Is a Marketing Strategy the same as a Business Strategy and how does this differ to a Business Plan. I am so glad you asked seem as most Business Owners I have come across don’t have a clue. So I decided it was about time to simply explain a few things to make them a little clearer.

As a Business Consultant I create and plan out a strategic Business Plan along with a Marketing plan incorperated. What I do is start at the end goal and reverse engineer it so you have actionable step by step goals in which you can implement.

We all have the dream of where we want to be, but getting there is a totally different ball game. That is where most stumble and go along blindly.

Now I am going to put this into a everyday example of what most people can understand.

Our strategy is going to be, we are going to war with the US. Our purpose is to eliminate the president of the Grow Up Society and put a puppet in his place. Now how we go about doing this is not strategy but tactics. Tactics are the vehicle you use to get the job done. The startegy in essence is what we are going to do…

Now in marketing terms we want to get the best possible impact in the least possible time. So we use sea, air, infantry, special ops, missiles etc all at the same time. These are tactics that you plan to use.

Now a key to understand is when you hit the ground, things change, lots of confusion, things aren’t where you thought they where meant to be. Your competition just launched a mortar at you and has released a similar product ahead of you. People have shifted. People have moved on. So you have to be able to change tactics on the run so you are still headed in the right direction.

It is the overall strategy that counts and that is where you are headed.

The same applies in your Business. You need a clear and consice strategy so you know where you are going. Your team needs to know where you are going so they know what is the whole purpose is. It is not just a job but a vision that need to be fulfilled.

I map out a startegy for Business Owners so they know where they are going, often it takes weeks to get everything in order. Most of the marketing is simply just tactics that need implementing. But if it is not all mapped out then you are like a headless chook just pulling out one tactic after another and achieving no real designed purpose.

Yeah sure I can show you very effective tactics that will often get you tremendous growth but if I map out a strategy the end result is a far bigger picture, a effective plan for you to follow and you end up with exponential results that often far exceed anything you imagined.

A Business Strategy Is Not A Business Plan

Banks want to look at your Business plan, but a business strategy is your visionary plan so to speak that takes you on a journey. Its not about your credientials, not about your next two years of numbers, nor even a five year plan of numbers. This is the map on how you plan to achieve the desire result, coupled with thetactics you are going to employ to get the job done.

In effect you are creating a system of operation, a blueprint in which anyone can follow. If you have this attached to your Business Plan along with a Staff Training Manual when you want to borrow money from a lending institution, you will stand head and shoulders above your competition. They will be able to see you have created a very clear flight path and they will see you know your Business and that you have a clear and consice goal in mind, which most Business Owners do not have

A Marketing Strategy Show You How To Touch The Spot

Every Business needs a marketing strategy. In most countries startup Businesses have a dismal record of making past the five year mark. What is clearly telling in the ones that don’t make it is the lack of marketing knowledge and how to implement effectively and cheaply. They end up trying to do what the university know it alls tell them. Brand your name, brand your ass, brand your Business everywhere

Dumb shit forgot to tell you that is okay if you have the big budget. For the average Business this kind of marketing is foolish and like playing lotto. The reality is these teachers have no real world experience. Coca Cola did it so it must work. Well yes and no. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. If start ups had real nitty gritty hardcore Marketing skills then their chances of survival increase no end so long as they follow some basic principles.

If you don’t know how to implement a Business Startegy and Marketing Plan into your Business I suggest you hire a Business Growth Consultant that can do it for you. It increases your chance of success, give you a very clear plan of action and the rewards you reap will be much bigger than you could of ever of thought possible

Email List Building

My Business you can’t build a list, it is the wrong type of Buisness. You are Dead WRONG. Yep I am having one of those days where I get tired of banging my head against a brick wall. It doesn’t seem to matter what business you are in you can build a email list. So what are the advantages of building a list for let’s say a fish and chip shop or a hotel.

The biggest cost in any Business is aquiring a customer, unless you work completely by referrals. I am not only going to prove a point but alos show you some simple idea’s to implement and get a database up and running in which you can leverage.

So how would a Fish And Chip Shop, a Burger Bar, a bakery etc build a list and for what purpose. Simple so you can email them every month at least. That way you keep in their face. Your Business name is a constant reminder. When you are slow you could send out a email and say something like, hey today we are a bit slow, for today only we will give you the lamb chop special along with a slow snail, but only if you come in today. You would be amazed at just how well this sort of marketing works. It works even better with video, now the video does not have to be professional, simply done with a cheap handycam will do, doesn’t even need to be edited.

