“And you are correct….business development and marketing are very often misunderstood,” said a results-oriented chief executive, board member/officer, business owner and advisor accomplished in growing sales revenue, profit margins and cash flow, to maximize return on investment and realize business and personal vision - to me.
First of all, thanks! It is nice to have validation of the fact that most businesses are in dire need of real marketing and sales help by a person who is clearly a polished business leader.
Second of all - WHY? Why is it that marketing is often the last thing in which a company wants to invest? Why do companies continue to disregard the very vehicles that will be directly responsible for qualified lead generation and positively driving revenue?
Three reasons company leaders continue to disregard marketing:
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It just looks so easy! What is it really but interesting words with some cool looking pictures? How hard it is to make a marketing sheet? And really, social media? My 15 year old niece could run our social media. I’ll check with her mother to see if she’s available to help us out.
My response: This is the biggest misconception when it comes to marketing. Bad marketing is easy. GREAT marketing takes time, energy and strategy. How do you position yourself as the only viable solution for your customer’s need? Pretty sure your niece won’t have a clue how to figure that one out. But I can.
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I don’t understand it. I paid all this money for a website and no one goes to it. The guy I hired said he was good at building websites. I thought that was marketing?
My response: If you built a store to sell your product or service would you build it in a far away place that no one knows about or cares about? A web presence with no marketing is just that. If you don’t build a marketing plan that supports how people find your website - you just have a website.
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I’m focused on building a product/technology/service. I need to have the best product/technology/service and the customers will come. THEN I will figure out marketing.
My response: This is a big one. Of course you need a product/technology/service. But to constantly be focusing on that means you’re not valuing anything about what that product/technology/service can do RIGHT NOW for your customers. You’re not focused on your customers. You’re focused on your business. Two different things. Marketing is the brand promise. It’s the reason they are interested in your stuff to begin with. You should ALWAYS be investing in marketing.
“If you build it, they will come,” right?
Wrong. Because they have no idea who you are, where you are, or how you can help solve their problem. That is marketing in it’s simplest form. We tell the story, we get the people to your store and business development takes it from there.