we will know that something succeeds or fails if we don’t implement anything.
2. Lack of systematic approach. Wandering from one thing to another, without a systematic approach that will show what is taken, what are the results and what should be done to improve can be a reason for marketing failure.
3. It is based on assumptions. Assumptions, although most used in business, still represent a major threat to businesses. It shouldn’t be based on assumptions, but on research, analysis, contacts, testing, measuring…
4. Copying the competition. Although you can get quality information from the competition, yet complete copying without adaptation to the unique value of your business is the reason for failure.
5. Ignoring the competition. If you don’t copy the competition, does not mean completely ignoring them. Much important information is hidden in the activities of your competition. You need to analyze and use that information in building your own marketing strategy.
6. Ignoring customers. Customers are the most reliable sources of information that will tell you what should be done in relation to your efforts. Rejection of customer’s ideas, suggestions or requests can be one big reason for failure of your marketing efforts.
7. Implementation without goals. Like everything else in business, it must be based on the goals that will need to be achieved. If you don’t have goals, it is better not to continue with effort to make something without a goal.
8. Implementation without strategy. The strategy defines the road that you will need to walk toward success. Lack of strategy is one of the reasons for failure.
9. Implementation without a plan. The plan takes you through the process of strategy implementation, but also through the preparation of future improvements. Without a clear plan, you will continue to feel lost.
10. Targeting everyone. You can’t satisfy everyone. Therefore, the marketing can’t target everyone on the market. The sooner you realize who your ideal customers are it will be better for you.
11. Ignoring the online activities. Today is unacceptable to ignore the fact that most people more of their time spend online. You must be there.

As tasks mount, build up, and even get lost in the shuffle, I find it’s vital to perform a weekly review of my obligations. And this review isn’t done ad-hoc or on an optional basis; it’s as much a part of my weekly work activities as anything else.

If you’re an entrepreneur or are self-guided at work, a review like this can be a lifesaver; you’ll be far less likely to let obligations and ideas slip by your radar. Though I learned the weekly review as part of the all-encompassing Getting Things Done system, you can easily incorporate it into any routine.

Why a Weekly Review?

Personally, I thrive on to-do lists. And to keep from being overwhelmed, I categorize my tasks and separate them into different lists. For me, the weekly review is a chance to review these lists and not let items go unnoticed.

For about an hour each week (on Friday in my case), I review all the different systems I use to organize myself at work (I also do a review for home, btw). By regimenting this review, I experience several benefits:

• I am reminded of obligations and ideas I’ve recorded but forgotten.
• I can organize my systems ranging from my email account to my task lists and CRM.
• I will feel more confident throughout the week that I’m doing what matters most.

What happens in a Weekly Review?

Ideally, at a weekly review, you would examine as many aspects as possible of your work life.

For various positions, I’ve made it a habit to review my e-mail (drilling down into Gmail labels), work databases I would use for recording results, spreadsheets I would use for tracking projects, and my Evernote notes.

I like to perform this review at my work desk. But if need be, I have T-Mobile wireless internet on-hand to access tools like Wunderlist.

By the time I’m finished, I am confident that my tracking systems are up-to-date and correct, and I simply don’t worry myself with organizing them throughout the upcoming week.

More Tips for Conducting a Weekly Review

Whatever shape or form your weekly review takes, I would offer a few suggestions:

• If at all possible, designate a time when you will conduct the review. You will ideally want to tune out all other distractions, such as e-mails and discussions with co-workers.
• As you review your obligations, complete tasks that can be done in less than 3 minutes.
• At home, I like to shift my focus on a weekly basis. I’ll look into what needs to be done in my garage with greater focus one week, and look at kitchen projects the next.

Without this review, I may feel a nagging sense I’ve forgotten tasks or that I’m not spending my time wisely. That nagging can act like a cloud hanging over me, preventing me from focusing entirely on what needs to be done now.

With the review completed, however, I’ll work better and experience far less stress and anxiety.

—

Ashlee McCullen is a staff writer for ApronAddicts.com, a website about kitchen fashion and home style. She also writes about mobile technology and self-improvement.

