Focus + strategy = success!

The most effective means of driving sales and creating a continual flow of new business is focus.

It is easier to focus with a strategy. A good working strategy takes all of the guess work out of what you’re meant to be doing – it gives you a clear indication of what you should be doing, for how long, in what ways, to whom it should be done and who should be doing it.

There are at least three elements every good working strategy should address and they are:

1. create a list of qualified prospects to go for

2. develop and engage your sales proposition

3. follow your action plan – who does what to whom for how long

Your strategy can be a lot more complex; and sometimes having more detail can allow you to do a multitude of amazing things. A more simple strategy which is well-used will triumph over a complex strategy that is not followed.

So keep it simple to start. Follow through on your simple strategies and take what you learn to make larger more complex strategies that enable you to accomplish more things. But you must be proactive. The strategy, no matter how complex, is no good if it isn’t used with focus and determination.

We can help you to develop your strategy, contact us.

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Are you maximising every point of contact?

Ask yourself this, ‘How many points of contact does my business have with potential customers?’ You might be surprised to see how few there really are: a business card, your receptionist, your office or showroom, your website, an email flyer, brochure, a press release or maybe a sales call. Continue reading

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A butterfly named Roger

Roger Azzam’s Butterfly Effect

This is a story written by Harry Beckwith, a services marketing guru, about how one man’s exceptional customer service led to much greater things. Continue reading

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results

Do you need to shake up your marketing?  Is it still producing results that you are happy with?  If so then great but if not, make sure you are not doing the same thing over and over and expecting the outcome to be different.

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Develop a core marketing message

Central to any company’s effective marketing is a message that speaks powerfully and consistently to your existing and potential clients.

Work through these points and you will be well on the way to developing a marketing message for your own business.

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Cold calling – the hardest thing really is getting started…

The list is made.  You know exactly what you have to do.  You have 30 people that you want to contact with your great special offer.  They have been qualified so you know you need to make every call count.

BUT you can’t pick up the phone!

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Exhibitions – getting the most out of them as a visitor

Today and tomorrow sees the Business North West 2011 Business North West 2011 exhibition taking place in central Manchester.  Two days of exhibitor promotions, seminars and networking opportunities with thousands of fellow business owners, directors and managers.

Business North West 2011

I thought this would be an appropriate time to look at how you make sure the time you spend away from your business at an exhibition is worthwhile.

In this post I will talk about how Bulldozer Bill and Organised Olivia would approach the exhibition.  I think you will be familiar with both their styles!

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“Mobilegeddon” is coming on April 21 – are you ready?

A few things get a webmaster’s attention, like waking up to a Twitter feed bombarded with news about a major algorithm update. Most algorithm updates come with vague or no warning, but Google recently announced “starting April 21, we will be expanding out use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have significant impact in our search results”.

Google is providing a timeline to encourage those who haven’t already adapted their websites to mobile to begin making this transition which means that you should work towards having a mobile-friendly website by April 21 because it’s apparent that Google intends to reward mobile-friendly websites with better rankings in mobile search. Websites that are not mobile-friendly may very well experience a dramatic decline in mobile rankings.

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Manage your social media from your desktop

If you are tired of switching between LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to find out the latest news and what your contacts are doing think about installing a personal real-time browser on your desktop. In our office, we use HootSuite and we love it!

 

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Promotional domain names

Often we work with clients to promote new services, seminars, events or launches as part of their marketing strategy.  If we are developing a campaign-specific strategy it may be that we will purchase promotional domain names to create a more memorable hook in the prospects mind.

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