Today’s featured contribution in our 2015 SBA TOP 10 Needs of Small Business Owners research series is written by Walter Wise, a Marketing Strategist, Lead Generation Specialist and Executive Coach at BPI Strategy Group, http://www.bpistrategy.com who works with small businesses across the US, mainly IT firms in the Northeast US.
About half of all start-ups will fail in the first year or two and over 87% will fail with in 5 years. The majority of their problems stem from poor marketing or lack there of, poor financial management and poor overall management skills.
Just about every business owner I have been in contact with is really good at what he or she does, but when it comes to the other skills you need to run a business, they are seriously lacking, from refusing to delegate certain tasks to refusing to ask for professional help and advice before it is too late.
Perhaps the most overlooked problem is marketing. Many business owners will attempt to write something about their business and put it out over social media, direct mail, ads or email. Then when it comes back with no results, they blame marketing. Marketers do the same thing. They forget the basic tenet that it is the message that gets the result, not the medium in which you send it. Plus the marketing taught in school does not come close to what small businesses need. Just look at the websites of three or four businesses in the same niche. They all look the same and say the same things – they take care of their clients, they provide the best service and they have been in business since 1431 B.C. That does not cut it. Saying things like that is what everyone says. Following your competitors marketing only puts you in a commodity position and forces you to compete on price, not value.
Only between 1% and 5% of your prospects are now buyers. 37% will buy in the next month and the remainder are lookers and may buy at some point. 99% of all marketers focus on the now buyers and forget about the others. By focusing on the lookers and the soon to be buyers, you will enhance your chances of success, especially is your business is at the top of their “buy for them” list. Use automated systems to help solve this problem – email auto-responders which send out valuable content on a regular basis to all prospects, clients and “lookers”.
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Walter Wise is a Marketing Strategist, Lead Generation Specialist and Executive Coach at BPI Strategy Group http://www.bpistrategy.com and the author of the highly acclaimed book “Getting Back to Basics, Effective Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business in Today’s Brutal Economy”. He has been quoted on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX as well as in several national publications such as Docurated, Examiner.com and the B2B News Network and has published several articles on LinkedIn.
Thank you Walter for your contribution and we wish you all the best in 2015!
List of Top 10 Needs of Small Business Articles: http://sbatop10.wordpress.com
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