Business Owners Toolbox Blog Discussions and articles to help the small business owner solve the challenges they face as they grow their business.

July 10, 2012

Selling Internet Video Marketing Services

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: , , — Mike Van Horn @ 4:58 pm

Q. As the owner of an internet video marketing company, what is the most effective way for me to prospect and generate sales with little or no budget? Asked on LinkedIn by Jonathan Franco.

A. Selling “internet video marketing services” cries out for internet video marketing!
At the same time, 80% of selling is just showing up. You’ve got to get your face out there. In the end, people buy you.

The people I know in your business go to meetings of business organizations and make presentations on how to do video marketing affordably. The venue must have wi-fi and a digital projector, so that you can demonstrate some before-and-after efforts. Select a guinea pig and do a two-minute video for them right on the spot. You want people to say, “That’s not so scary! I could do that!” and “I like this guy. I want to hire him to help me.”
Your approach is to show ’em how to do it for themselves, so that they will hire you to do it for ’em.

No budget? Then you have a one-man bootstrap operation–at least initially. You have to substitute your time for money. But you will need to invest in a quality website, where you can embed your videos, because that’s your portfolio.

It’s hard for me to see you attracting investors so you can hire a sales force. Don’t waste your time even trying. Get out there and sell yourself!

September 24, 2009

Marketing vs. Selling

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: , , — Mike Van Horn @ 4:22 pm

Q. What’s the difference between marketing and selling? I often hear these words used interchangeably.
(Asked during Business Group meeting)

A. Marketing and sales are often confused because “sales person” is seen as much less prestigious than “marketing associate,” so everything gets lumped into marketing.
Marketing is everything you do to prepare for sales. Selling is closing sales that make you money. Thus, you could say . . .
— Marketing is money OUT the door.
— Selling is money IN the door.
For small business owners, marketing is usually time intensive. We spend at least as many hours as we do dollars on marketing.
People who are good at marketing are often not good at selling and vice versa. These take different personalities and mindsets. Seldom will you find one person who is good at both. That goes for us entrepreneurs as well. We’re usually much better at one than the other, but we are forced into both roles, one of which we do poorly.

WHAT’S INCLUDED IN MARKETING? Remember, marketing is everything that leads up to selling. Here are some marketing activities:
– Handling incoming inquiries
– Asking your current customers for referrals for more business
– Networking and building relationships
– Advertising and public relations. Direct mail and e-newsletters
– Special promotional events
– Merchandising and merchandise selection
– Holding sales, offering preferred customer bonuses
– Getting articles published. Blogging
– Doing cold calls to set appointments
– Market research, customer surveys
– Branding, creating your sales message
– Design and creation of collateral materials
– Building and maintaining your web site, blog, Facebook page, Twitter
– Market planning and strategizing

Marketing includes doing good work so that your customers come back, and tell others about you. It includes hiring employees who are good at customer service, and giving them the training so that they can keep your customers happy.

Marketing includes pricing–finding the price level that will attract the customers you most want to do business with (and will make you a profit).

Marketing includes product design and development and packaging.

All these things lead up to selling.

SELLING INCLUDES THE ACTIVITIES THAT GET CUSTOMERS TO MAKE A PURCHASE . . .
. . . presenting, answering questions, making suggestions, doing proposals or estimates, addressing concerns, negotiating. And most important, asking for the sale. Then completing the sales agreement, etc.

Your sales people clearly do some marketing. Networking, responding to inquiries, making public presentations, doing cold calling, calling old customers. The marketing that sales people do best is just one or two steps away from selling.

Selling is harder than marketing, and this is why good sales people get paid a lot of money. As business owner, your aim should be that your sales people get filthy rich, because in the process, they make you even richer.

Because selling is hard for many people (including sales people), those who are hired to do both often spend too much time on marketing activities and not enough on selling. (This goes for us as business owners as well.)

Salespeople are motivated by performance incentives, aka commissions. In my experience, sales people on an hourly rate or salary are less effective. If there’s a mix between salary and commission, it should be weighted toward the latter. Their performance is very easy to measure: signed orders, cash in the door. Not hours worked, nor contacts made, but sales closed.

The marketing and selling funnel. This funnel shows the different stages of marketing as it proceeds toward a sale. It’s wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. This represents that your marketing must reach a lot of people in order to make a few sales.

