Is it time for a proposition overhaul?

If, like me, you’re feeling a bit fatigued by the doom and gloom stories of the credit crunch, recession, deflation etc. etc. yawn yawn …

Maybe it’s time to remind yourself why it’s great to be a small business.

Whilst big, lumbering corporates frantically look at ways to cut their costs, re-engineer their business to strip out years of institutionalised inefficiency and wrestle to steer their titanic operations in a better direction, it seems to me small businesses have it GOOD.

Why? Because we’re more nimble, we can adapt to market conditions more quickly and by comparison, we’ve got super light power steering to take ourselves where the money is.

So if your business is taking a bit of a hit as a result of the crunch, maybe it’s time to do some smart marketing and have a look at your proposition. If it’s not getting results in current conditions … what can you change about your product … its pricing … its positioning … to make it more attractive to your key audiences?

At the end of the day, you have power to make changes … just as long as you’re in touch with your customers and you understand what it is that’s changed in their world that’s having a knock on effect on your business.

They say there’s always money to be made in a recession. I say hurray for the small businesses that have the sense and capability to grab opportunity whilst its there.

Account Based Marketing is a fancy way of saying ‘we keep in touch with our customers regularly. . .and use the feedback they give us to create really relevant marketing’.

And by marketing in this kind of context, we’re not just talking new customers – but being innovative and relevant enough with your existing customers to retain them and get more from them (increase customer value).

Given that ABM is billed as delivering buckets of benefits including better understanding, better focus, better client resonance, better innovation (the list goes on). It’s surprising more small businesses don’t do it.

Typically a formal approach to ABM will have three elements:

- regular (maybe annual, bi-annual or 1/4ly) structured feedback meetings with customers;

- each chunk of feedback will provide the impetus for a Key Account Plan that identifies initiatives to max delivery to that customer … or address their concerns;

- the implementation of a working set of measures that track progress on the above.

Seems like simple, honest-to-good practice to me. But still a lot of small businesses struggle … their client relationship functions lack structure. . ‘it’s so hands-on, feedback just happens!’

But as with so many things – a bit of discipline and formality also builds in a bit of objectivity and forces thinking time (on both the customer and the business’ part) that might not happen otherwise.

Seems like a smart move to me. If you want to read a neat 2page summary of how it works, you’ll find one here.

It’s been a while since I contributed to the blog. . .

And as well as spending that time contemplating my navel, I’ve also been giving the whole practice of marketing some serious thought. . . .

And my conclusions are:

- At best marketing (and brand) plays a significant role in underpinning (and in some cases sense checking) business success. (‘Cos if it’s not about the customer guys. . .then what is it about??)

- At worst marketing is rightly labeled the authority on hyperbole. A function designed to over promise and then wag a smug finger when the business (whatever it may be) under delivers.

The latter is the kind of flimsy, fluffy and downright dishonest kind of practice that gets marketeers a bad name.

OK. Rant over. What does this mean in practice if you are a small business, contemplating your own navel and suspecting (or firmly believing) that marketing has to be part of your arsenal to grow your business?

First of all it means that marketing is probably going to be part of a five spoke strategy to small business success (the other four spokes being 1) the entrepreneurial idea and leadership, 2) the operational infrastructure to make it happen, 3) smart financial mangement to make sure it pays, 4) technology in some shape or form to underpin delivery). 

So marketing (and the ability to sell) as number 5 are integral to the start-up equation. But the key to successful marketing is to actively take your message out to the market.  Marketing as an internalised function of business is a nonsense.  And in many cases, for small businesses, that means marketing involves hitting the road or picking up the phone and having a well thought out and engaging story to tell.

Second it means that whatever your marketing strategy is or does, it has to be based on truth.  It can paint a picture of a perfect truth that your business has yet to aspire to.  But it should not take a step too far. 

Because if your product or service repeatedly falls short of your own marketing benchmark, your business is living on borrowed time.  And these days with lending at an all time low, your borrowed time is bound to be very, very short.

Any branding bod worth their salt will recommend that you implement a set of measures to enable you to benchmark the returns you get on your marketing investment.  But finding the right measures can be tough.

