Marketing practice

Posted by Jerry Smith · December 3, 2009 · Print This Article

Naturals are rare in most walks of life. Although we all have different talents and some things come more naturally to us than to others and vice versa, it is truly unusual to find someone who excels at anything the first time out. This is obvious in sports of course. The most gifted athletes have a high level of natural ability, but the most successful tend to be those working the hardest, and always looking to improve, taking nothing for granted.

Marketing your small business or practice is very similar. There are always going to be people with natural ability in certain areas of marketing – presentations maybe, internet tools and tactics, writing etc. However these are all skills that can be learned with application.

There is a potential danger inherent in this also – thinking it’s easy. Being good at something isn’t just about the skills you have. It’s about planning, anticipation, thinking ahead, having a fall back position, commitment and practice. This is no more evident than when starting a new marketing tactic that calls for skills you have, but haven’t been called upon to deploy in a live situation.

Many tools look simple, they may not be as straightforward as they first appear. This is especially true of technology! There is a huge choice available online, but also in offline situations. Let us take, as an example, using presentations as a marketing tactic.

Presentations can be a great marketing tool as they provide the opportunity to get your message out to a large number of people whilst giving real value to that audience. This is true in a live situation, but also on line in the form of webinars for example.

Usually at this point, certainly online, technology comes in. That webinar software looks cool doesn’t it? As you sit and rehearse in front of your screen, on your own, everything seems to be going smoothly. The projector you are planning to use to show your powerpoint slides works fine with your laptop – the guy in the shop said the bulb should last years and the software was compatible with most PCs. So, whichever mode you have chosen, minimal preparation appears necessary since it is all going smoothly – surely it will on the day too, right?

Well, hopefully it will. But do you really want to live on hopes, when your message is so important? It is worth spending extra time, sometimes considerable amounts of time, REALLY getting to know the tools you will be using and building contingency in there. What happens if that bulb DOES blow? What if your internet connection is flaky at webinar time. Are you sure you know what the participants on a webinar will see? It worked for 2 people, are you sure it will work for 50? What if the projector doesn’t work with the PC provided?

Time has a habit of speeding up under pressure. Have you ever noticed that? You are using a tactic with which you are not totally familiar – if anything unforeseen happens you can get into a panic very quickly as one thing presses in on another. There really is no substitute for practice so you know what to do.

This is potentially the danger of thinking something comes naturally. It can lead to lack of preparation as it all seems pretty easy and straightforward. Time spent learning how to apply a tool or tactic, developing plans in case you need to change direction is never wasted. It will hold you in good stead when you go live.

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