Marketing is the process of cost-effectively attracting prospects and profitably converting them into loyal, repeat clients who refer business.

In other words, the purpose of your marketing should be to find those ideal clients who want or need what you offer and can pay for your services – and showing them why they should hire you by making a complete, compelling case for you and your business.

You won’t attract qualified leads by chasing after prospects and trying to convince them to listen to your sales pitch. Rather, you attract qualified leads by developing a series of marketing materials that move them along a logical path from complete stranger to client advocate.

Stages of the Consumer Buying Process

How people interact with you and your business depends on where they are in their buying process. Generally, there are six stages someone might be in:

People at each stage of the buying process require different types of marketing materials. If you try to close the deal too fast, prospects will become defensive. Consider what each person wants at each of these stages and what types of marketing materials you can design to appeal to them.

The Buying Process: How Consumers Make Buying Decisions

When you are thinking about how you can market to each type of person in your sales funnel, put yourself in their shoes. When someone is considering making a purchasing decision, they usually go through five stages:

• Awareness – First, they must realize they have a problem that they might need to solve. Until they become consciously aware that they want to achieve a goal or solve a problem, they will filter or ignore any relevant information. At this point, people are usually in the stranger or suspect stage.
  
  
• Information Search – Once they become aware, they start gathering information to help them decide what they need to do to solve their problem or achieve their goal, how much it might cost, what solutions are available, can they do it themselves, how big of a deal is it, and so forth. This often corresponds to the suspect and prospect stages of the consumer buying process and is the best place to reach prospects because your educational marketing materials can influence how they evaluate and make purchasing decisions.
  
  
• Evaluate Options – As people gather information, they analyze what they’ve collected or learned. What is the big picture? What are their options? What is best for them? Do they need to hire someone to help them or can they fix it themselves? How much will it cost – and is the problem big enough for them to justify the cost? Do they really want to fix the problem or is it just a minor annoyance? Do they have the time and resources to devote to this task right now? It’s usually at this stage when people start talking to companies. Here, people can be in the suspect or prospect stages. If you didn’t reach prospects at the information gathering stage, entering the game now can be more challenging because your suspects/prospects have already gathered plenty of information and have been influenced by your competitors, the media, their family and friends, and other information sources. They will often have preconceived notions and expectations that may or may not be accurate.
  
  
• Make Purchasing Decision – If they decide to move forward – that their problem is big enough for them to solve, they need help solving it, and they have the resources set aside to fix the problem now – consumers now pick a solution. These people begin in the prospect stage and become a client or first-time buyer.
  
  
• Re-Evaluation – Finally, once they’ve bought or hired a company, consumers will continue to re-evaluate their purchase. Was this a good decision? Is the company meeting their expectations and communicating with them appropriately? Here, clients and first time buyers evaluate if they like you enough to become repeat buyers, while repeat buyers evaluate if they like you enough to become advocates.

By understanding where prospects are in their buying process, you can tailor your marketing message so that it’s relevant to their key concerns and frustrations.

The post The Buying Process: How To Move Prospects Through Your Sales Funnel appeared first on Morningstar Marketing Coach.

Businesses are created to help someone do something. Usually, that something involves achieving a goal or solving a pain or problem.

Who has that particular goal or problem you can help with? That is the best way to choose a target market.

Why Pick a Target Market?

To succeed in business, you can’t be all things to all people. It’s just as important to define who you don’t want to work with – as who you do.

While it might be difficult to say “no,” consider this.

Certain types of clients will value what you do above and beyond other clients. Those clients place a premium on the added value you provide and the long-term relationship you build.

They are looking for a partner to grow their business or enhance their personal life – not simply a vendor who will quietly complete the task with minimal interaction.

I’m sure you’ve worked with unprofitable clients. Perhaps you’ve also had the misfortune of working with “bad” clients – those who didn’t pay on time (or ever), requested unreasonable amounts of your time, nitpicked, or were never happy.

On the other hand, there were those delightful to work with, who provided interesting project work, who sought your input, trusted your expertise, and paid on time without question. They also may have referred business to you.

Having more of the latter type of client and less of the former is not only good business – but good for your sanity.

How To Choose a Target Market in 5 Steps

When you pick a target market, you become laser-focused on reaching only the people who would be a good client for your business. When you get your target audience right, you will find you can work less hours for higher fees because they value the work you do enough to pay a premium for it. Here are 5 steps for choosing a profitable target market.

