Herman: John L. Herman Jr., Author

Too Busy To Market...

While people get caught up in the daily grind of their business they forget a critical feature that made them successful and will keep them that way. They forget to keep marketing for new customers.

Take a look at the last ten customers who hired you if you have a service business. Did they come from word-of-mouth? Did they find you on their own while researching the Internet? Or did they actually come from some marketing effort you made?

When the business finds a rhythm and you are tied up all day handling the needs of current customers, paying the bills, scheduling your regular jobs, and covering for your staff as they head out for a summer vacation…who is doing the new prospecting for future customers? Probably no one. You will notice this about four months from now when the current customers don’t need you as much and there are no new ones to replace them. But you are so busy! How could you possibly find time for cold calls, or checking the new flyer or postcard mailer that should be going out? Stopping at a new customers office just to say hello seems out of the question, and yet you drove by a dozen or so new prospects just in this last week. Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to stop on your way by and say hello, drop off some company info, and at least get a face-to-face so that when the new prospect needs you that familiarity helps land the customer over their calling on a stranger, your competitor, who was “too busy to stop” on their way by.

Start-ups are probably the guiltiest of “too busy to market.” They have too many balls up in the air to do marketing for new customers, right? If they take that attitude they will soon have plenty of time, after they go out of business.

Five hours a week. That’s your challenge if you want to succeed. If you can’t find five hours a week to strictly devote to marketing for new customers you are cheating yourself, your employees, and your investors who want to see growth to fill the void of the customers who you will need to replace.

• Posted: 1 July 2008
• Comments: 1
• Category: Business success

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