Marketing with Moxie

In my last post, I talked about the elusive definition of marketing and how most small business owners feel about marketing. They know they need marketing. They might even be doing it, but they're not sure where to begin or if it even works. The business owner who stood up to announce, "I hate marketing," identified his pain. But what is pain, really? Pain is a symptom.  It means something else is going on.  So what's really happening? Why is marketing such a pain for small business owners and entrepreneurs? Because they focus on tactics before developing a strategy. They don't have a systematic marketing plan. They throw money away on an ad campaign, a fancy website or some shiny new online gadget with out first understanding their customer's wants and needs. They don't know to get those customers to know, like and trust them.  But why do they do that? One reason is obsession over the product or service.

Keith J. Cunningham, the author of Keys to the Vault and a noted teacher on business mastery said in a seminar I attended recently in Austin that a key mistake business owners and entrepreneurs make is obsessing over their product. They focus on making it perfect or developing technical skills and ignore many of the building blocks of businesses, like identifying what pain their product will solve and understanding who their ideal customer is. They don't work to create a unique difference that makes them stand out in the marketplace or develop core messages to communicate that difference consistently.

Those steps are the keys to develop a marketing strategy. Sure, it all starts with a great product or service but that's not what people buy. They are looking for things that make you referable, like your incredible guarantee, your unique process, exciting packaging or great people. Those things make a buzz in the market place. If you've flown on Southwest Airlines you know what I mean. Getting from Point A to Point B is their product, just like American Airlines. Yes, Southwest did obsess over their product by buying only one type of airplane (the Boeing 737) and developing fast boarding systems to keep those planes flying, but everything was developed with the customer in mind and they infused their business with a corporate culture that emphasizes fun and rewards employees for delighting customers. Have you ever heard anyone go off about the crazy-fun flight attendant on American Airlines?

So, what's your business worth to you? Are you willing to slow down long enough to find a cure for your marketing pain? Or, do you think you don't have time for the "fluff" of creating a marketing plan? It takes time to get it right, and you might need a little rehabilitative therapy along the way. But if you develop a systematic, step-by-step marketing plan to grow your business and use it to fuel the right tactics, your business will be healthier and so will you. Done right, it will help you realize your business and professional goals.  And you'll know that when you see it.