If we analyze our average day, we can see that we are doing everything. We are doing important and unimportant things, interesting and uninteresting, useful and not useful, urgent and not urgent…

If we put all of that things in an average day on a piece of paper, we can easily see how much chaos exist there, on that average day.

Let’s talk something about the importance that should focus us only on those important things to us.

This title aims to encourage you to consider some questions, not to give you the solution to your problems about importance. The solutions are unique to each of you, and full responsibility is on you.

Well, what do you think about your answers to these questions?

• When I am contacted from someone through any means of communication, is the topic important for me, for him or there is mutually importance?
• When one of my employees comes into my office with a question, is that issue important for me, my business, me and my business or just for the employee who asks the question.
• When you sit down to work on your to-do list, how much of the tasks is important to you and how much they are important for someone else?
• When potential customers contact you, are they important to your business, and are they worth the efforts to integrate them into your sales funnel?
• When you are at meeting, how many of the topics on the meeting agenda are important to you as an entrepreneur and how much of that topics are important to other participants?

Importance is an important element in your entrepreneurial life. Are you totally focused on the most important things for you or the most important things for others?

It is good to consider the questions, because answers will lead you to possible solutions to the problems or the possible future actions that you can take for improvements. But, improvement that will improve your life.

Still I can’t believe how quickly technology changes the way how we do business today.

I can’t forget days when I need to have that USB flash drive as a file storage if I found myself on another PC, on different location without my laptop or to transfer files from my home PC to my work PC.

Still I can’t forget days when I need to work with my team on different version of the document labeling it as a version one, two or three. Still I can’t forget a time when I need to have notebooks in my pocket.

I can’t forget such things because they are so fresh to me.

What I can do today? Here are some of the most-used things from me that simplify my life.

• Evernote – Everything that I need in one place. From ideas, to-do, bookmarked sites, documents, research, template to everyday notes is in my Evernote account. And what is more important, they are always here close to me, regardless my location.
• Google Apps – Collaboration is really easy with Google Apps. I can easily work on one document with my partners simultaneously, sharing and storing different stuff in form of textual documents, presentation or spreadsheets. And, again, the important thing is that they are always close to me, regardless my location.
• Dropbox – So simple, but so powerful way to store files and synchronizing between all devices that I use. My files are always close to me regardless my location.
• Reeder – I really like this application for my Mac, iPhone and iPad with which I consume more than 200 RSS feeds. One of the best features is synchronizing between all devices.
• GMail – I use gmail as a hosted email for my domain and my team members.
• Aweber – I use Aweber as my email marketing provider. It is so easy to use and set up everything.

As an entrepreneur you can have a goal to increase profit in your business. You want to use that profit to grow your business, to develop new products and services, to buy new technology…

More reasons you have to achieve your goals, the probability of achieving goals will be bigger. Because in such a way you will put yourself in efforts to accomplish everything that you will need to achieve such a goals.

There are, and always will be reasons why we do something. Bigger reasons in quantity and quality will mean that we will be more committed to do what we need to do.

Like this graphic? Get more productivity tips from My Productivity Tools.

When it comes to gaining customers for your business, there’s certainly a snowball effect. The more loyal customers you already have, the easier it will be to bring in new ones – as long as you know how to leverage that loyalty. These days, more and more consumers are relying on their friends and family members – rather than traditional advertising – to help them decide where to spend their hard-earned money. In fact, Microsoft.com notes that on one survey, 72% of people check out online chat boards about a company’s reputation before buying its products, and 81% think that discussion boards are a good way to help find the best products and companies.

The fact is that if you already have loyal customers for your business, there will be more positive information on those chat and discussion boards, which can bring in new customers. But if you really want to leverage loyal customers to bring in new ones, here are four specific ways to make it happen:

Examine Demographics

The first step to gaining more customers is to figure out who your current customers are. Examining your loyal customers can help you target your audience even better. If you’ve already got a good business plan, chances are good that you’ve got a target demographic in mind. But as your business evolves, your target demographic should evolve, as well. Now, instead of just doing research and trying to guess who will most love your products and services, you’ve got real information to go off of in the form of your current loyal customers.

