'Don't hide your light under a bushel ...'
BUSINESS philosophers have said it enough times to make you feel it’s their mantra. What’s that?
Marketing is the single most important discipline in business.
Marketing isn’t just about getting your product or service into the client’s hands. It’s infinitely more than that. It’s about how you plan to advertise your product, how you present it, how you deliver it, and how you explain to the user the way it works before the sale. Yet there’s one more thing.
What is it? It’s service. I read something in an e-zine recently which pointed out that 80% of businesses don’t deliver on service. That’s simply mind-blowing and it creates a marketing opportunity that’s better than the enterprising shoe salesman who visited a place where people weren't wearing shoes!
No matter what your business is, service or the lack of it, is the single key element which can mean either a bread-and-butter living or delivering a boost which can take it into the stratosphere. Let’s take an example.
According to American marketing guru, Dan Kennedy, the Disney Companies excel in this area. He says when people visit Disneyland or Disney World they’re struck by the service-oriented attitude of staff. But it goes deeper. As well, visitors comment on the cleanliness of the parks.
This may not seem like service but it is. Remember, these parks have been opened for decades now. After that length of time it’s only natural they’d be looking a little jaded. Not so with Disney parks! Maintenance and good service are hallmarks of their marketing programme and it is a winner.
Kennedy also says that it’s the little things that, taken together, add up to a hard-to-resist marketing offer. He says there’s not much point in looking for a big edge because they’re mostly gone now. But if you do the little things extraordinarily well, you’ll be in the 20% who will always make a success of their businesses.
Little things like returning phone calls, getting back to those who you say you will, and following through until the job is done. This, in its purest sense, is what marketing is.
About the author: Paul Herring Dip FS
Paul is Adviser Principal of life-risk insurance and superannuation advisory firm PCH Financial, and provides business writing services at PCH Words that Sell.
PCH Financial is the developer of the LEAP© Concept. Paul says this
means the firm’s advisers:
— Listen...to your key aspirations, your goals and your concerns
— Evaluate...where you are now and what you might need to do to get where you want to be
— Advise...and if the above indicates it’s necessary, we suggest a...
— Procedure...which will free you up to do what you do best - work on the other things