Step 1: Narrow Your Options

When you try to target “anyone who might need my service,” you are essentially talking to no one.

If you don’t have a clue who wants and can pay for your services, where would you find them? How would you identify them if you were talking to them? Your marketing is unfocused and your “strategy” involves “hoping and praying” someone will see your ad, message or website and call you. This is a colossal waste of money. Instead, consider:

1. Who are your current ideal clients? If you have clients, this task involves analyzing your current client base to determine who your most profitable clients are. Which hire you for repeat business? Which refer business? Which do you love working with? Once you’ve identified a few, chat with them about:
   • why did they hired you?
   • what you did that others didn’t?
   • what you could do to serve them better?
   • what problems they face in their industry that don’t have solutions?
   • what is their most pressing problem?
2. Who do you want to work with? When you provide services, what you offer will, on some level, be based on your individual preferences, strengths, talents and experience. Be honest about:
   • what type of work do you want to do?
   • what problems do you solve particularly well?
   • who do you like working with?
3. Talk with prospects – If you don’t have a current client base, talk with prospects or people in your network who you’d consider working with. These can be informal lunches where you pick their brain or you can offer pro-bono service like a free consulting session or initial project work. Look for common problems that come up.
   • What problems do they face?
   • What language do they use to describe their problem?
   • How skilled are you at providing a solution to that problem?

Step 2: Segment Your Market

Once you have an idea for the types of prospects you would like to work with and which potential problems you can solve, narrow it down further by looking for common characteristics. Market segmentation involves breaking a large pool of people down into smaller, similar groups. You can do this by:

1. Demographics – These are the basic facts about your prospect such as their age, gender, education, income, job type, and marital status. How a 22-year-old fresh out of college and looking for an entry level job looks at the world is different from a newly retired 65-year-old business executive.
   
   
2. Psychographics – Psychographics are more about the character, personality or worldview of the individual. For instance, are they optimistic or pessimistic? Do they take control over their life or are they a victim? Are they open- or closed-minded? Where does their sense of self-esteem come from?
   
   
3. Goals/Needs/Frustrations – Which groups of people share similar goals or frustrations? Which urgently want to take action to achieve that goal or solve that problem in the near future? Look for the common characteristics of those who want a solution and are willing to pay.

Step 3: Learn About Problems and Unmet Needs

A profitable business uncovers a market’s unmet needs and offers a solution. What do your prospects search for? Online research can be a fast, easy and free way to uncover problems and unmet needs quickly. Here are a few places to look.

1. Browse forums – Google “[your industry] + forum” to find places online where your prospects may gather to talk. What common issues arise? How do they describe these issues? What do they want most? You may be able to find this out by reading through forum threads, but also consider registering and joining the conversation to learn more.
   
   
2. Visit Q&A sites – Quora.com and Yahoo! Answers are two platforms where users ask any and every question they can think of. Browsing these websites can give you considerable insight into how your prospects think. I highly recommend signing up for Quora and starting to participate.
   
   
3. Find related books – Check out the book selection for your industry on Amazon.com. You should be able to preview the table of contents plus a sample of most books. If you have a Kindle and are willing to spend a few extra bucks, buy the Kindle edition and browse the “Popular Highlights” in each book to see what others have highlighted. Read reviews to determine what readers both liked and disliked about the book.
   
   
4. Read industry blogs – What are the most popular blogs in your industry? What topics do they regularly cover? What do commenters say?

Once you’ve compiled a list of key problems, start talking with prospects and clients one-on-one, asking them about these issues you’ve uncovered.

Step 4: How Can You Find Your Target Market?

One key purpose of identifying a target audience is to make it easier to find them. If you have no clue where to find them, your market is too broad.

1. What media do they consume? Every key industry has publications, websites, mailing lists centered around the key issues, opportunities and trends your prospects are facing. How can you get in front of them – either with advertising or editorial content? Can you write an article? Be interviewed? Speak?
   
   
2. How do competitors reach prospects? Keep a file with all your competitors’ advertising, brochures, key website content, articles, white papers, and other content for reference.
   
   
3. How do prospects make buying decisions? Who makes the decision? When are they likely to make it? What triggers a prospect’s decision to look for solutions? Do they experience a key life cycle or business change? Look for media that targets these specific people or buying triggers.

