For your marketing and advertising efforts to be effective, you must get out of the commodity business. The most powerful marketing strategy has little to do with advertising, direct mail, web sites, referrals or blogs.

No, before any of those things will really have any impact on your business you have to uncover and communicate a way in which your business is different from every other business that says they do what you do. You have to get out of the commodity business. You have to stake your claim on a simple idea or position in the mind of your prospective clients or customers.

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A Very Personal Network

What is a personal network, and why would I want one? That is the question that is often pondered, but not always asked, by those seeking to build a business and a reputation for their products and services. For many people who are in bricks and mortar businesses, the idea of networking online can seem like a rather strange and maybe even ridiculous idea. I sell to my local customers, why would I need to have a website, or to network online? Here are some answers to both of these questions, and some ideas to get you started in online and face-to-face networking.

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7 Steps to Consistent Referral Generation

Understanding your customer lifecycle and mapping every customer touch point is the key to generating a consistent flow of referrals.

Referrals happen, thank goodness, but for too many, they happen randomly, almost accidentally.

One of the keys to tapping the systematic generation of referrals is to identify and address the customer touch points that add up to lead a customer to the logical and emotional decision that your organization is referable.

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Here are some instant ways for you to bring in more customers and grow your business.

The following are 30 questions that will immediately pinpoint where your business is doing well – and where you can take action that will produce rapid results.

These are the questions that may help your business, if you are willing to spend a few minutes giving them serious thought – the results can be quite profound.

You should be aware that each question you answer ‘no’ to probably means that you are losing out on untapped profits. But the purpose of this process is not to have you feel bad – it’s to motivate you to make marketing a top priority. Have fun!

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