To be a successful entrepreneur, you and your company must be great at marketing. All big successful businesses are advocates of marketing, they invest millions on it every year and many businesses spend more money on marketing than they currently have, purely because they know that the more they invest, the greater the return.
It’s easy to understand why many entrepreneurs when just starting out tend to focus their efforts into creating a great product or service. However unless your product or service is getting known and found by potential customers, your business is nothing. It’s the harsh truth, but it’s a fact.
We all assume that the perfect product or service will sell itself, unfortunately this is a myth. I sometimes wonder whether people associate the likes of Peter Jones being able to sell Reggae Reggae sauce by the bucket load, with him not being in the store trying to make sales and presuming that it’s the product making all the sales. This sauce is so much better than any other that it just sells itself. This type of thinking is delusional; people with little business and marketing knowledge often make false assumptions such as these. It’s the power of marketing that attracts sales.
Let’s break down what marketing really is, the term marketing is often misunderstood and used very broadly by people with little understanding of its purpose. Your marketing efforts should focus on engaging and communicating with prospective customers as effectively as possible. Your marketing system should also convert and retain a long-term relationship with your customers.
Your ability to market yourself and your business effectively could dictate the success of your enterprise and career. The majority of managers and business owners are unfamiliar with what marketing truly is and what is required to market your business efficiently. This is why so many businesses fail each and every year and we don’t want this to be you.
Any business that does not have a marketing plan is not a business that I would like to be part of. A business without a marketing plan is a high risk company and open to competitors bullying them out of the market. In most instances companies that do not have a marketing plan never get big enough to worry competitors in the first place.
We have seen many large businesses with ineffective marketing collapse over the past 10 years. Take Woolworths for instance, poor marketing. There are also thousands of businesses that do not attract and retain customers effectively; this is because the business owner overlooks marketing.