It should!

Before building an overall marketing plan, and particularly before thinking about any tools and tactics might help you…you have to know who you are trying to find. And shouldn’t you know who is trying to find you too?

Defining your target market is NOT: “18 to 65, living in a big city or small town, and a person who likes to travel or who wants to stay home”

Often target markets are set up with general demographic terms that are so flaccid as to be useless…essentially you are saying, “everyone needs my service.” This approach doesn’t help you or your business.

Instead, wouldn’t it be better to find your target market in a way that really digs deep into your passion, into who you are, and into who  you dream of serving?

Try answering questions like:

• What does your best customer struggle with?
• What question makes your customers uncomfortable?
• Is there an issue that a particular subset of an industry you serve has to deal with?

Now try writing that stuff down from the point of view of your customer…not from the point of view of what you do. You don’t serve these folks yet…you are just trying to find your market.

Try this too:

1. Write down your new target market description on  piece of paper and keep it somewhere convenient. Your pocket for a couple of days…your computer bag right where you keep your keys, the console in your car.

2. Every time you think about a customer, jot down a problem, issue or challenge that they have faced. (You may have helped them with the issue. Challenges you have NOT addressed with people are also important to record.) Write these ideas down for several days…or just keep the paper handy all the time.

3. Every time you meet with or talk to an existing customer, ask them to describe the stuff that frustrates them. What scares them about what they do? What are they unsure about? Is there stuff where they say, “we don’t know what we don’t know.” Write these ideas down. Just keep a list of this scary stuff.

4. At the end of the week…compare your notes to your target market description. Do you match up? Are you serving the people you say you serve? Is there a target market  you could serve that you are not?

The idea here is to find the intersection between what your customers need help with and the stuff you do best. Do not focus on the areas of the industry you serve that do not inspire you. There IS an intersection that will speak to you, and what you are passionate about. Serve that target market relentlessly.

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Here are some writers and resources. Enjoy.

John Haydon – HUGE Twitter resource post.

These are John’s great tips on using twitter, twitter tools. He has put together tutorial videos, thoughtful “why to” posts, and always has an honest, up front approach.

Gary Vaynerchuk – What to do instead of a press release.

Gary is the person I turn to when I need a boost. His ideas and his energy is always so positive, encouraging, well-intentioned and useful. In this video, Gary takes a stab at companies that send out press releases instead of being more directed in their storytelling. If you create a compelling way to tell stories…and to have your fans tell stories…and do it again and again and again…then you will be well on your way to connecting with your customers.

Chris Brogan – Thoughts on Nowhere and Nowhen

Chris posts about the future of “stuff” on the web. This is a great blog to follow, and this post hit me when I read it. Take a minute and consider how places…virtual and physical relate to your business. Take a minute and think about how the perception of  your business online is important to you.

Mashable: “How to: Track Social Media Analytics”

From a writer named Ben Parr. Makes you realize how challenging, creative and essential this stuff is. Don’t get frustrated by the seeming complexity of what he describes. If you decide to use social media as a part of your overall marketing plan, take a few minutes to think about what metrics would be important to your business and your efforts. HOW will you measure your investment and your success? HINT: It shouldn’t be in terms of dollars in the door the first week!

Christopher Penn’s Pixelated Business Marketing Conference:

Chris Penn has pulled together a digital conference of speakers on business and marketing topics. Nice idea! You can follow his instructions and schedule a day to “attend” the sessions, or you can dip into them one at a time over the course of a week or so. Either way…this is good stuff.

Go Speed Raser – Using Twitter as a Twool

John Raser is an interesting guy. I found this post via another person I follow on Twitter. For those who want a good snap shot of how Twitter (and other social media tools) has only just begun to change the way we interact, connect, find people, make friends and YES – do business. This is a nicely put together post that illustrates just that. Good resources and good ideas!

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The bottom line is that you are a small business and you need a sustainable flow of customers in order to keep your doors open.

One of the toughest things to do as you search for clients is to be honest with yourself about how well you are doing RIGHT NOW. It is too tempting and too easy and makes you feel not as bad about your month to take a look at your sales pipeline and convince yourself (or your spouse?) that things are looking good.

How many times have you looked at your list of potential customers, or people you have followed up with, and said to yourself, “I had a great conversation with him last week and he seems interested. If I got that deal it would be worth…X$” Or maybe you went to a networking event and you scheduled three coffee meetings with people, and two of those folks didn’t say no when you hinted that you might sign them up for your service. Are those people really in your pipeline?

They might be. They might not be. Do you have any way of telling whether they will buy your product or service in the next two weeks? 60 Days? 6 months?

