Speak First, Speak Often and Speak Loudly.

If you operate a small business in this day and age, you need to make sure your marketing techniques are running sharp.  This day and age has so many formidable competitors that if you are not sharp on your feet with your business marketing efforts, you may be missing out on a lot of volume opportunities.  Trust me, you have some serious competition.  People are being deluged with great reasons offered complete with easy opportunities to spend their hard earned money.  A quick glance at the personal consumer debt load, they are spending more than they have!  The consumer is spending it all and then some.  How much is your business getting of the consumer overspending that is currently going on?  Think clearly about this.

Consumers are not holding back.  They are filling their needs, wants and desires as fast as they can.  In fact, the data shows that the consumer is spending more than they make.  Go check it out.  There are loads of websites that report these findings.  Most of the consumer spending statistic reports show the consumer spending more than they earn.  If you own a small business and you are complaining about consumer spending being slow...maybe you are not in the right stream?  That is a "tough love" statement to most small business models.  The data also shows that most small businesses in America are still struggling with too much debt themselves.  They do not bring in enough revenues to cover their load of expense obligations.

The data brings up an interesting scenario.  I know of some small business models that are doing very well right now.  They are setting volume records, as we speak.  They are experiencing some of the best revenue sales in the history of their business existence.  Growth is occurring in many of those models.

Why?

Why are some doing so well and others struggling to survive?  Timing?  Location?  What are the specific reasons why some business models are getting more than their fair share and others seem to be left out?  Why is this pattern happening?

I may have the answer.  If you own a business you have only three key responsibilities.  The first responsibility is to make sure the accounting stuff is being managed properly.  Take great care of the books, the sales data, the ordering details, the deposits, the expenditures, the monetary controls and the numbers game that drives a business to do the good stuff it should and could be doing.  Take care of the numbers.  Know how to collect the right data.  Know how to read the right data.  Know how to manage that data.  Get the accounting game down well.  That is usually 'job 1'.

Next, get serious about your service and product knowledge.  Know your wares.  Know how your customers use your wares.  Make sure you are "current" with the wares you are peddling.  Being out of touch in this area can 'kill' your consumer interest.  They might not be able to recognize anything you have for sale.  Make sure you know your product stuff.  Make sure it is not stuff you learned thirty years ago.  If you know a whole lot about typewriters and you are one of the best repair people on the planet with typewriters, you are using old knowledge to operate your consumer services.  Get up to speed with your product knowledge.  It may be lagging too far behind.  Remember, consumers are very fickle.  Do not under-estimate this truth.

And thirdly, how healthy is your marketing plan and execution?  Are you current, timely and recognizable?  Is your business "out there" making sure its face is being seen?  Does your business model come to the consumers mind when they consider doing what your business does?  When they need a new mattress, do they think immediately of your furniture store?  When they need a new birthday gift, do they think immediately of shopping through the products you have in your store?  When they take the family out to eat after church, do they immediately think of your restaurant?  If the answer is always no, why?  How come your business model is not part of their current way of thinking?

For today...let's focus on that third step of the business stool.  Let's examine the marketing.  Think of it in this way, "speak first, speak often and speak loudly."

What does this mean?

A few years ago Bill Gates wrote the book, "Business At The Speed Of Thought."  It had some very good subjects.  Some of the simple stuff written in that book is stuff that gets easily missed.  Bill was wise enough to spell those simple things out.  As much as they are simple to do, therefore easy to ignore and avoid doing, they carry a lot of consumer impact.  Just because a process is easy to do does not necessarily mean we will do it regularly.  Often times I witness business leaders skip doing the easy stuff.  They seem to be compelled to tackle the harder stuff that needs to be done, first.  Then when they get enough time, they begin doing the easy stuff.  That is backwards!

Do the easy stuff first.  If we cannot get the simple stuff done well, we will obviously struggle with the harder stuff that needs to be done later.  Do not misunderstand this fundamental approach to success.  A lot of business owners skip right past the simple stuff and head straight to the harder stuff to do.  Many of the things that get forgotten to do are the things that consumers immediately expect.  For example, clean the glass in the entryway door of your restaurant.