So how does a shop that relies solely on foot traffic build it’s list. I have a way that is proven tried and tested. Have a content and have something relevant to what you sell as a prize. If you sell fish then the prize should be something like $50 free fish over the next 6 months. Just think how many people they will tell and send your way? And every customer goes into the draw. You fill out the a form and get name, address, email and phone number. And the next thing is you add this into a database. If you don’t have time hire someone off www.guru.com to do this, won’t cost musch at all.

You can import a database into Outlook, thunderbird or use a service like www.icontact.com which I highly recomend as they have a much higher delivery rate. In my next article I think I will do it on emails as there is a false perception about email and it’s delivery. I did tests on my own server vesus a paid subscription service and also sending from outlook. The results for inboxing -that means you actually got the email in your inbox and not the spam folder went like this. Own server which was new 35.7% delivery rate, Paid Service 89.3% and outlook was 58.6%.

Just because you send them does mean they wil recieve them. Do NOT rely upon email for any important time critical bit of Business. Just had to get that out of my system.

So back to building your email list, even if you think you only have one hit wonders for customers still build a database. I had this recently where all this clients customers where overseas clients. But because he had a new development he needed to get the word out. So we send out a series of email – YES that is series as of plural and not singular. Because these where very satisfied customers they all got emailed with a latest update, along with the eamil was a link to a video that he had done.

Guess what – yep you are right, facebook, youtube, digg and alsorts of sites I had never heard of before had been bookmarked and comments left, the viral effect started and then we have repeat customers, new customers through referrals and the viral effect. WHen I first told this Business Owner to build a list he told me well in nicer words that I was nuts and it was a complet waste of time. Well lets think about that complete waste of time for a bit. HMMM added close to 800,000 in the month after those emails that he would normally not of got. Cost was minimal, time to write email, time to shoot video and a quick edit by me and to upload it. Waste of time, maybe if you have an allergy to money and new clients or customers.

A bakeries increase in revenue for building a email list the same way as discribed above and then sending out email was on average a increase of 2k a day. Lets face some cold hard facts, any Business Owner that is motivated can build a database and profit from it either by repeat customers, referrals and it virtually free advertising. Now many of you, you don’t even need a contest to create your database, just ask when you are filling out the paperwork, most people are happy to give you their personal email address.

One of the most important thing to think about, the value of a database of paying customers, yes you need one for leads as well because there are many ways to make money off leads that don’t convert by doing JVs. A database is added value to your company value, look at Amazon when it was first struggling to get going online, they where loosing money everyday but the company net worth was billions simply because of the value of the database.

Get off your ass and get a database together and send emails every month and that one simple tactic done right will alone increase sales and revenue. I dare you to try it.

Don’t look at me strange, I know most of you have not heard about this or have totally overlooked it. We build personal finacial investment portfolio’s but forget this could be the “difference, the deciding factor” in making it through a hard time and your Business going bankcrupt.

Now this is no quick fix but if you haven’t started today is about as good as any you will get. You need to look at the long term picture and decided where you want to be in ten years time.

The reality is that while most Buisness Owners never ever start out looking to become a slave to their Business, that is how they end up. I have yet to find a Business owner who will tell me they started because they wanted to work. Instead they thought they had something good to give to the market and hoped to make a shit load of money so they can live a better life style…

I Sure That Is What You Want!

So how does one end up being a slave to his or her business? Good point, not by trying to be either, it is because when you are in a Business you can’t see the wood for the trees. You actually need to be very broadminded and have the ability to stand back and look inside, or the better way is to hire a consultant who will look at processors going on and optimise that and free your time.

So What In the World Does This Have To Do With Passive Income?

Everything, because if you are going to bury your head in the sand you might as well make money doing it.

WHY NOT?

So let’s start from assuming you have been going for a couple of years and just starting to make headway. That is apart from the flaming tax department wanting to tax you’re ass. Only two tax brackets remember – one for the educated and one for the uneducated. Educated people always pay less tax.

So you take five thousand and invest it into a passive income generator. Now I know many of you are going to so hung up on where and what and how. That is easy. Just do some research online.

So you could invest in shares, that creates money from dividends, it could be private equity shares, with a good strong company you could make a shit load reasonably quickly. And so many other type of investments I could name that bring in passive income.

Some other things are car parks, membership sites, websites, morgages, loans etc

Your Business Growth Through Investments

So you get your five grand and invest it, now lets say your return is 7%p/a. Now I have a question. Did you have to work for that 7%. The answer is “NO”

Now over ten years if you keep building up your passive income streams then if you get hit hard by a downturn you will still have income coming in like clockwork. Yes I hear ya! What happens if some of your investments bring in less?