You look at that list of potential customers (you DO have a list don’t you?) and you WANT them to close. You HOPE the people you met with will sit bolt upright in bed at 3 a.m. that night and whisper to themselves…”I must have it.”

What happens to that pipeline if you ask yourself questions…really direct and infuriating questions that your sales manager used to ask? Questions your spouse WILL ask you if you start talking about these as “deals.”

Questions like, “Is there a signed contract yet?”

“So that person you are talking to is THE decision maker?”

“What process do they have to go through to make that commitment?”

“What problem does this solve for THEM?”

“What questions do they stil have?”

There are more questions like these that, as a small business owner and as your own sales manager, you MUST ask yourself. Or maybe you should post them on your wall.

The really cool thing is, that when you go through your alleged pipeline and you drill down on those potential deals…you through some out. Put them in the dumpster and then see where the customer REALLY is. Where are  you with them? Have you attracted these people to your service, but you really haven’t convinced them that you are credible?  Maybe you are farther along than you think, but you just need to tweak HOW you move from having an informational conversation to closing the sale.

When you are honest with yourself, and your business about your pipeline, and you take the time to really understand WHERE your potential customers are in the marketing and sales flow…THEN you will have a pipeline you can forecast.

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Social Networking tools require you to participate.

The short-cutters are not participating. They are playing the game, going through the motions and looking for the quickest route to payout. Problem is, it shows and it upsets people.

Your business has a flow, and understanding how marketing efforts help with attracting people to you, building credibility, and driving conversation is key to any sustainable marketing success.

You may have created a Twitter account and set up a LinkedIn Profile. You may have created a blog and told some friends about it. Now you want your time and effort as you participate to be productive for your company.

These tools can be useful at many points within the marketing flow depending on your goals, your target market and your business structure. Today I want to focus on the Credibility concept.

Right now the short-cutters seem to be using these tools to attract people and then try to immediately sell them something. Why not attract people IN ORDER to build your credibility?

Here are TWO ideas:

Participate on Twitter by first finding people who fit your target. Then GIVE information, help, tips, links to articles you have written. HELP solve problems. Become a trusted connector to others. Show that you understand your target customer’s problems, issues and challenges by connecting personally with people and sharing your knowledge FIRST. Give to Get…right?

You may be asking: How do I find my target market people on Twitter?

Here’s one good way:

a. Go to search.twitter.com

b. Type in a word or a phrase: Kansas City…or Marketing…or a key word that relates to your business.

b-and-a-half. GRAB the RSS feed for that term. Watch and listen. Then talk.

c. See all of those people who are talking about you…or your company…or your industry…or your city? THEY are the people you want to know about YOU…or your company…or your service.

d. RESIST the temptation to just blurt out your sales pitch, “HEY, you wanna buy some stuff!?!?!?” DO NOT send the same message over and over and over with a link to your website.

e. INSTEAD – ASK these people what they struggle with. Refer them to useful things, people, solutions. SHOW them that you are a good person to know. Don’t tell me you are a guru or an expert…SHOW me!

Participate on LinkedIN:

Profile First – Set up a complete or mostly complete Profile. As you are doing this, take a little time to really think and plan. WHAT is LinkedIn for? This is a business networking site. Networking is ALL ABOUT connecting people you know with people you know. Networking is collaborative and requires your participation. So don’t jump to the end … just start using the tool.

JOIN NEXT - Join key Groups either from your city, your industry, or around companies or organizations that are important to you. Then post conversation topics AND participate in conversations that are MORE than just, “has anyone tried my {insert latest offering here}”.

Regular Participation Third – A very effective (and not too time consuming) way to participate on LinkedIn is to answer questions that TRULY help people that are asking legitmate questions. Answer questions where you share some of your expertise or where you can help someone by connecting them with another person.

Building credibility with potential clients is essential as you work within the flow of your business. Credibility leads to trust…which leads to referrals for your business. Stop working against the flow of your own business’ marketing.  Pay attention to this intermediate step.

First – Attract.

Then – Build credibility and trust BEFORE you move towards a business conversation.

Try doing this BEFORE you go into sales pitch mode and you will stand out from the dastardly no gooders, the spammers and the short-cutters.

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This is normally the response from a business owner who has never really gone through the process of putting down on paper EXACTLY WHO their target market is. Your target market is NOT anyone who needs to sell their house, or anyone who wants to be healthy. THAT is a broad marketplace description.

Describing YOUR target market has to get at the heart of WHY and HOW you are different. YOUR target market description has to rest upon the problems, issues and challenges that your customers face.

The Big Big Secret is that YOUR target market is most successful when it is at an EDGE and when it is NARROW.

