Winning people’s attention and carving out your distinct position in this noisy, ever-changing, and competitive marketplace requires single-minded dedication. With so many businesses attempting to capture customers you should have, you can’t just sit and wait for people to beat a path to your door, even with a brilliant promise of outcome if they engage.
Buyers can’t inquire if they don’t know you exist. You must promote constantly to make your position known and to own it outright. Your objective should be to make your business first and foremost in the potential buyer’s mind. By doing so, when the window of opportunity to purchase opens, you are the first and likely the only place they will inquire.
To execute any promotion brilliantly requires forethought and good planning. Promotion without a plan is an expense without a purpose. Millions of dollars every year are wasted by organizations on promotion that is poorly thought out and doesn’t work. As my good friend, Dr. Nido Qubein, president of High Point University in North Carolina, said so well:
“Some people think success comes effortlessly, with no need for effort or conscious planning. All you need to do is be in the right place at the right time, and at some happy moment, success will fall into your lap. Such people are called failures.
Successful people know that in business or any other undertaking, you must plan for success, and you must make conscious choices centered on your core values. On rare occasions, somebody also wins the multimillion-dollar lottery. But most people don’t. The sure route to success lies through careful planning in harmony with a core motivation.”
This reinforces the need for a comprehensive marketing and promotional plan for you and your business — a specific plan for how you are going to make your customer-centric value known to the marketplace. However, to be sure your promotional plan is effective and executed brilliantly; you must develop a tactical plan of specific steps to be taken every ninety days to fulfill your plan. Create one for the first ninety days, the following ninety, and every ninety-day cycle thereafter to support your marketing plans.
Committing to having a clear strategy for all facets of your business marketing plan backed by specific and tactical ninety-day plans and not just an ad hoc approach is essential for real business success.
For a free 90 day plan template visit http://www.richardweylman.com/PDFs/90DayPlanfill.pdf
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This guest post is courtesy of Richard Weylman, Weylman Consulting Group