I’ll send this to you for free. Just subscribe to my list, then email me and ask for it. I’ll send it as a pdf. (You’ll also receive my Success Tips from Small Business Owners, just for subscribing.)

August 14, 2008

My Top 10 Rules for Small Business Marketing

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: , , , , — Mike Van Horn @ 4:15 pm

Q: What are the marketing needs for the average small business? Do you consider working with marketing consultants and, if so, what would you go to one for? 

I’m looking to get thoughts from those who are in/ run a small business (i.e., sole-proprietorship to a place with fewer than 20 employees)

 (Linked In posting, Aug 14, 08)

A: My Top 10 rules for Small Business Marketing? At least some good guidelines:

First, you asked about the marketing needs of the “average small business.” There’s no “average business.” Very different marketing/selling needs for a retailer, personal services, business services, and manufacturer/distributor.

• Marketing is essential, and it is expensive. You know what they say about owning a yacht? “It’s a hole in the water you throw money into.” Marketing can be the same way.

For a small company on a shoestring budget, the question is, how can you get the most from every marketing dollar you spend? And for every hour you spend on marketing and selling?

• Separate marketing and selling in your thinking. People who lump selling in with marketing often have lousy sales.

• Do you have more time, or more money? For the shoestringers, it’s time. So you need a time-centered marketing strategy.

• But then you must balance bringing in the work with doing the work. This leads to the eternal entrepreneur’s dilemma: You get a project; you stop marketing. The project ends; you have no work because you stopped marketing.

• Look at your marketing/selling at 3 different levels, and have a plan and budget for each:

1. Shortest route to cash flow. What sales can you bring in within 30 days?

2. Business development. How can you cultivate relationships that turn into sales within, say, 6 months?

3. Strategic development. How can you take advantage of big opportunities over the next 2 years or so?

• The “Goldilocks principle.” What size jobs/customers are just right for you?

1. Boulders. Big, lots of competition (thus lower margin), dominates your time if you get it, devastating if you lose it. They may view you as a contract employee.

2. Rocks. Solid, profitable, appreciative, no single job is more than 20% of your revenue

3. Pebbles. Tiny. Takes as much time to get as a larger job, low margin, demanding, slow pay

Aim your marketing at your “rocks.” If other good ones fall into your lap, take them.

• What works for you? Do more of what works, and stop doing the rest. To find out: List everything you already do (or might do) for marketing. For each one, estimate

…How much time you spend on it (per month, say)

…How much money you spend on it, per month

…What results you’ve produced so far: number of customers, size of jobs, type of work, desirability of prospects, etc.

…Lead time, sales cycle. How long does it take to pay off?

Ideally, you’d like to compare this ratio for each:

         Gross profit from the sales produced, divided by . . .

         Marketing/selling cost (including time)

When I do this for myself (I sell small business services) here’s what I learn:

…DOESN’T PAY OFF. Networking groups (wrong kind of prospects), display ads, yellow pages, PR campaigns, direct mailings or cold call campaigns

…PAYS OFF. Referrals from clients (remember to ask for them!), mutual referral sources, public speaking, writing books, writing articles (like this one), getting interviewed, professional organizations

…SHOULD PAY OFF BETTER. Website (search engine optimization)

Your list may be exactly the opposite of this.

• Get your face out there. Esp. for service businesses, people buy you. “80% of selling is just showing up!”

• Stick to it. The other 80% of selling is consistency and follow up. Have a regimen for marketing and selling, and get a coach to help you stay on it. Your coach is your de facto sales manager.

• Get needed help. Are you a great marketer/seller? Then hire someone to do the work for you. Are you best at doing the work? Then hire a marketer AND a sales person. (Rarely are these two skills combined in one head.)

Should you hire a consultant? For a shoestringer, be wary! Remember the yacht!

…Hire specific expertise: web designer, graphic designer, copywriter.

…Hiring someone to do a marketing plan for you is a waste of money. Find a FREE marketing advisor, e.g., through SCORE or your local Small Business Development Center. I could email you a page of questions, and if you answer them, you have a marketing plan.

…Hire someone to sell for you, and pay them mainly on results ($$$$) produced. Good sales people are rare and expensive. Ask one: “I’d like to pay you obscene amounts of money. How much is that for you? Now give me a plan of how you’re going to produce it.”

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