A dirty, smudge filled glass entryway door does not look appetizing to the people outside who are reading your menu plaque, the one you professionally had framed and carefully posted on the outside of the entryway of your building.  All of the great marketing effort you have spent good money to do with this part of your business model does not help the unattractive dirty front door!  Those people notice it and move on to read the next menu on the neighboring restaurant down the street.  Remember, they are fickle beyond choice.  Get the easy stuff down well.  It should always be first on your list of accomplishments.  Do not skip the easy stuff because it seems of little significance.

Bill talks about this stuff in his simple book.  Do you mean to tell me that one of the richest people in the world suggests this kind of thing to his business readers?  Yes, he does.  He stresses how important this kind of stuff is to those who plan to succeed in their business model.  Dah.

Fix the simple stuff first.  Speak first.  Furthermore, when change is occurring in your market segment make sure you are one of those business models where consumers can see that change happen.  Be first to the marketplace.  Speak first.  When cupcakes took on a new meaning to the consumers, did you change some of your normal desserts to exotic cupcakes?  Why not?  Maybe peach cobbler is not as important to many consumers any more.  Be timely.  Get with it.  Be first to speak.  Be first to the marketplace.  Be first to change.  Be first to introduce the new hot things.  Be in front of the coming trends.  Be the place where your consumers can be on time, in the know, up front and spoken first.

Have you ever heard the phrase, love is blind?  It is.  When we love someone we do not easily see their short sidings.  We do not recognize their abusive ways.  We do not recognize their alcoholism.  We do not recognize their infidelity.  Love is often times blind.  That is also true for marketing.  When we love typewriters, we do not recognize GPS systems, Ipods and PC's.  Typewriters do not do "You Tube".  When we love coil spring beds we do not recognize air beds.  When we love making donuts we do not recognize cupcakes.  Love is sometimes blind in the world of marketing.  Be very aware of this challenge.  Learn how to love being first to speak instead first to protect an old way of doing things.  Become very timely with your marketing efforts.  Speak first.

Once you get this kind of thing down well, begin speaking more often.  Make sure the kids know you have children's decorated cupcakes.  Make some convenient cupcake packages for Sunday Schools, grade school recognition events and many other opportunities to get the word out about what you have to offer.  Get your business to circulate into other motions and environments.  Find a long list of extra-curricular events that could be places where you parade your wares.  Do not sit and wait for the customers to come and find you.  Go find them.  Get placed where they are going.  Do things that make your wares become noticed in the places where they are doing their things.

Are your mattresses in motels?  Are your mattresses in hospitals?  Are your mattresses in local bed and breakfast facilities?  Are your mattresses displayed at health and wellness events?  Are your beds featured in health clubs?  Why do you permit these places where your potential customers frequent to be void of who you are and what you do?  Think about this stuff.  Become connected in these ways.  Help your marketing become what it can and should become.  Learn how to speak often.  Make your competitors worry about where you will show up next.  Find nice creative ways to speak more often.  The consumers in your region should think of you when they are ready to purchase a new bed.  The consumers in your region should think of you when they are looking to go find a nice quick treat, maybe a cupcake and a coffee.  When you speak often, they will hear you often.  Those mental imprints are important to your overall marketing plan.  Speak often.

Then finally, speak loudly.  Make sure you do not whisper your way through the jungle of competition.  Do your speaking in a loud way.  Do not become weird or ridiculous, but speak louder than the competition.  Make sure the noise you make can be heard.  If you do newspaper advertising, which is old school, do not select an advertisement size and page position that gets buried around toothpaste and cigarettes.  That will turn out to become too quiet.  It will not get noticed.  Learn how to dominate a page.  You need to be louder than anyone else on that page.

This is true in website design, website placement and website interest.  Find ways to make your noise louder than the noise they produce.  If they make a louder noise than your business model, they win.  Search your plans to see if they include making louder noise.  Speak loudly.  The world of marketing rewards those business models who speak the loudest, the most often and out with the news first!  Get good at these three. Learn how to improve all three of these marketing efforts.  Make sure your competition finds some sleepless nights worrying about where your business is going.  Make sure your potential consumers know you are the place they can go to satisfy their needs to see new things, to try new excitements and to be 'with it' when they buy.  That is how growth begins to occur.

Speak first, speak often and speak loudly.

Until next time...