Some ingenious chappy had created a site that measures brand equity (and the words it resides in), in simple visual terms. His site, Brand Tags will engage anyone with a interest in brands and absolutely mesmerise marketing junkies – particularly if you were party to the one word equity debate that kicked off a year or so ago. . .

Pay it a visit.  It’s NEAT.

Anybody apart from me who is already bored with hearing/watching stories of economic doom and gloom, everywhere you turn??

My worry is that only part of the story is fact (all those economic indicators that city boffins use are probably showing lower growth), but a lot of the story is down to a self fulfilling prophesy – and the responsibility for this falls firmly at the feet of the world’s media in my mind.

Ultimately the symptoms associated with downturn are mostly to do with confidence – not just the big boys with the big bonuses in the City, but whether regular Joes like you or me feel comfortable splashing out on shopping, whether its houses, cars, clothes and luxuries or food and drink.  So if what we read, see or hear , makes us anxious (regardless of whether our bank statements are telling us the same thing), we are going to behave more cautiously. . .spend less.  Hey presto, more headlines. . .house market on the verge of crashing, the high streets are hitting the doldrums etc etc.

So what about the small business?  Is anyone out there feeling the pinch??  I’m told that marketing budgets are one of the first to be cut when times are tough. . .so my work might hit a rocky patch.  But no signs as yet.  But I’m sure if I was running a small and recently formed Estate Agency, I’d be feeling a bit less positive – I know this because I’m selling my house and guess what. . .it’s taking forever.

What are your experiences is the downturn fact or fiction for your business – leave me a comment and let’s see if we can whip up our own storm in a tea-cup!!

Developing compelling propositions is a key function of marketing. But it isn’t an activity that can be done in isolation. After all, marketing can only articulate and package the proposition – it still has to be sold. And then, of course, it has to be delivered. . . which means sales and operations have to own the proposition too if the whole piece is going to hang together.

For very small businesses, the marketing, sales and operations functions may be one in the same thing. But there are still learnings to be had from considering the 360 degree nature of good proposition development. Because without thinking through the implications of your offer to your client or customer, you could be in real danger of overselling or mis-selling. . .which might deliver quick wins in terms of sales, but is likely to lead to disappointment and fall out, further down the line.

If proposition development is something on your mind, I found some rather nice downloadable resources here. Have a look and see what you think. But don’t forget that us marketing types like to dress up our own proposition with fancy models and lots of neat looking structure. When you strip all of this away, developing a good proposition is a fairly straightforward business: Make a compelling offer to the customer, that’s been thought through in terms of delivery. . .and make the offer from a position of insight or truth – an identified customer need and the ability to do a good job of satisfying that need.

So business is going good for me.  Having thrown the towel in on my corporate career just over a year ago, I stumbled around in the dark for a bit. Slept late, did some jobs around the house that I’d been putting off since I bought it (7 years ago), and then dropped into a bit of interim work.  After that I drifted into freelancing and finally in November I set up my company – more to appease the tax man, that because of any major intent to ‘build’ a business.

It may be true to say that after going through a similar exercise about 10 years ago and being tempted back into the world of work, I had it in the back of my mind that this time I would fill my boots and grow something this time that extended beyond ‘just me.’  But that was it.  No driving ambition.  No laser sharp business plan.  And still no damn business cards.  (Just can’t seem to get round to sending them to print).

But all of a sudden it is more than just me.  A couple of people helping me deliver (and impress) clients.  A web site on the way.  And I’ve even caught myself networking a bit.  Which led me to reflect on the whole ‘what makes an entrepreneur?’ question.

I did a bit of research on the web (after the fact) and found a couple of interesting links.  This one may make you chuckle.  And this one doesn’t offer any surprises, but gives a good summary.

