As an entrepreneur or CEO, when it comes to running your business, where do you put a lot of priority?
Do you focus on putting money on the table or removing money from the table? Putting money on the table is all about marketing and sales. Removing the money is about internal controls and procedures to minimize fraud and abuse. Both of these things are critical. But what do you focus on as an entrepreneur?
For any business, I have got to understand that it is not about the lack of capital that makes businesses to stagnate, it is the failure to sell as much as possible and generate sufficient cash flow to keep the business running. If you can afford to open for business, what you need is the ability to sell – how do you find customers to sell as much as you can. That is the secret to your business success. Once money comes in, you can easily hire a great Accountant and an Attorney to help protect how you spend it.
To this end, I will dedicate the following articles on #WayofTheGuerrilla marketing and sales. The Way of the Guerilla marketing is a program developed at Summit Consulting Ltd that empowers entrepreneurs with low-cost marketing and sales weapons for maximum revenue – how do you sell a lot on a shoestring budget. The tools are ideal for any person in charge of growing the top line – whether a resource mobilization professional at a not for profit organization or a head of marketing in a financial institution. You will save money and make the most of your already existing budget which when applied to the #wayoftheguerrilla, will be transformative to your sales results.
A case in point
Take an example of a large entity like a telecom company or a financial institution. They have a big marketing budget of say US $1m marketing and sales annual budget. Have a marketing agency firm to manage that budget in close consultation with the company marketing department. They also have a huge sales team. How do they spend the marketing and sales budget? You guessed right – they will make a budgeting plan for below and line effort and above the line. That will include brand visibility promotion and advertising for specific products campaigns on various channels – TV, Radio, Print, and Online. The reasons for the spending is about creating awareness of the products and new promos. And the measure of the marketing spend will be ‘top of the range’ and ‘brand awareness.’ Their return on marketing investment (ROMI) spend will not consider new sales but ad awareness reach – which is already a given. People already know about the brand. Marketing in the major media outlets may deliver some results because already a large number of people use the company’s services, and the telecom has a wide country-wide branch network and dealers. So it is easy for someone to buy once they hear of a new promotion. See how it is easy to market an already successful company!
Now let’s consider an entrepreneur operating a coffee shop at a major mall in town.
What are your ideal marketing and sales strategy? Does it make sense to place lots of ads on TV, Newspapers, and Radio? Or you target specific visitors to the vicinity of the business’s location. If you spend money on a newspaper ad, chances are that only about 1% of the people who read will visit your coffee shop! You need to use different marketing approaches to sell!
That is what we call marketing myopia.
Simply put, a company like a telecom, will commit a lot of money to invest in television commercials or other because they are looking for brand visibility and new product awareness to their already existing customers. They already got a lot of clientele but want to remain in everybody’s mind to up the sales.
As a small business, is it viable to place ads in such media or you need unconventional marketing strategies for conventional results?
Remember the quality of your marketing choices will make or break your business. For a big company, they are looking at brand equity. When they do a certain engagement with the public, they creating a brand presence. You need to ask yourself; as a small company is that going to be your main focus or are doing things because you want to see customers buying? The #WayofTheGuerrilla marketing and sales empower you with ‘100 marketing and sales weapons’ designed to have customers running to your business on a small budget. You don’t have to spend a fortune to market.
For a large company, they already have lots of cash. Their challenge is not actually how to spend, it is where to spend it. They need an agency to help in that spending.
For a small company, do you actually have the money or you are looking for it? You are interested in making a sale. In that case, you want to spend your money and someone else pays for that expenditure.
Adopt the way of the guerrilla marketing techniques for unprecedented super sales.
Join our next #wayoftheGuerrilla sales Class, Click here to register>>
Continue: #WayOfTheGuerrilla: what is your sales focus? Part 2 of 7