If you define a niche target market, does that mean you are turning away business? The answer is…maybe…it depends.

If you define yourself by the narrow target market who YOU SERVE BEST – you are not excluding others (unless you want to!) you are just finding the right edge, and defining the place where you can be THE BEST in the world.

EDGES – This is a Seth Godin concept from his book Free Prize Inside, (and by the way my dad’s concept as well). In order to define yourself as unique and useful and remarkable, you can’t be all things for all people. The only way to be worthy of being remarked upon is to go to an edge, not stay in the middle. Or, as my dad says when he talks about his edge theory, “the only way we perceive the world and our lives is to understand the edges between two things, or concepts, or beliefs.”

NARROW FOCUS: This is pulled from another Seth Godin idea. The best way to be a great marketer is to make yourself the best in the world. The great thing here is that YOU define what “the world” is and YOU define what “best” means. When you do that, and then you create your marketing and your business efforts aimed at being the BEST in the WORLD, THEN you are marketing narrowly in a way that will bring  you success.

So…narrow your focus when you sit down to hammer out just who it is you serve, and GO all the way to an EDGE in order to be the BEST in the world.

Perhaps you have a plan you thought about one Tuesday, made a few notes about it, and now it resides in your desk drawer.

Maybe you had a plan and started doing some of the action items, only to get a couple of big jobs. That marketing activity you were doing is now farther down on the list, isn’t it?

Now you are frustrated at yourself and then you get more frustrated because there isn’t enough work coming in the door. Once you get frustrated, it is easy to start looking for a quick fix that you hope will get  you back on track.

The hard thing to see when that happens is that a clearly defined target audience + consistent marketing effort + consistent business delivery is the equation for success.

Frustration leading to shortcutting – THAT is your competition. The message is: Don’t play down to your competition.

We have all seen highly-skilled teams in every sport on the planet that lose to inferior teams because they get “taken out of their game.” There are players who lose to less-talented competition because they lose focus and make bad, short-term-focused decisions.

Do you know of anyone who always plays solidly no matter who the competition is? Have you ever seen a team that executes their game plan so well that it doesn’t matter what the other team does, the better team always makes the right decision, or the correct adjustment?

In large part, these are examples of mindset and focus issues. The same issues apply to you in your struggles surrounding marketing, business development, and your business.

Don’t Play Down to the Level of Your Competition.

Sometimes it is hard to realize this, but your competition is NOT another company that happens to sell the same thing you do. YOUR competition is distraction, action without planning, and inconsistent effort.

Some thoughts on how to stay focused, plan for success and sustain your efforts.

1) Train Past the Finish Line:

Another sports analogy that lends itself to business. Great players become great and sustain themselves at that high level because of their effort and focus. Natural ability only goes so far.

Instead of doing just enough to get by, ask yourself what you can do EACH DAY that will take you past your monthly, quarterly, and annual goals. Setting BIG goals forces you to set small goals which then force you to set up Action Item lists that get you to your goals. “Training” past those goals means not being satisfied with “good enough.”

2) Make Your Goals Public:

This is one that I have stolen from the Zenhabits.net blog. Peer pressure, public questioning and shame go A LONG way toward making sure you are doing what you need to be doing.

Putting your goals and plans out in the public eye is a great way of creating good, positive stress around a goal.

3) Develop a Support System:

Business and personal support “teams” or contacts are essential for small business people. Maybe you are in a tight-knit networking group. Or perhaps you have two or three long-time friends you can set up a regular breakfast “meeting” with. Or maybe you need something more formal like coaching or a mastermind group to focus on your business. Whatever “IT” is, building a system of people that help you and you help them as well, can be very useful when you are working on your own or in a small business setting.

4) Consider the Marketing Action Club.

We don’t usually put a DIRECT appeal for the Marketing Action Club program in the blog, but THE REASON we write this blog every day and THE REASON we have set up the Marketing Action Club is because each of us is passionate about helping business owners. So, we help small businesses that struggle with marketing. We are here to help, and we hope you will consider including us as part of your training and as part of your support system.

Please take a little time to review the Marketing Action Club Program.

And if you are curious about us and want to better understand what we are all about, please consider listening in on our upcoming MAC Teleseminar: Fearless Networking – Secrets of the Highly Successful on May 19th at noon. We hope to meet you there!

The next question is…Are you a business owner? If you are, then you ARE a sales and marketing person. It’s your business and you are in charge of making it work.

How often do you find yourself “working” with the attitude, “If I didn’t have to deal with these customers I could get some actual work done” OR “I need to just do what I do best and then hope that word of mouth brings in some customers.”

