For the past ten years I have worked day in and day out with business owners and what they all have in common is that most of them have zero business experience but they have an amazing product or service. Then they go and start telling EVERYONE exactly what this magical product is that they created, why they created, what it took to create it, and at the end of the day they have few if any sales.
What’s worse is that they have no idea why they don’t have any sales. They’ve spent thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, on website, logo design, product development, overhead, employees, product design, and on top of it they are not even paying themselves. Top that with a market that is already overcrowded and your product and business is drowned out by your competitors.
What you don’t realize is that your clients do not care. They do not care what you’ve had to go through to create the product. They do not care what you’ve done to design the product. They do not care what your logo is, your overhead, your employees, or that you are not making a profit. They do not care. Now what’s worse, in my opinion, is that they don’t even tell you. They simply don’t purchase. At least with feedback you can make adjustments and changes to better serve your clients so that they are getting exactly what they want. In a saturated market it is even worse because they can’t even see your business through all the noise of your competitors in order to tell you what changes you need to make to better serve them.
Now I know that I am not telling you anything new here. If fact if you are one of the 20 percent of new business that fail in the first year, according to the Small Business Association, then you have already felt this, personally. The old adage stands the test of time for a reason, “This isn’t personal, it’s business!” There’s a reason why this came about. Everything that you’ve done to bring your product to market has taken a personal toll on you. That’s why your message is all about you and what your product does. More so what it shows is that you don’t have a strategic marketing plan in place that is designed to get sales and not educate the general public about your product.
Your average local independent hospital will spend an average of $1.3 million dollars per year on marketing, and conglomerates will spend $5.8 million dollars per year, according to the New York Times. This is a huge sum of money to be spending on a local population and what’s more important is that more than 50% of their budget is spent on branding. This means that they are not even trying to sell you a service or product. They are only trying to get you to associate their name as being the place to go for all your medical needs.
So between your customers telling you that they don’t care by not purchasing your product, the 800 pound gorilla in the room spending $5.8 million dollars on branding, and the vast amounts of funds and resources used starting up your business this is why so many business owners go out of business in the first few years.
Are you ready for the good news? It doesn’t have to be like that. You don’t have to fail the first year of business and in fact because you don’t have the same constraints as the big businesses you can be more effective with your marketing. The difference is that you have to have a strategic marketing plan that is designed to get sales, not designed to market your brand.
While there are many elements to a successful marketing campaign. You can use anything from direct mail to social media marketing. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks. What’s more important is your message.
Your message has to be designed to accomplish several different things all at once. First and foremost you want to highlight the pain point that your product or service solves. You want to keep turning up the pain until they can’t stand it and then, only then, show them that they only way to have their problem solved is if they purchase your product or service. Then you want to overcome any objections to purchasing your product. Last but not least you sell benefits not features. The sad truth of the matter is that happiness doesn’t sell. Health doesn’t sell. What they can do with that health and happiness does sell though and that’s what we want to highlight and amplify it in their mind.
Sell benefits, NOT features!
– Myron Allis
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. With the right business coach and marketing campaign you can effectively get to the other end and come out shinning. How you get down that tunnel is all going to depend on your message and it can’t be about you because at the end of the day, I don’t care and you should.
Myron Allis is the managing partner of a boutique marketing company that specializes in small businesses and startups. With over twelve years of experience he has been the architect of some of the largest product launches as well as executed marketing campaigns that have generated over $50 million dollars in profit from a single marketing campaign. With a solid team behind him, he has spent the last year helping hundreds of entrepreneurs and small business owners traveling to over five continents, and 10 countries teaching how to effective build their brand and market their company, product, service, and coaching.