If you haven’t examined the demographic of people who are buying into your business in a few months or even years, it’s time to re-examine your target audience. Look at your loyal customer base to see what members have in common, and then begin tailoring your advertising and outreach campaigns to a similar audience you simply haven’t reached yet.

Use Social Media

One of the most obvious but multifaceted ways to use current customer loyalty to bring in new customers for your business is to use social media. If you don’t already have a Twitter feed, Facebook page and Google+ account for your business, it’s time to get on the ball! Besides these three things, you should also have a blog that gives readers an inside look at your business and that sets you up as the expert in your industry.

By inviting your already loyal customers to be part of your social networking initiative, you automatically get connected with each customer’s entire social network. There are a myriad of ways to leverage customer loyalty through social networking. You just have to find them!

If there’s any one area where you want to invest your advertising dollars right now, it’s in social media advertising. It’s worth your while to use small-business credit cards, bank loans or other forms of credit to set up great social media pages and even to add a few incentives, such as contests and drawings for your Facebook fans. As a small-business owner, you have to be very choosy about when you use credit, but a good social media campaign offers your best guarantee of great returns, especially if you work with a professional who is well-versed in the worlds of Facebook, Twitter and Google+!

Solve Customer Problems Quickly

Because of how simple it is for potential customers to find online reviews about businesses like yours, it’s incredibly easy for a small problem with customer service to become a huge blow to your business. Customers who are very unhappy with your business, for whatever reason, are most likely to speak out against you online and to leave bad reviews. These can very quickly escalate into a gigantic online reputation problem for your business.

For this reason, it’s more important than ever to solve customer problems quickly. Customers who have a problem that is quickly and efficiently resolved are going to leave great reviews about your business. Sometimes, showing that you can fix your mistakes is even better than seeming to make no mistakes in the first place! When you can find and resolve customer issues quickly, you’ll get better reviews online, which can make a world of difference as you try to bring in new customers for your business.

Continue Building Loyalty

Your main focus in using loyal customers to bring in new customers shouldn’t actually be how you can bring in new customers. That’s a side issue. Instead, your main focus should really be how you can retain your already-loyal customers. By creating customer loyalty programs, offering exclusive discounts and other bonuses to loyal customers, and communicating regularly with people who are already fans of your business, you’ll continue to create and cultivate loyalty among your customers.

In a world where social networking takes center stage, loyal customers will end up bringing in new customers all on their own. So as you’re focusing on gaining new customers, make sure you’re doing everything you can to continue building loyalty among your current customers. By simply keeping a focus on customer retention and loyalty-building, new customers will automatically trickle in at the recommendations of their friends and family members.

As a small business blogger at Credit Donkey, Ashyia Hill says using loyal customers to gain new ones isn’t a new practice, by any means, but it’s becoming more and more important in today’s world of social networking. As consumers place much more value on the opinions of others and much less value on inauthentic advertisements they can usually see straight through, it’s more important than ever that small businesses focus on building customer loyalty in order to bring in new customers.

This is a guest post by Ashyia Hill, small business blogger at Credit Donkey.

As an entrepreneur, you probably have experience in dealing with angry customers. Sometimes your angry customers are right because of mistakes made by you or your company, but sometimes their irritation is because they are always angry or because other problems they have.

How you can deal with the different angry customers?

You probably know that customers are always right. But, in many cases that can be the wrong approach. Wrong because of you and your time in which you will need to deal with that angry.

1. Listen to Them

Regardless the type of customer who’s angry on your company, you need to be a good listener before everything else. You need to know why they are irritated and what’s the mistakes that they think your business makes.

2. First Analyze Before Decide Anything Else

Don’t decide before you make a good analysis of that angry customers.

You need to ask questions like how that customers contribute to your business, how much income they generate for you, what’s the frequency of their buying habits, can you improve something about that…

Based on the answers of that questions you can decide about worthiness of your time to deal with such a customer.