Even if these aren’t the same words you use…perhaps you might see a parallel in your attitude or actions. At the Marketing Action Club we talk a lot about your mindset, your approach and your action items to making marketing something you can handle.

As you go through the process of putting a plan in place and actually executing it bit by bit, day by day, piece by piece, you have the opportunity to connect with people who need your service and are actually LOOKING for you.

Some people use social media tools to make this connection.

Some people use multiple networking groups.

Some people use a mastermind group.

Whatever you use, make the connection. If you are NOT listening to your customers, you are missing the boat. If you are putting your potential customer in front of a video in order to “sell” them something…then you are not really connecting with their struggles.

It might be a hard pill to swallow for you if you didn’t get into your business because you love marketing…but you ARE a marketing person and a sales person.

Let’s say you need 5 new customers each month in order to reach your goals. Where are those people going to come from after your friends stop buying from you? How can you connect with enough people each day, week and month in order to end up with 5 customers? What does the flow of your business look like? (Did you know your company has a flow?)

Try something different:

Why NOT try spending some time each day finding new people to have a conversation with? Why NOT use LinkedIn and Twitter and  your Blog to drive that effort?

If you are trying this and you aren’t sure how if you are doing it right…why not make a comment to this post describing what you do. We will respond!

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Two quick points about using social media today:
1. Take the time and make the effort to make a good first impression. This is important! Your mom taught you that. A lot of people aren’t thinking about first impressions, or recurring impressions, when they use these tools.

2. The point of social media tools isn’t to have the best numbers. The point is to have the best connections. Make the best connections, with the best people for your company, and you will benefit.

You have done this. I have done this. We have all used this little line, or something like it to avoid putting ourselves on the line. Maybe you are nervous about being a little bit public about what you are doing. Maybe  you are afraid of success because of the increased possibilities of failure AFTER success. Maybe you are a perfectionist who would rather think about what you might do, rather than actually doing it.

A LOT of people have listened to that little voice in their head and made up a story about why this product isn’t ready, or that 30-second promo should wait until next week, or we shouldn’t try something new until we are sure it will work.

If you know you shouldn’t listen to that nay-sayer in your head…why are you still doing it?

Fail. Fail Now and then go fail again. Put yourself out there are do something wrong. Then do it better the next time. At The Marketing Action Club, we encourage  you to think first and make a plan before you go flailing about looking for the silver bullet that will solve all of your problems. And this push to FAIL NOW is in line with that.

Make a plan. Then go do it. When  you do it,  you will be forced to make decisions. Some of those decisions might have been better. Go ahead and MAKE them and then keep moving forward. Of course, when you do this…then you will not be failing. You will be moving.

Here is a short video note from Gary Vaynerchuk on this subject.

You work hard. Everyone works hard. You try to make good decisions. Sometimes a decision about your company doesn’t work out. The point here is that there is no silver bullet, no magic combination of things that all happen in one week and then everything is ok with you, your business, the world, etc.

You are in the middle of a process, the process of making your business a success. That process is NOT a straight line. Now, I hope you out and FAIL Right NOW!

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However, as I am sure you have heard, the tool is only as great as the person using it. You might have a garage full of cycling gear…but that doesn’t make you Lance Armstrong.

There is a reason that “Tools and Tactics” is covered in Lesson Number 6 of the Marketing Action Club Program. The reason is, even the best tool will be useless to you, or even worse a time-waster, if you have not taken care of a few other things first.

There are mindset issues to address, a refined and detailed ideal customer profile, a review of your overall target market, and a plan for how you are going to use ALL of the tools at your disposal.

One of the things you may begin to realize is that some tools will be more appropriate for you and your business than others. Below are a few brief interviews with some of the great folks that attended the April Kansas City Online Community event. These are people who have different approaches, different goals, and who use different tools.

Is there a right answer?

YES!

The right answer is to actually DO something! The right answer is that when you participate, people find out about you. There are lots of ways to participate, here are a few examples.

This is Chris Gould, founder of the KCOnline Community, and organizer of this event. We were at a gathering of an online community…see how this stuff works?

Chris is using Twitter a lot right now. This is important to note, as his goal is to foster conversation and to be constantly communicating. Twitter fits!

This is Tony Tibbits. His company is Zero Design and he uses LinkedIn to network with business contacts (which is how he found the KC Online group). Another tool that Tony uses (passively) is Google Maps. Good idea Ton

Tools are great. Tools just require some thought and time investment in deciding WHICH tools to use, and then HOW this particular tool FITS within your overall Marketing Plan.

Remember, “Tools and Tactics” always comes after thinking and planning.

Does that confuse you? Do you want to disagree with me? We would value your comments and feedback. Thank you for reading!

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