Because you have your investments over a wide range of things some will do not so well while others will be booming.

What’s The Difference Between Passive and Residual Income

Passive Income: That is where you do the work once and the money keeps coming in like clockwork for years to come.

Residual Income: This is where you do the work and do a bit each month and reap rewards off other people hard work as well

So What Is Hot Right Now

Right now we are into a clean green and clean tech boom. Absolutely billions of dollars have been poured into this sector. The information age while is is still growing, has by and large changed and is so super competitive that the easy money you could make before in earlier years is now not that easy to captilaise on for huge instant profits.

The green markets in many cases could effect your Business depending on what you are doing. Invest in them and reap passive income rewards for your Business and create extra income streams…

Also remember that when you get shares you can borrow against them should you need to. If you can over 5-10 years create a passive income of 1ook to a million you won’t have to slog so hard in your Business and there will be so much more that you can do. Just think outside the box.

I suggest you take a weekend off and start the process of looking at all the other ways you are currently not doing to create more income streams. Write it all down and you will most likely be amazed.

Many thanks to the wonderful comments left, I haven’t even finished the site and have many comments left. Plenty of spam ones as well. Good thing they get filtered. Which brings me to what I really want to talk about which is lead generation.

There are so many way to generate leads, so I am going to cover a few that I think could help someone.  A few weeks ago I was looking a a business that generated 5 – 7 thousand leads a day online.

Problem was the conversions where very very low. I looked through the lists and quickly discovered they had a heap of spam email addresses. So in reality they where only generating about a thousand real leads a day. When getting leads number one, all important rule of thumb is make sure they are “qualified leads”.

Your Leads Must Be Qualified

I could easily get 100k leads a day but they may not be interested in what I have to offer so that would be a total waste of time and effort not to mention money out of pocket. What every Business wants is people, remember you are dealing with a person, not just a faceless name.

Those people must be interested in your niche, you want them passionate about the topic so they keep buying over and over again, they must have deposable income. I’m not sure if you know it, but broke people are not good customers – have no idea why in the world that would be! It’s a bit like saying we are going to sell super special lotto tickets to people with no money each week. Great idea, they will just have to rob you to pay for them I suppose…

I’m actually serious because I hear it all the time, bright idea’s without any common sense. So in the process of qualifying you want to get rid of all the time wasters and tire kickers.

As many of you know I write sales copy and I always get the same old story. No one will ever read that – it’s too long. But if that was so how do you explain sales generated from that copy. How can I that be?

The truth of the matter is if I am interested then I will skim read, and then read in more depth. What in reality happens is that you end up with qualified leads or buyers who are interested and want what you have.

A Key Marketing Lession.

In my country the rate of Business that succeed past the five year mark is extremely low. So whay is this? After having a in depth look at these small start-ups I found one very common theme.

We design a product, then we do what they teach at university, open your mouth and get our new widget and slam it down your throat, when you choke we slam it down some more. Is it any wonder that people eventually throw up all over you and say stay away with your crap.

If every start up when through this simple process the success rates would skyrocket…

1. Find out what People want.
2. Give them what they want.

Yes I can hear your brain saying that is way to simple. So let me put it to you like this. People buy what they “want” and justify it with logic. Not What they need! I have food stamps but I like brand name labels.

How many times at the check out do you see people with food vouchers and look into their trolley and see not the cheapest of everything but brand name products that are not on special. Hmmm…

It is far easier to sell to people that have a interest in what I have, are passionate about it, and most importantly people who have money. In reality they are sold long before you even do a pitch if you educate them about your products and services in a non selling way.

You tell them the benefits and how this product or service can, save them time, make them money, enhance their life in some way shape of form. You provide solutions to a problem. It is a far easier way to do Business than to manufacture a hairy legged spider with a cowboys hat and a walking stick and ramming it down people’s throats.

So What Does This Have To Do With Lead Generation?

Oh dear, there I go again, off on a tangent but for a good reason. The better you can qualify your leads the easier it is to sell to those that you have. Now for some methods of lead generation that you can use more effectively. The first one is one I see not used that well, and when I do see it, it is done very wrong.

Muliple Step Lead Generation

Now for this example I am going to use a offline method, but the same applies to online methods. You start with a product that people want. Then you place a Classified Ad in a local newspaper. Now you do not what large publications that are really thick (that is like finding a needle in the haystack), you want smaller town papers, and free papers seem to work well.

