As a business coach, I meet with and work with a huge variety of people. When talking about sales and marketing, a common expression I come across is “I tried that and it doesn’t work!” and thus are not willing to consider that idea again.
Read Ensuring you and your business stand out from the crowd.
I’d love to share some ideas with you:
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Did you do it the right way?
Perhaps you didn’t do it right. With everything you do, there is a right and wrong way. In advertising, was it well written and designed? A poorly written advert, or badly designed flyer won’t work … but that doesn’t mean all flyers don’t work.
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Others make it work!
A painter recently stated that he ran an advert in the local paper and never got anything from it. Thing is that when I look at the local paper I see many, many businesses in there and some who have been there for years. If it wasn’t working, would they stick at it? Interestingly the last painter I used I got from the local paper, and since then have used him a few times! Certainly worked for him.
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Do it differently this time!
I know tradies avoid a certain type of client, now like the plague. In fact, this type of client now struggles to get tradies to work for them, as there is a reputation in the industry. Rather than saying you will never work with that type of client again, perhaps change how you work? It might be that you set rules in place, such as a substantial deposit and progress claims along the way, and if they are not paid, all work stops. I’ve had clients over the years who didn’t pay their bill. Once paid up, I could have said I won’t work with them again, but instead, I change how I work with them and instead have a pre-paid plan. Think about doing things differently.
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Consider your return.
Let’s say you spend $200 on a particular marketing strategy, and it only gave you 3 clients. If you sell high end services and perhaps each client was worth $2K then to me that is a good return. If however you sell boxes of paperclips and sold $10 of product all up, then yes, that didn’t work as well.
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Multiple Touch Points.
With any marketing, the trick to make this work is consistency. Frequently we need to have our marketing seen a number of times (anywhere from 7 to 11 times) before the average person is ready to buy from you. So sometimes your marketing is about brand awareness and being seen. So, don’t simply try something once and declare it a failure. Keep at it, again and again … it will pay off with persistency and consistency.
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Building Trust.
I’m an avid networker and will contest that word of mouth works really well, and thus have found networking a successful way to grow my businesses. Though again, hearing “I went to a (once) networking event and got no businesses from it” … and this is likely true. It takes time to develop relationships and build trust. The same applies to social media, you need to be seen repeatedly and build the trust before asking someone for their money. Networking is like a marriage; you didn’t get engaged on your first date; so don’t expect a sale at your first networking event.
The “I tried that and it didn’t work” thought to me is almost quitting. Do it once, didn’t get an exceptional result, so you quit. Some things need a bit of time to take traction, other things may simply need tweaking. Please think twice (or more) before you quit.
When you’re at this point I can help you through business coaching. Call me at 1800 77 65 61.