Step 5: Describe Your Target Market

Once you’ve uncovered the key problems your target market faces, write up a brief paragraph that describes your ideal clients in terms that are easy to communicate. An ideal client is that “one” perfect client. If you know someone that fits that description, think of this person as you do this exercise.

Set aside 20 minutes to answer these four questions. Then, get yourself a timer. For each question below, allot 5 minutes and just write whatever comes to mind. It doesn’t have to be in complete sentences, just get the gist down in bullet point format. Don’t think about it. Don’t edit yourself. Don’t read back over what you wrote. Just write as fast as you can until the timer goes off.

• How would you describe your ideal client?
• What is the key goal your client wants to achieve or key problem to solve?
• What pain points, worries, or objections does your ideal client have?
• Why are you the best person to offer?

When you are finished, you should have a good idea of what types of clients you want to attract. While you may never work with someone who fits this description exactly, it will help you visualize and clarify those people you want to do business with.

The post How To Choose A Profitable Target Market appeared first on Morningstar Marketing Coach.

Does it matter how long your business plan is? If you are writing a formal plan to present to investors or business partners, a standard plan runs 20-40 pages.

But – if you create a business plan for internal use, it can – and should – be much shorter.

Let’s be frank. Page counts and word counts are not a good way to measure the quality of your plan. It should be as long as it needs to be to cover everything. If that’s one page of bullet points, so be it.

Focus on Quality Not Length

Instead of worrying about how long your plan should be, worry about:

• Is it useful? In other words, will the intended reader benefit from its contents? If that’s you, do you know what your next steps are, when you have to complete them, and what resources are required to move things forward?
  
  
• Is it readable? Have you formatted the document so you can easily find content? Did you use pictures, bullets, and headlines instead of long paragraphs of text?
  
  
• Is it clear? Can you skim through the key points and grasp the message?

Your plan will only be useful if it’s focused on action steps and practical application.

What Does Your Reader Want To Know?

The purpose of your business plan will depend on your situation and intended reader.

If you are writing for an external audience, your plan will be longer because you will need to clearly explain your company’s background and market.

You may also need to include detailed research and realistic financial projections, especially if you plan to sell the business or subject your plan to legal scrutiny.

If you write for yourself, you already know much of that information, so keep it simple.

How To Cope With Uncertainty

Your business plan is not a long-winded exercise in impressing your readers with your extensive knowledge about your business, market place or competitors. It’s purpose is to clearly communicate where your business is right now and where you foresee it to be based on concrete actions you plan to take.

That said, there will be an element of uncertainty with any plan you create. You may wonder how to forecast sales data that currently doesn’t exist without pulling numbers out of thin air. Instead of including everything you know and hoping your reader will pick out the details he’s most interested in, focus on what is most relevant to your business case.

1. Start with what you know What data do you have? Do you have a current client base? Website traffic? People in your network likely to do business with you? What are you offering? How much does it cost? How many of those will you sell each week? Each month?
   
   
2. Accept your numbers will be off You have to start somewhere, but just because you can make the numbers work in Excel doesn’t mean that’s how they will play out in real life. Be prepared to revise your projections weekly at first, then monthly.
   
   
3. Fail quickly and learn from it – Few things in life are instant successes – including most things you will try in your business. For each project you take on, give yourself a benchmark goal and a time frame to achieve it. If you don’t come close to hitting that goal within the allotted time, it may be more beneficial to allocate your resources elsewhere. All the planning in the world can’t salvage an unworkable idea, so give it a try, see what happens, and if it doesn’t work, alter your course.

All new start ups are risky by nature. You will face uncertainty. The best business plans address what could go wrong along with how they might handle those situations – but don’t go overboard with a lengthy diatribe. Keep it simple, actionable, and start executing.

The post How Long Should a Business Plan Be? appeared first on Morningstar Marketing Coach.

When most people think about writing a small business plan, they think of a formal start-up document complete with charts, financial statements, and beautiful presentation. However, business planning just means writing a strategic plan.

What your business plan includes depends on who will see it and what your situation is, but if it’s just for you, less is more.

The purpose of your business plan is to evaluate whether your new business, opportunity or project is feasible. Do you have the resources to accomplish your goals? If so, what tasks are involved, who is responsible for each, and when are the deadlines. Here are four common types of business plans you may want to create.

