Five Reasons Why Your Marketing Isn't Working

1. The Days of Simple Selling are Over

Since the late 1980's technology has been shifting the balance of power from the seller to the customer.

If your marketing, prospecting and selling processes haven't evolved to deal with this new reality then you are destined to work harder every year to fill your pipeline and lclose deals. Still cold calling? How's that working for you? The days of un-leveraged time intensive push marketing are over.

2. Your Unique Value Proposition is Hidden From the Outside World

"Perception is Reality" - Lee Atwater

Within every specialty business I have worked with there exists a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) dying to get out. The problem is that it is trapped, hidden from view by crappy marketing. Instead of your marketing grabbing the prospect's attention, positioning you as the expert and beginning a relationship your marketing is filled with the same trite So What Who Cares (SWWC) statements as every other competitor. In essence your marketing leaves the prospect no choice but to conclude that you are all the same and that price is the only differentiating factor.

Unfortunately this sad state of affairs benefits neither the prospect or you.

3. Your Marketing is Outdated, Ineffective, Entirely Wrong and Positioning You as a Peddler

Not only is your marketing failing to effectively demonstrate your UVP, the methods you are following are outdated, ineffective and completely wrong for a specialty business.

The tired, old Creativity and Impressions (C-n-I) approach to marketing simply does not work because you don't sell a simple consumer item. The complexities of purchasing what you sell are high and prospects purchase what you sell infrequently.

"Dialing for dollars" and ignoring "No Solicitors" signs and knocking on doors positions you as a peddler trying to get your foot in the door. Evolved marketing positions you as an expert.

Evolved, Specialty Business Marketing has a higher purpose than brand awareness.

 The True Purpose of Specialty Business Marketing

1. Position you as the expert in your field
2. Get your prospects to call, contact and outright pursue you 
3. Start and nurture a relationship through automated, ongoing value delivery
4. Guide your prospect across the buying continuum and into your business

4. Your Marketing is Not Automated or Leveraged

Even if you like cold-calling (Do you?), voice mail and email have made "dialing for dollars" go the way of the dinosaurs. If you are still hanging on to this relic as a primary means of filling your sales pipeline you already know that working harder and being more motivated can only take you so far. What's the problem? It's simple really...cold calling and many other forms of marketing are one-off marketing methods whose effectiveness is directly proportional to the amount of time and energy you put into them.

Make 150 dials or knock on 150 doors and you just might close a 1/2 piece of business. Meanwhile, 4 hours of your day are gone, you haven't spent anytime face-to-face selling and you haven't provided the level of service to existing customers that you know you need to in order to retain them!

This approach to marketing has 3 fundamental flaws:

1. No automation - Stops working as soon as you do
2. No Leverage - 1:1 Effort to Prospect ratio
3. No Positive Positioning - Salesperson vs. Expert

5. Who finds Who First is Very Important, In fact, Critical!

Which of these scenarios makes for a more positive, powerful and profitable relationship?

1. A prospect is experiencing a problem and needs to solve it. You get lucky and after making a few hundred dials the stars align and she answers the phone and you begin your "pitch".

2. The same prospect is experiencing a problem and needs to solve it. Her reticular activator begins keeping a watch for possible solutions. She sees your ad, press release or article and CONTACTS YOU because you have given her a low risk way to get more information and expertise on how to solve her problem.

The second scenario, right?

Which is more typical for you? Which would you prefer?

Well unless you are a cold-calling junkie who enjoys being uncomfortable and making your prospects uncomfortable I'm going to go out on a limb and say you would prefer the second scenario every time, correct.

Now let's add the final reason, and perhaps most important reason the second scenario is preferable. In the second scenario you have positioned yourself as the expert and started your relationship from a position of strength. With this position and a properly developed marketing process you are 2 -5 times more likely to get the sale.

MarketingProfits4.0 Success Principle

Prospecting is obsolete, Positioning is relevant

The MarketingProfits4.0 Equation addresses all 5 of these factors head-on.  Learn all the details in the free report "How to Never Waste Another Dime on Crappy Marketing".