But for me, having met a few successful entrepreneurs, and now wearing some shoes that see me taking decisions for the good (and growth) of my own business, it comes down to a couple of very simple traits:

Entrepreneurs are good at spotting the opportunity. And by that I don’t mean some high brow, rarified talent.  They spot jobs they can do and, importantly, they can see the money to be made from a piece of work or sale.  And the other thing is that they are prepared to take risks (large or small) and put themselves out there.  In most instances that means that once they’ve spotted the opportunity, they are quick to grab it and say ‘yes’.  They are prepared to answer the question, ‘How the heck am I gonna do that’, after the work is secure.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had my fingers burnt in the world of new media.  And it’s taught me a couple of valuable lessons about accessing the right skills for the job and taking the high ground on the quality of your marketing communications, regardless of media.

In the heady world of web 2.0, it seems that almost anything is possible.  As you cruise around sites, large and small you are tantalised by slick graphics and engaging animation.  But none of this happens by accident and if you’ve tried to achieve any of these things on your own web site, you’ll know that it can be a rocky road to success.

That’s because such a broad spectrum of skills and expertise has to be combined to create excellence in web design.  You’ve got the quality of the actual content, the quality of the visual execution and design.  You’ve got to understand the cognitive processes of the audience, if you want to create structure and experience that is intuitive.  You’ve got technical skill sets in animation and code and you’ve got the SEO stuff to consider – which I’m cautiously happy to admit, I understand very little about. . .

The point (and the challenge) is this. . . . very, very rarely do these skill sets come in handy packages.  If an individual can do two or more of these things effectively, then BINGO, you’ve got a head start. But I doubt if many people in the whole world can do them all.  Hence why there are so many sites out there that fall short of excellence, and why companies that can and do deliver s**t hot websites can charge hefty rates for your pleasure.

So here’s the nub of the issue.  Pulling together a really great on-line experience requires real collaboration and project management.  It also requires a clear vision of what you want the user experience to be. . . because it’s also very easy to get seduced by the possibilities of web design and end up with a spangly product that fails to connect.

For anyone looking to produce an advanced web presence, my advice is this:  Make sure your partner can demonstrate creativity and technical excellence in equal measure.  Check their credentials and look at live examples of their work, making sure that they’ve delivered the whole thing and not part, thereof.  And make sure that they’ve got the breadth of skill base to be able to deliver what you ask (which means there’s probably going to have to be at least 2, 3 or more people with complementary skill sets working together as a fairly tight unit to get your job done and done well).

Oh and one final thing. . . be prepared to wait.  Guys (or girls) who have the skill sets you are after are likely to be in demand.  Which means you may have to wait a little while before you get to take your turbo-charged web site for a spin.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, well written, relevant case studies can help you win business.

Why?  Because they give your potential customer proof that you can do what you say you do.  And a bit like PR, case studies have some of the kudos that comes from a third party endorsement.  After all, you wouldn’t go bandying about a case study without approval from the customer you’re name dropping.  (Would you?)

So we get straight to the nub of the case study issue.  Unless your existing customer is prepared to be named, your case study really isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  After all, any unscrupulous business could invent a whole host of ‘generic’ and anonymous case studies extolling their virtues. . . but without at least a solid nod to customer reference or endorsement the whole thing falls a bit flat.

For me there’s a clever way to short-circuit such a problem ever arising.  But it takes some marketing savvy and smart planning to execute.  The key is building in an expectation amongst your existing customers that you will want to ‘case study’ or showcase their successes, early on in your relationship.  And the key to making this palatable is to make sure your case studies glorify your client (i.e. have some use and purpose to them – even if it’s only for your key contact to show to his boss come appraisal time to prove how smart he/she has been in finding you and buying from you).

Sure this approach may throw up a few issues if you’re in some kind of turnaround or ‘embarrassing problem curing’ type of business.  Your customer may never want to admit to needing your help.  But in most other cases, writing a shared success story that your customer will be proud enough of to let you share, is a creative challenge just like any other. . . .there’s an angle to be found, you’ve just got to find it!  If you’re a super smart cookie, the way you write the case study may form the bones of a bit of  PR for your existing client as well.  Afterall, a lot of trade publications are on the look out for smart thinking and good new stories. Bingo – you’ve got a win-win with your customer and a credible case study in you bag to impress your prospects!

