Marketing - What's holding your business back?

The Same-Same Trap

There can be many things that hold our business back. Marketing is certainly one of these areas.

  1. Is your marketing the same year after year?
  2. Are you measuring it? Do you know what's working?
  3. Do you continue to market the same way that your competition does? Is your only reason because that's what they are doing?
  4. Do you feel you don't have the ability or contacts or where-with-all to actually do something different that will make you stand out?

All these things will happen at some point in your business. But I am continually discovering that many people do not do things differently because they don't know what to do.

Bury the "Can't Do" Thinking

Let me tell you a story. At the beginning of one school year, a teacher asked the children to write a list of things that they believed the kids could not do. The list could include activities such as swimming, mathematics, and other things like talking in front of the class. When each of the children had written their lists, the teacher collected them all and put them in a box then took them outdoors to have a ceremony to bury the box. "This class," she announced, "is going to be a 'Can Do Class'."

Not surprisingly, many of the children made more progress in that class than in any year previously.

So when you are feeling that you are struggling to believe that you can do things differently or that you can't come up with different ideas, identify your list of limitations or reasons why you can't, write them out, put them in a box and bury them. Now - start writing a list of some of the 'Can Do' things.

I have a friend who visits a unique Italian restaurant in New York. They have no set menu, and no price list – you order what you would like, and based on the service and quality of the food, you decide what to pay! That certainly buries old ideas and stands out. Not surprisingly their business is booming.

Get Others To Help

I also recommend you get some friends, or talk to someone you admire to get ideas that will stimulate your thinking.

Write out a list of the things you have done previously, and that haven't worked, and put them in the box. If you can't think of new ideas yourself, find someone who is going to be able to challenge your thinking, provide good marketing advice and encourage you to stretch beyond your comfortable zone.

Even odd ideas break people's thinking – during the worst of the GFC, Mitubishi with their 'Hi Ace' targeted farmers in New Zealand. The offer – 'Buy a High Ace and get a goat for free'! This, as expected, attracted media interest and the story ran nationally – I found it in a Sydney newspaper.

Many companies advertise and market to their potential customers with comfortable copy and headlines and nice looking pictures when there are times they need to be radically different, where they place their media, how they use the social media, and what form their advertising takes. Why not be one of those and attract attention and start to see your business grow?

Peter Irvine
www.peterirvine.com
Peter is Co-Founder of Gloria Jean’s Coffees, author of "Win In Business", speaker and business consultant.

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