3. It’s Nothing Personal

Sometimes the language of angry customer can seem very personal to you. But it’s not personal. Whatever your angry customer says or does, don’t take it personally.

You are an entrepreneur, with customers who in most cases are disappointed by your business processes, not by you or your employees.

4. If it’s Worth Your Time, Ask How You Can Make Him Happy

You don’t want only to satisfy that angry customer. You want to find real problems and try to improve your business processes for the future. The best information can come from these types of customers.

But, you need to be careful, especially for the customer who is not someone who contributes in large for your company. Sometimes they can be ordinary passers that come once and never again to do business with you. Ask yourself is it worth your time to find how to make them happy.

5. Put That Customer on Your Waiting List

When you know reasons for their irritation, you will need additional analysis to make the right decision. Thanks for the information and tell that you will call them later.

But, don’t forget to call them back.

6. Is it Worth Time Dealing With Them?

You already know the value for that customer, and you already checked the sources of the problem, now you can easily decide about is it worth dealing with them.

7. Call Them Back and Talk About the Problem

When you decide what you need to do, call them back and start talking with them about the problems. Now, probably they are not so nervous and the conversation can be more informative and qualitative for you.

You have two possibilities: to apologize or stop your future business with them.

8. Apologize and Promise, or Fire Them

If they are worth for you, and you find that your business processes are the real reason why they are angry, you can tell them that something like that will never happen again. Apologize and tell them what you have already taken to deal with the problems.

If they are not worth for you, and their angry is not because of your business mistakes or your analysis mean that you simply lose your time, you can fire them. In such a way, you can increase your own productivity focusing on your most important customers, or someone who contributes for your business.

Problems are always part of the businesses. The task of an entrepreneur is to detect and solve them. But besides discovering and removing the problems entrepreneurs have to pay attention to their preventive removal, so they would never occur again to harm the business.

What I can see when it comes to the problem-solving process that entrepreneurs employ is following:

• They partially solve the problem.
• They solve the problem without removing the reasons for its occurrence.
• They recognize reasons that are not essential for the occurrence of the problem.
• There is a lack an entrepreneur to see the problem-solving process as a business improvement process.

How you can avoid such undesirable things in the business?

The answer is simple, through proper analysis of the situation, identifying root causes for the occurrence and removing of them which will provide such a situation never again to be part of a process.

Among the various tools for such an analysis is a cause and effect diagram, also known as a fish bone diagram or Ishikawa diagram.

What is Cause and Effect Diagram?

Cause and Effect diagram was developed by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa, a pioneer in the field of quality management from the 60s in the last century.

The diagram is called as a fish bone diagram because the final look of it will be in the form of fish bone.

Although the basis of development of the diagram was to improve the quality, this technique can also be helpful in analyzing various business processes such as detection of causes, detection of “bottlenecks” in the manufacturing process, improvement of various processes …

The technique is good because of unique method that enables creative thinking and breakdown things into the reasons in order to come to the right solution.

How You Can Use the Tool?

To use this tool you need to have a problem that needs a solution. Is there a business without the problems?

I will try to cover the basic steps in the implementation of the technique in the problem-solving process.

Step 1: Identify the Problem.

First thing that you need to do is to identify the problem you want to analyze. Good starting point is to start with a description of the situation, consequences for your business, possible reasons, responsible departments, etc.

Once you define the problem, you can start to construct the diagram as shown in the image below.

Step 2: Identify the Main Causes of the Problem.

In this case, the problem is the effect from some causes, and therefore, the second step must identify all possible reasons for this situation.

When it comes to business problems, it is best to start with subjects or business elements that can be the cause of this problem. These elements can be people, procedures, materials, skills, systems, equipment …

The task of this step is to brainstorm as many as possible potential reasons for the problem.

Once you identify all main reasons you can add them on the diagram as shown in the image below.

Step 3: Identify all Possible Sub-causes in Each Main Cause.