The rise of blogging culture has got loads of corporate types in a tizzy.  They are worried that their beautiful (and expensive) brands will be bought crashing to their knees by armies of bloggers on smear campaigns triggered either by poor product experiences – or simply for the hell of it (apparently a lot of bloggers are bitter and twisted and have nothing better to do than complain and rubbish innocent companies. . . )

I’m not sure how many small business reputations are either built or broken through  blogging alone. . . but whether it’s in the virtual or real world, one thing’s for sure.  Bad news sure travels quicker than good news.  And a real horror story about any kind of consumer experience is somehow much more interesting and hence ‘viral’ or ’sticky’ than a piece of good news.

To read deeper insight on this phenomenon, I’d like to point you at a site I discovered just last week, thanks to a commenter on this very blog.  (Sheesh, that’s how those crazy networks become self fulfilling. . .)  This site is obviously put together by some seriously marketing savvy cookies and lots of the content is really ‘out there’ thinking.  But the blog is well structured, so if you have a particular topic in mind, you’ll probably find some interesting food for thought.

Do you have to make presentations as part of your marketing and sales process? Do you, like the vast majority of businesses out there, lean on technology to help you?

If you do, BEWARE. We’ve got an epidemic on our hands and it’s causing Death By Powerpoint all across the nation!

Once you’ve developed a powerpoint habit (often involving rashes of bullet points), your demise can be slow and painful. Your customers may develop rigor mortice more quickly.

If you think you’ve been infected, take radical action. Try to wean yourself off powerpoint. (Patches are not available from your pharmacy). But if putting down the evil application is simply too much to bear and the threat of cold turkey brings you out in a cold sweat, try the following homeopathic approach:

Limit your slides to 12. People will remember what you say – if you invest the effort usually sunk into firing out a lengthy slide deck, in refining your performance and delivery instead. (More to the point they might remember you – THE PERSON. The person they want to do business with, rather than a dreary half hour of screen gazing).

And when creating your presentation and the associated visual aid that you’ll undoubtedly cling to like a vital prosthetic remember that people of all ages respond to stories. Tell your audience a compelling story. Make it relevant, connect with your audience. Rather than seeing the colour drain from your audience’s faces as they lose the will to live, you may give then a much needed tonic, (entertainment – I swear it’s vastly under-rated in today’s business context), and give your own business a healthy bottom-line boost in the process!

I suppose this is a post for people who are just thinking about or embarking on setting up their own business. Thinking of a name is the ultimate head scratcher.

You want your business name to speak volumes about who you are or what you do (or both!!!).

If you’ve done your marketing homework, you want your name and your logo to be reflective of the personality (or values) at the heart of your business and brand.

The more you think about it the harder it gets. Share your ideas with people and you’ll find everyone has an opinion and before you know it, you’re drowning in a sea of subjectivity.

Having just gone through this process myself, I want to give you just three pieces of very practical advice when choosing your business’ name.

1 – Check that the url is available – there are thousands of domain name checkers on line, just google the topic and find a site where the search set up makes sense to you. I’m not a great fan of .net names, or convoluted spellings that use numbers for words, so be creative and patient in equal measure and you will eventually get a name that gives you that elusive .co.uk or .com

2 – Say the name out loud. Will people be able to spell it – or are you going to spend your life repeating the letters to people over the phone and receiving ill addressed post?? If you are the kind of person that gets up tight about this kind of stuff, steer clear of names that are tricky to spell.

3 – Go with you gut instinct. If the name feels right to you, and is something you feel you can talk about with confidence to your customers, it’s probably a good name. After all a name is just a word or group of words – it only truly becomes imbued with meaning when it becomes an integral part of what your business is and does. It’s then that you begin to build a brand. . .

I’ve never been a great fan of formal dinners, networking events or after dinner speakers. But this week I was fortunate to be on the delegate end of a great event which caused me to think again about my personal cringe issues with the whole business events concept.