Type #1 – New Business Plan (aka Start-up)

This type of plan is essential for any new business, large or small. While you don’t need to fill out every worksheet in a business planning book, you do have to think through each aspect of your business.

• Is this opportunity viable and worth committing resources towards?
• How will you define success?
• What resources, skills and capital will you need to start?
• Who are your target clients?
• How will you make money?
• How many products/services will you need to sell to break even each month?
• What are your monthly expenses?
• What are the risks of starting this business? What if you fail?
• Will you be happy as a self-employed individual?

Type #2 – New Direction/Opportunity SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a quick way to look at your business and marketplace to improve your performance or to uncover inefficiencies. A SWOT analysis identifies four key questions:

• What are your strengths? What does your business do right? What are your competitive advantages? Why do your clients choose you over your competitors?
  
  
• What are your weaknesses? What do your competitors do better than you? In what areas are you weak? Which skills or resources do you lack that impact how clients perceive you?
  
  
• What opportunities do you foresee? Your marketplace changes rapidly as new businesses and technology enter while others leave. What are the industry trends? What could you take advantage of? What do you predict clients will want in the near future?
  
  
• What possible threats loom? What changes could impact your business? What new players or technologies might alter how things are done? Is the marketplace shrinking due to lack of demand, more competition or alternative choices?
  
  

Type #3 – Project Management

A project management plan is the nitty-gritty “how to” involved with completing a project. Like its name suggests, project management is strategic planning at the project level. At higher business planning levels, you prioritize where to allocate your resources. Once you know what projects to take on, project management includes:

• What are the project’s goals and objectives? Why are you taking on this project and what do you expect to accomplish?
• What are your key milestones and deadlines?
• How much will this project cost you?
• What takes are required for each milestone?
• Who is responsible for each task – and by when?
• What are the key deliverables?

Type #4 – Recovery Plan

Many businesses face slumping sales or cash flow crunches and need to quickly increase revenue. With a recovery plan, the focus is often restructuring or reallocating resources to those that directly produce income while working towards solving the current problem. Recovery plans involve

• What is the current problem and what caused it?
• What are your current metrics, especially cash flow and revenue figures?
• What business assets can you quickly turn into cash?
• What other ways can you bring in revenue quickly?
• How likely will you achieve your target?
• What are potential solutions to the current problem so it doesn’t happen again?
• What happens if you can’t turn the business around?

With any business plan, the key to success is not in writing the plan, but in taking action. A great business plan is useful for strategic decision making as well as providing an action-oriented blueprint for daily, weekly and monthly oversight.

It is also useful to schedule regular reviews to ensure you are meeting your sales quotas, course correct, and assess new opportunities that may have arisen since the plan was created.

The post What Type of Small Business Plan Should I Write? appeared first on Morningstar Marketing Coach.

You’re starting a business. Maybe you’re bootstrapping it yourself. Maybe you’re the sole stakeholder.

Is writing a small business plan worthwhile in your case?

You don’t have to write a formal business plan to reap the benefits of business planning. It can be for your eyes only, as a one-page action plan for what you plan to accomplish over the next month or two.

It can help you prioritize your projects and focus on income-generating tasks rather than spending time coping with distraction, putting out fires or dealing with emergencies.

Here are 15 reasons why you should write a small business plan.

1. Big picture overview – Writing a business plan helps you take a step back and look at the way your business operates. Where do you spend most of your time? Where do the bulk of your expenses come from? Are you working productively and profitably?
   
   
2. Motivation – If you are considering starting a business, a plan can prove you’re serious. Everyone has dreams and wishes, but few take action and commit to their passion. A business plan can reinforce all the reasons why this is the right course of action.
   
   
3. Confidence – Not everyone in your life may be as enthusiastic about your new business as you are. A plan can give you confidence that your business has a good chance of succeeding. When you can make a solid case for your business on paper and compare this opportunity to other ways to spend your time, attention and money, you can be confident in the business’ viability – especially when things get tough and you may doubt your own abilities.
   
   
4. Define your vision – Take time to clearly define what your business’ purpose is. Who do you serve? What problems do you solve? How do you get paid? What role does your business play in the marketplace? Work out the details before you start.
   
   
5. Communication – Most solo business owners are accountable to someone, like family members or their significant other. A business plan can show those most important to you feel this is a worthy endeavor and what you plan to accomplish.
   
