Why marketing should be important to small business

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"Adam, over the past six years, I've had the pleasure of 'bumping into you' on at least three business and marketing related forums. Your contributionsto discussions have always been courteous, astute, incisive and practical,delivered with good humour, and based upon 'real-world' business experience. You are clearly an experienced business professional who actually knows what he is talking about. I wonder if your clients know what a gem they have in you? As one business professional to another, I salute you.

Good Wishes,
John Williamson - The Wealth Coach
www.thewealthcoach.com
www.retaildisplaysecrets.com

+++++++++++++++++++

I just LOVED "7 Clues to a Profits Leak".

Steven Walker - Profit Improvement Advisors
Calgary, Canada

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You will be proud how your protégés are proceeding! We have expanded the business to Katherine and Alice (Tennant is also on the list). T he catering side of the business is far less stressful and is actually profitable, now that we only take the good jobs.
We will never forget the assistance you gave us in re-inventing our business!

Karen Sheldon

Managing Director

Karen Sheldon Catering

Darwin, Australia

+++++++++++++++++++

The chap is Adam Gordon whom I have known for many years. He is a former resident of Darwin having lived here for perhaps 25 years, is an excellent communicator and has a very good appreciation of small business, business plans and all that goes with it. In fact Adam is regarded as a business guru.

Charles Wright, QS Services, Darwin, Australia

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Thanks for the catch-up the other day. It's great to be working with a legend in the small business community.

AJ Kulatunga, BLKMGK ICT

Darwin, Australia

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The 7 Clues is a great.

What I like the most in the Seven Clues report is that it clearly explains that accounting is merely a subset of proper financial management and

that only the business owner can practise financial management. The accountant does the accounting, and in doing so supports the business owner's financial management. And the business owner uses the accountant's information, but relying on the accountant to do full-blown financial management is short-sighted.

The report nicely "grounds" an otherwise complex topic which many business owners are afraid of touching, so they often move ahead in blissful ignorance. The water hose and the soggy soil under the leak makes an excellent and easy-to-comprehend example, upon which the financial management concept is nicely built.

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur Dynamic Innovations Squad
Personal and Firm-Wide Performance Improvement for Management Consulting Firms

Vancouver, BC Canada

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You have played a very important role in my development in business.

You were there with the right information at the right time, I thank you for that.
By adding the next level of systems, and marketing knowledge that you brought to the table we able to identify our objectives, acknowledge the gaps in our business and put in place the planning so as to achieve those objectives. Within 5 years we achieved 9 of our ten stated objectives. In that same year we won the NT Telstra Small business of the year"

Greg Haigh
Director - Trade Group
Regional And Northern maintenance services
RANms

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Why marketing should be important to small business

And usually isn't!

19th March 2008

Let's face it. Most small businesses don't market their businesses and their products and services very well. In fact very often they don't market them at all. Many studies show that lack of marketing skills and knowledge is one of the major weaknesses of small businesses.

Why is it so? There are probably a couple of reasons for this: the background to the owners and managers; and a fear of being seen to "sell".

Many small businesses are started by people who are good at what they do, and that often means having a trade or a technical background. To become good at what they do they will have spent years gaining those skills. Is this you?

Whatever formal learning of those skills you may have done the formal training will have been supplemented by even more time of practical, on-the-job training, being guided by people with even more years of practical skills and knowledge.

So you get to set up and run your own business. And you win business based on your reputation. And this is good enough.... for awhile.

It is good enough while nothing changes in your market place. For it is when your market place changes that you may find you lack one essential ingredient for success in your business. And that essential ingredient is control.

Control over the sales you win and where those sales come from. Anybody in business will know that some sales are more profitable than others, and that growing your business will be more certain if you concentrate your time and money on the more profitable sales, rather than the less profitable sales

But without marketing you have no control. Businesses feel they must accept each sale that comes through the door, because they don't know where the next sale is coming from.

Many people are under the mistaken belief that all they have to do is have a good product or service and that is all they need to have a business. Unfortunately it is not as simple as that. If you don't have a good product or service, you won't exist for long. You also need to let people know your company exists.

And letting the people know you exist won't work unless they are the right people, the people who are likely to buy your product or service. Targeting the right people means you are beginning to develop a good marketing strategy. Marketing is absolutely everything you do in your business.

Accepting each sale that comes through the door not only means that part of your time and effort will inevitably be spent on jobs that are less profitable than others, but it can also lead you down the wrong path. A few jobs come in you accept them, even though they are not in your core competency, and next thing you find yourself being lead away from your area of expertise, into uncharted markets.

Uncharted markets may be much more competitive than markets based on your skills and expertise, and being more competitive, the competition is likely to be through price, and lower margins.

One definition of marketing suggests that "Marketing is selling the right product to the right people at the right time at the right place and at the right price." By the right price I mean a price that is profitable to you and of value to the customer.

And if you doubt the validity of that definition try substituting the word "wrong" in just any one spot that it say "right" and ask what that means for your business.

Get it "right" and you will have greater control over your business, and you'll also find you have developed a marketing strategy to do so!

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