We are already into 2008. Have you had the opportunity to sit down and plan out what your 2008 looks like in the business world? Many people take the time to make New Year's resolutions but many businesses fail to do the same thing for their organizations. If you haven't done it yet, get moving! Once these goals are established, I strongly encourage you to re-visit them on a monthly basis. This allows you to keep the ship steady and look for any potential course changes to either pick up additional sales or avoid any issues. If you need any assistance in establishing goals for your organization, check us out at www.capjem.com.
In establishing the 2008 goals for your business, you need to examine your sales and marketing plan. Last week we addressed why "Customer Service is Dead!" and how you need to develop an experience which will keep people coming back to you. This week we will examine this experience and how you need to tie it into your sales and marketing strategy.
I have worked with many businesses that seem to have either a great marketing plan or an awesome sales plan but not both. Few businesses see the need to have both an incredible marketing and sales strategy. If you haven't guessed it by the now, the key to having an effective sales and marketing strategy is an understanding of the Experience. Without the experience, your strategies will fall short of achieving your growth goals. But, if you can define the experience people want; give people this experience, and maintain the experience whenever they want it, you are well on your way to business greatness.
To effectively understand the full experience, you need to break your marketing and sales strategies into two separate plans. The first plan you should focus on is the marketing strategy or experience. This marketing plan needs to focus around the customer or the person who is actually buying your product. To effectively do this, you must completely understand your customer. Why do they want the product? How do they use the product or service? What is the product purchase frequency?
When I'm working with clients, I advise them to spend most of their time working on developing this complete Understanding before any money is spent on developing the actual product or service. Many entrepreneurs develop what THEY think is an awesome product yet they fail to realize or understand what the CUSTOMER'S needs actually are. You need to completely understand your customer, develop a product which meets this understanding, and create the marketing strategy to fulfill this understanding.
Spend some time this week focusing on your customer's wants and needs.
Understand your consumer and develop a marketing plan that effectively creates an experience to fulfill what your consumer wants.
Next week, we will focus on the sales plan and how its creation dooms many businesses into a stagnant existence. Until then, press on! You are destined for greatness! Do not stop and do not let others tell you it can't be done.
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