   
6. Prioritize – Every business has limited resources, so choosing one project means turning down something else. What tasks and projects are most essential to your success? Where should you focus your time and resources to achieve your goals as quickly as possible?
   
   
7. Client acquisition – How will clients find you? How will you find clients? Why will clients choose your business over your competitors? What if they don’t? A business plan can include an in-depth analysis of your potential target market, what they want, and why/how they buy.
   
   
8. Allocate resources – How will you track costs, monitor cash flow, and manage your time? If you decide to rent office space or hire a new person, it translates into additional fixed monthly costs. It it worth it? Can you justify the cost will bring in more revenue long-term?
   
   
9. Accountability – As the CEO of your business, you are responsible for any and all success and failures. How will you keep yourself focused on income-producing activities while staving off distractions? What metrics, objectives, and benchmarks do you need to hit each week? Each month? What happens if you don’t hit them?
   
   
10. Getting help – Professional service providers like attorneys, accountants and business consultants may want to see a model for your business before they agree to work with you.
    
    
11. Research your market – Business planning can help you uncover your competitive advantages, your key weaknesses, industry trends, possible upcoming threats, and whether your market is growing or shrinking.
    
    
12. Tracking finances – Do your numbers work? It’s easy to underestimate your start-up costs and monthly expenses while overestimating predicted revenue. What is your revenue model? Is it realistic?
    
    
13. Manage assumptions – You started your business based on a specific way of thinking. What if your underlying assumptions are wrong? Do you have a Plan B? A date you will throw in the towel if things don’t work? There’s no shame in quitting something that doesn’t work… especially if it leads you to another opportunity that has a better chance of success.
    
    
14. Uncover new opportunities – Business planning can give you a different perspective on your business. Take time to brainstorm opportunities or problems you face and potential solutions.
    
    
15. Business valuation – If you need to evaluate what your business is worth, such as in the case of divorce, estate planning, tax problems, or inheritance issues, you will need an in-depth business plan to explain your operations.

Whether you choose to write a formal business plan or a 1-page bulleted list of action steps, deadlines and deliverables, take time weekly to evaluate your success and course correct.

The post Why Should I Write a Small Business Plan? appeared first on Morningstar Marketing Coach.

Let’s start with what a small business plan is not.

• It’s not your doctoral thesis.
• It’s not a Pulitzer Prize winning piece of journalism.
• It’s not your great American novel.
• It’s not the deciding factor in whether your business will succeed or fail.

OK? Good. Take a deep breath.

No one expects you to crank out a 100-page document complete with 50-hours of market research and 20-pages of cash flow projections for the next five years.

A business plan is simply a written document that explains how your business will operate for the foreseeable future – and the specific action steps you will take to get there.

Why The Drama About Small Business Plans?

If you’re looking for big bucks from venture capitalists, then yes, you do need a formal business plan. Investors want to see solid proof your business has a good chance of making a profit within 1-3 years, so they want details about your business model, competitive marketplace, and financial projections.

But, if you don’t need capital – if you aren’t applying for a bank loan – then your business plan is solely for your (and your partners’) benefit. You can develop it informally, as you need, starting with the most relevant parts and modify or expanding it as things change.

Yes, things will change. As Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.”

Writing a business plan involves hammering out the details of how your business will work – so you’re clear about what you need to do next.

Why Bother Writing A Small Business Plan?

Even if you are the sole reader of your business plan, taking time to write a plan can help you see things more clearly. For instance:

1. Is your business viable? When the idea is out of your head and down on paper, does the business make sense? Do the numbers work? Can you pay your bills with profit left over? How much do you have to make each month to reach the break-even point?
   
   
2. What are your most important projects? Small business owners take on a number of different roles from strategic planning, to marketing, to accounting and finance, to working with clients, to making sure vendors deliver on time. When you juggle so many tasks daily, it’s easy to lose focus and stray from longer term priorities. Your business plan can help you decide which projects should be prioritized and which to put on the back burner.
   
   
3. What needs to be done – and by when? Your business is just an idea or dream until you start setting measurable targets, assigning dates to tasks, allocating funds, and managing accountability. When you look at what needs to be done, do you have the time, resources, and staff to make it happen?

Your objective when writing a business plan is not to wax poetic about your competitors or market potential. It’s to come up with a viable way to improve your business in the short-term, which will lead to long-term success.

The post What Is A Small Business Plan? appeared first on Morningstar Marketing Coach.