• Your Ad needs a catchy headline that draws the reader to read your Ad. This must relate to the rest of your Ad because you don’t want to have a headline like “Sexy girl” when you are selling a make money program.

• Make sure your ad is full of benefits and answers briefly with a solution to someones problem.

• Never use a 0800 number, always use a normal landline number. If you are going to use a answerphone that is even better but make sure it has it’s own seperate line. And add that in add under phone number “Leave details on answerphone”.

You are most likely asking whay should I use a normal phone number?

Easy, because if someone is prepared to ring, and if they make a long distance call it means they are serious, if they don’t have money for a short, long distance, then they are not the sort of customer you want…

• Now what you want to get when they ring from them is their name, email, address, and phone number. Now you have a prospect that you can follow up with either a sales person, a snail mail letter, or a email. And you can give them a free report, a book, a gift and also present your offer to them. If you are going to give them free information upfront then I suggest you make it top notch good quality information. Or send part of a product, don’t send them junk or else that is how they will percieve you!

• So now they have your freebie, they now have your first salesletter. And many times a small percentage will buy. That is where most busineses stop. Are you bloody mad you have only just started. You are a drop dead moron if you stop here.

Many years ago I learnt this quite by accident, if possible create controversy, create something that will stir up your prosects. Uncover a law, a lesser known problem, the leaked chapter etc and set it out in such a way that make you the hero because you have the  real answers, have a leaked chapter that your member of staff accidentially put online, hotly refute what your competition is saying, but only if it is true and you can verify, back-up, have answers to, present the truth so this gives you credibilty in your marketplace.

“Listen” to your customers and often they will tell you just what the problem is that they are facing, write them down and use them to your advantage…

• You will most likely have a few more orders, send out again. They key is follow up. Even if it is just to say hi. I have heard of companies that make most of the money on the seventeeth solicitation.

This Is Clearly What Sets The Winners Apart – Lead Generation -> Follow-up -> Follow-up

There is an old saying, they buy or die, either way we keep sending them stuff. Oh yeah there is such a thing as overkill, and when someone says they don’t want your trash make sure you delete them from your database.

The other thing I should mention is that the most cost you will occur in marketing is aquiring a customer, present and existing customers are the best ones to have if possible, it is cheap to follow-up and offer other back end products.

Make sure you have mapped out a full back-end as that is where that major profits lie in any business. Now for another way I see often underutilised…

Lead Generation Through Referrals

It as old as the hills, but so true “The wheel on the barn door that sqeaks the most gets the most oil” What the hell are you afraid of. Are you scared you might get taxed if you fart. What is the problem with simply asking, I don’t understand it. ASK and you will recieve! The amount of leads you can generate for any business simply using this is quite amazing…

People that come to you because of some existing customers referral is one of the best ways to acquire customer. They come to you because XYZ said you are the best, have the best service, and if they said that, they are going to trust you a whole lot more than you soliciting to them yourself.

I don’t get it, why is it so hard to get Business owners to constantly ask for referrals, to set things in place so they can reap a harvest of new customers from existing happy custoimers?

Most of the time all you need to do is “ASK” your existing customers to refer people to you. Give them an oversized business card, a voucher. If you don’t ask the chances is that they will not go out of their way to refer leads to you.

Now I will add some more ways in other rants, so for now do me a huge favor, put it into action unless you want to pay me to tell you these things and then you still have to put it into action.

I feel one of those coming on again, so here’s my rant. Most yellow page ads that I have seen barely hold the page together, so oblivious to the fact that someone might see them. What would you expect when 99% of business owners get yellow pages themselves to write and design the ads for them.

Let’s be frank about it, they don’t give a rats ass how many leads you get from your ad, let’s face it, you pay the same if your ad generates zero leads or five hundred a month. I don’t even think that bunch try to win awards. Many ad agencies design ads for the sole purpose to win awards. Winning Awards doesn’t make money. That fact is that awards never put money in the bank. Dumb bloodly thing just sits there and looks pretty, just like the idiot behind the desk who won it. Where is his/her moral and ethic compass? Definately not pointing you in the right direction.

Are You Nuts – Never Let Them Write Your Ad

If you are completely insane let ad agencies write your ads, if you are not them I suggest you hire a experinced copywriter. At least that way you have a standing chance to get ads that do there job and generate leads for you. The other day I was asking how many leads a Business owner got from his full page ad. Short stupid answer is “I don’t Know” Let’s see if I wanted to go broke I would plaster ads all around and hope for the best.

