Today I'd like to chat about the different types of capabilities and potential staff roles necessary as one grows from inception and survival into growth mode.  At Springboard Consulting we developed a business consulting tool that helps to identify key objectives necessary to springboard your business to the next level.  These levels represent the maturity of the business and here is a brief explanation of the model.

• Inception / Startups; Less than 2 years old
• Survival / More than 2 years or making a profit
• Growth / Business experiencing fast growth, growing staff needs
• Expansion / Planning Franchising, Licensing, or Multiple Locations business models
• Maturity / Brand recognition, People, Process, and Technology needs fulfilled

As a company moves towards the growth level, there are essentially three key roles that need to be filled as a building block for growth.

• The Expert
• The Manager
• The Leader

All of these roles need to be played simultaneously by different people...

We are going to embark upon a journey through the world of e-myths and debunk them to help you avoid falling into the e-myth trap.

First, let’s take a minute to talk about what an e-myth is. An entrepreneurial myth, or e-myth, is an assumption that anyone can succeed at business with:

• Desire
• Some capital
• A targeted profit

This sounds great, but it just not realistic. Think of starting a business as a marathon. Sure, everyone starts out of the gate at record pace, but after a few miles people start slowing and some drop out entirely. Building a successful business takes stamina and agility.  It takes the mindset of a champion- a corporate athlete who is driven by a Vision to help themselves and others around them.

The reality is that there are many different facets to a successful business and none of them can be ignored if you plan to find success.

Let’s take a minute to talk about entrepreneurial emotional seizure. This defines the roller coaster of emotions that...

Most of successful marketing professionals use a series of information based ads that build emotion and a call to action. These are much more effective than a standard company branding advertisements. The same principles that go into putting together a high impact (and, often, high priced) ad campaign can be adapted to fit your needs with similar results.

Here are some ways to put together and execute a professional, effective ad campaign:

1. Put together a short report that’ll you’ll automatically send to prospects when they contact you. This should include a short description of your business and what you specialize in. Don’t forget to include case studies, samples or other proof of your success.
2. Develop value-oriented ads.
3. Consider newsletters as a way of educating and informing customers about your industry and services offered.  Like this one!
4. Offer a free seminar, webinar or other lecture to build awareness of your business, but make sure you make the...

There are three key areas of public relations you can use to boost your advertising results ten-fold over your paid advertising.

The key to public relations lie in:

• Public relation or publicity
• Merchandising
• Promotions

With a solid plan in place that encompasses all these areas, you’ll have a great approach to use public relations in the best way possible.

Public relations include all that is the media. Don’t limit yourself. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines and more are all equally powerful. Online marketing is just as, if not more, important as conventional media.

Here are the steps to get noticed by the media:

1. Put together a press release for your company. The press release should be relevant to your target market and address consumer interest, not just announce your business.
2. Compact your press release to include one hook and one angle. Choose the most attention-getting to make sure the media person you are sending it to...

It’s extremely important to build relationships with your vendors and those around you can bring in new customers/clients and increase awareness of your company branding.

The people you work directly with on your products and services are really the ones with the most to gain when you find success. By taking the time to get to know them, you’ll find a whole host of opportunities you didn’t realize were there.

Look for great ways to offer your vendors rewards for helping grow your business and everyone wins. One of ways you can do this is by offering performance based incentives and strategic alignment strategies that are much larger than their normal charges.

Here’s the step-by-step process to putting together a strategic partnership with a vendor:

1. Approach all the vendors you work with and offer an incentive based on performance.
2. Put the generous incentive plan together from their perspective, even take suggestions.
3. Develop a clear, concise and easy to...

If your marketing is doing its job, you should have qualified sales leads/prospects interested in learning more and becoming future customers. There are a few key ways to draw them in and seal the deal. You need to be:

• Inviting
• Informative
• Enjoyable 

The biggest fear of most new customers is buyer’s remorse. You want to avoid this at all costs and this should be mitigated if you’ve provided a quality product/service that delivers on the marketing claims you’ve made.

However, this can still occur. There are a two ways to deal with this:

• Offer to refund money-no questions asked
• Offer a bonus they can keep even if they return the product

These offers alone will also mitigate buyer’s remorse because the customer will trust you more, just for offering these things.

There are number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:

1. Offer a special price as an opportunity for you to test the market.
2. Offer a referral incentive.
3. Offer a smaller, more...

There is a lot of crap out there these days.  We have so many ways that advertisers, marketers, and salespeople are using to fight for our attention we are becoming numb.  That is until something POPS and we see something of value.  Something other than the same old crap.  There are 5 major components to good advertising copy that breaks through the CRAP-O-SPHERE: (The order of these is essential to success)

• Command Attention
• Showcase Benefits of Products/Services with Insights
• Prove the Benefits
• Persuade People to Embrace the Benefits
• Call to Action

Advertising is sales in print. So, you need to think about the unique benefits your products/services offer and showcase that in a persuasive way. You need to emphasize results, not features.

Let’s take a minute to talk about each of these components:

1. Command Attention: This is usually accomplished with the headline. You need an attention-getter that makes people want to know more about your...

As an advertising sales representative at the Dallas Business Journal in the early 2000’s I sold ads to business owners who were always interested in direct response.  Advertising is necessary but there is more you need to do for achieving direct response success.

Direct response marketing is a marketing method that demands a direct response from your potential customers. This type of marketing is used to answer questions, present your branding, products and the reason you do what you do. Customers are offered the opportunity to respond, whether that be in the way of signing up for a newsletter, posting a comment on your site or blog, or purchasing a product from you.

So, what does direct response marketing look like? Well, it comes in many forms, including:

• Direct mail
• Print and Social Media ads
• Radio and TV ads
• Coupons or other incentives
• Telemarketing

Some of the advantages of direct marketing are:

• A great way to use free time during lulls in business
• Productive way...

Today I’d like to teach you about the three most important startup marketing tools you need to get and keep new customers.  By the way, these startup tools should be a checklist for those of you who have been in business for over 2 years.  If you don't have these keys to success you should plug the holes and use this as a roadmap for success.  

Get ready for value and some behaviors to help you Sell Like A Champ!

In person:

It’s essential you meet with customers/clients in person whenever possible. This shows you respect them and take the time to work with your clients to give personal attention to each of them.

Follow up letter:

Always take a moment to send a follow up letter or email about what you talked about, new agreements or partnerships made and to thank them for taking the time to meet with you. Likewise, you should always send thank you letters or small gifts to partners you find success with.

Phone call:

Use a telephone call to follow up...

Educate them.

Take the time to market and sell new products to your old customers and less time trying to sell old products to new customers and you will see a drastic change in your sales, customer quality and branding position.

Here are a couple of key elements to use to retain your current customers:

1. Stay in contact: This means by phone, email, e-newsletter, in person-by pigeon if you have too!
2. Post-Purchase Assurance: This means you need to follow up with customers. Your customers need to feel like they are being supported for their purchase and with the item they purchased. How many times have you purchased a product, then felt completely abandoned? Something as simple as a Thank You note with your contact or customer service information can go along way in retaining a great customer.
3. Deals & Guarantees: Always offer your current customers the best deals and guarantees you have. Show them you appreciate their business or even come up with a club specifically to...