Since you already have the main reasons then each of these causes is the result of more sub-causes. If you ask why for each main cause, you will have many answers that can simply become sub-causes. For example, if one of the main reasons for a late delivery is the production process, we can have possible sub-causes as following:

• Long preparation time,
• Not optimized layout in plant,
• Wrong norms,
• Too many errors in production process,
• Wrong planning …

For each of these reasons there will be probably additional reasons that you will need to break down into the diagram. For example, if you take errors in production process, possible reasons can be:

• Employee training,
• Raw materials with low quality,
• Mistakes in maintenance of technological equipment …

After you identify all possible sub-causes for each main cause into the tiniest detail of breakdown you can add them in the diagram as in the image below.

Step 4: Analyze Diagram.

Once you finish the previous step, you will already have a complete diagram that shows all possible causes of the problem. This way will allow you to identify more than one reason. In business only one cause for a problem is not the usual case. The problems are complex and require more complex solutions.

Therefore, in this step, you will need to analyze the diagram. The analysis will require detailed consideration of each cause by recording the state of the field, conversations with responsible people, interviewing, meetings …

The purpose of the analysis is to prepare a project with specific steps to solve the problem and eliminate all possible causes in the way they will not occur in the future.

Many times here on Entrepreneurship in a Box I emphasize the meaning and importance of the business model.

In the past, there was not a systematic approach to build one business model that will enable you systematically to follow and improve it through the practice.

The best approach to build a business model in a very descriptive way where you will obtain the most important aspects of your business is described throughout the book titled as  Business Model Generation – A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers from Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

In the book, they define a business model as:

rationale of how an organization creates, delivers and captures value.

Here is the explanation video of the model.

Everything that your business is doing or making have a purpose. The purpose is customers to want to buy the products and services that your business delivers to them.

They will buy if they like them. They will buy your products and services if they need them.

Your buyers are the heart of your business. They are persons that dictate what you need to do, what you need to change or what you need to improve.

Without them, you will not survive on the marketplace.

After your customers, the second important thing closely connected with your buyers are your products and services. That’s the hard connection between your business and your buyers, because at the end you can say that you succeed when the products from your business come into the hands of your buyers.

But, that’s not enough today. You can’t succeed with that one finished transaction, because you will need more transaction, more buying and more customers. To succeed in this, your buyers need to love your products and services.

Here are some ideas that you will need to include in the development process of your products and services if you want to ensure that your customers will love them.

1. Find a real problem with real desire for solution.

Your business needs to solve real problems for your buyers. Think about something that you use and exercise to find why you use them, why you like them and what type of problem they solve to you. Then, think about problems that you have and until today you can’t find a solution for them.

Continue the exercise about problems that’s partially solved for you. Probably, you already use something that was not completely a solution for your problems.

Now, you have a big list of possible problems that you already experienced. It’s time to start thinking through the view of possible buyers. Do they have such a problem? What is the way in which they solve such a problem now? Do they solve them fully? What is their quantity?

That type of questions will lead you to ensure that:

• There is a market for the possible solution,
• The market has a desire to solve or improve solving such a problem and
• The market is big enough to support your business.

2. Offer solution for that problems.

When you find the real problem for the real market with enough quantity of potential customers that desire to solve such a problem you can offer your solution.

Launching your product as a solution doesn’t mean that you have finished your job as an entrepreneur. You need to follow the situation to see if there is something more you can make or offer to your buyers.

Make sure that they love your products and services.

3. Always customize the products with customers needs.

Your buyers will evolve with a time. Their needs and their problems will change.

If your products and services don’t fit their new needs, probably will become something forgotten. Because of that you will need to customize your offer to ensure that they will always fit with the customer’s needs.

4. Be close to your customers.

If you want to deliver the right solution for your customers, solution that they will love, you need to be very close to them. That means you need to be much more than simple problem solver for them.

Ask them questions, talk with them and initiate different conversation that will help you to understand their needs or their real problems. Remember that without them, you can’t make it possible to be great problem solver for them.

5. Listen to them.

As an entrepreneur one of the most important tasks for you is to listen to them, learn from that listening and take appropriate actions from what you’ve learned from that listening.

God gave us two ears and one mouth, and we need to use them in direct proportion. You need to remember that the only valid sources of information about possible improvements in your business are your customers.