I still don’t understand any Business Owner in todays world that doesn’t track each and every ad they place, test conversions and make sure the ROR is worth the effort. In today’s market you can’t afford to waste money on a dead end bottomless toilet drain. You have to be savy and optimise everything.

So I have yet to answer my question, which many business folk ask me, do yellow page ads still work. I’ll give you two answers and then explain. “Yes” and “No”.

Yes - because a well done ad will still pull in good leads, but in the right niche, the ad needs to be crafted so as to get attention, be simple and plain, sorry fancy has yet to work and be proven by marketers that it works. Your ad needs to answer one simple thing. “What is in it for me” The very reason they are looking in the yellow pages. A person only looks in the yellow pages when they want something, they have a problem that need a solution. You have to articlate that solution or the designer award below will be the next number they ring instead or yours.

No - because the age of the internet was born and today more and more people are going online to look, instead of sifting through a thick book. In fact Google has kicked the yellow pages in the butt and transformed how many businesses do business. Local listings are easy to get with google and each month local searches are going up. The other thing is that because the price of yellow page ads has gone through the roof in recent years many businesses can no longer justify the cost for so little return, that is if they track there ads.

Believe it of not I have come across many businesses that solely rely on yellow pages and word of mouth. But reality is those times are very much gone in most major cities. So do I still recomend yellow page ads. The short answer is yes, but done right and tracked. Telling me that you spent 18k for your ads and then tell me you don’t have a clue if they generated any leads at all is pure insanity, but if you can tell me that you got two hundred calls a month and converted 40% of them and had an average sale of 280 upfront and then two more sales with a gross profit of 3k over a ten years span, the customers lifetime – then you are now talking some sence and you have a asset.

All your advertising should be veiwed the same way. I spend 1k and my return is xzy in profit and the customer stays with us for xyz years. Just by know the numbers creates a valuable asset for your Business. If you sell you can ad that into your price. You want to borrow money, if you can provide cold ahrd fact like that, the banks will love you because they know each month you spend a certain amount and the return on investment is a certain amount.

I want to inspire you to do better in your Business. If you are doing not so good then you can easily turn things around. Someone on the outside looking in will always help. If you are doing okay then you should be trying to do better and if you are doing really well then you are obligated to do even better again.

I have to tell you if you are not seeking to better your situation no matter where you are – you are being selfish. Why is that? Let me put it to you like this.

You Owe Bigtime Even If You Don’t Know It!

You owe it to your family, your friends, your community, your nation, the world to excell and create more breakthroughs, profits and sales because it take maney to impact humanity, it takes money for medical breakthoughs and it take money for inovation. You cannot impact humanity, the world around you if you don’t have any.

If you are not looking to excell, to grow then you are letting yourself down and being selfish. As I said you owe to yourself to grow, expand and increase in your Business. There is so much more you can achieve if you set your mind to it.

Business Growth Consultant Will Work Hard For You!

I always recomend to hire a Business Growth and or Marketing Consultant. Even if you never use us. Find somebody. Don’t look at what they charge, many will do contingency or fee based and have a guarantee that they will make five to tens time for you that fee.If it is contingency then realistically it won’t cost you a dime, they take it out of the increases they make for you.

And you better believe, they are motivated to create sales, profits and breakthroughs for you because if they don’t they know they don’t get paid. It is their reputation on the line. They need “RESULTS”

If you are only doing 100k a year then if you got someone that charged you 10k and they made you another 100k per year can you imagine the difference that would make to you! What about your family? What about the ability to expand? But…

The cold hard truth is without a consultant you will most likely never make those sort of breakthroughs in your Business. When you are inside you never see the wood for the trees. But someone on the outside looking in who knows their stuff can instantly spot problems areas and see where your hidden marketing assets are and ways to expand that you would never think about.

Stop being selfish and make a decision today to make a difference in your world and the world around you. Find yourself a Consultant or you could try me “if” I am available and grow your Business and create new streams of leads, sales and profits. You would be selfish not to.

Just think if you could take a 100k company and over 2 – 4 years turn that into a 2 million company, just how much you could impact those around you, the inovation you could invest in, the overall impact for yourself would be huge.

Think outside the box, expand your mindset and stop making excuses because you can do it “if” you set your mind to it. Don’t look at the problems you are facing but rather look at the solutions to those problems. Focus on the answers and they will turn up, sometimes in the most unexpectant ways. But if you do “NOTHING”, nothing will happen. It is up to you to make a difference.

Remember Marketing makes you money and everything else is a cost. Your marketing should be results focused, measurable so you know what works and what doesn’t. The best place to start, so you can see growth is to get a Business Growth And Marketing consultant.