I was invited along to a client conference and as well as getting to meet a whole load of previously ‘virtual’ peers and colleagues from around the globe, I was also to be subjected to a formal networking dinner, complete with after dinner speaker, as well as some team building (in a muddy field), the following morning. To say I was suffering anticipation deficit disorder would be a grave under-exaggeration.

However, to put the whole thing in context one of the ‘working sessions’ involved a presentation from a jolly nice chap whose business is arranging events and suchlike for big UK corporates. His talk hit a nerve, as he reminded me that you tend to do business with people you like. And frankly the sterility of the modern office environment doesn’t present enough opportunities to bond with your prospects. (I would say ‘make corporate friends’ with them, but for me it’s taking things a bit far. Creating a rapport, sharing a laugh and understanding what makes someone tick outside of a work context will take you a long way. Becoming ‘good buddies’, for me sets the bar too high and could involve overstepping the mark with your intended customer).

According to Mr Harvey Thorneycroft, the holy trinity of a good event is this: great hospitality (and this should be a given), a great experience (doing something that strikes a chord with your intended’s out of work passion, be it sport, arts or whatever), and the bit that a lot of events lack is the final piece of the jigsaw – some work relevant value-add (a golden egg that gives the intended something resonant and memorable that they can benefit from in the moment, or apply at a later date).

For our crew, (marketeers the lot), the value add came in the shape of a speaker, name of BJ Cunningham. He was the chap behind the marketing of ‘Death’ cigarettes a few years ago. Despite being pre-disposed to despise the guy, he was absolutely captivating, totally inspiring and I’m sure by no happy accident, his brief talk provided the ‘cement’ that glued together two days full of brainstorms, workshops and think tanks for the delegates. I’d recommend a visit to his site – as he has a unique and provocative take on what good marketing is and does. It’s refreshingly simple and just slightly left field, but a philosophy that got this cynic sitting up and listening.

As for running around ‘teambuilding’ in a muddy field, I can’t lie to you. I ducked out. In my sorry defence, as a consultant I didn’t truly qualify as part of the team and was attempting to consolidate a huge amount of workshop outputs for the team. BUT, I did feel like a heel. AND very left out when everyone returned, covered in mud and crying with laughter. . .

I’ve been blogging for a fair few months now, and been marketing businesses big and small for a few years, in various capacities.  So I’ve never had any problems dishing out marketing advice.  But until last month I hadn’t really walked the talk, as far as marketing my own small business.

Having left the comfort of my corporate ‘career’ early last year, I spend most of 2007 in a mildly celebratory fog, picking up bits of freelance work from old (and new) contacts as I went.  Unfortunately Mr. Tax Man isn’t so fond of freelancers as to make it a smooth ride, so in November I bit the bullet and registered my company.

‘Brandthing’, my baby business was born on the 12th of the 12th.  He doesn’t have much to show for himself just yet.  A url that goes nowhere at present, a couple of pieces of paperwork from Companies House and a nice bit of embossing on a company banking card – which is frankly useless, until I secure some funds to make it mildly interesting.

So now, heading into 2008, I find myself facing the daunting challenge of practicing what I preach.  Marketing my tiny business to see if it will grow.  I’ve got the skills.  I’ve got the contacts.  And I’ve got plenty of ideas.

What I don’t have – the age old issue – is loads of time.

So this month I’ll mainly be focusing on giving my business an Identity of sorts (oh hell, you can’t create an identity until you’ve established some values, something to stand for. . . .ok. . .I’ll be doing that too).  And I’m going to give some thought to a web presence – so that people can find me (sheesh!. . . a whole can of worms on style, build, SEO issues etc), then there’s the blog (kind of easier to get started, but heck where do you start when you could be talking to potential customers rather than just the world at large. . .)

Suddenly it hits me. . . Dishing out the advice is so much easier than taking it, applying it and working it to get a result.  Watch this space, if you’re interested to know how I get on.  If nothing else, in the weeks and months to come you’ll have confidence that you’re tuning into someone who is talking from experience.

Bitter?  Or sweet?  Only time will tell.

. . . Nope, I’m not recommending donning a red suit, or buying all and sundry expensive gifts. Take a bit of time out over the Christmas break, for a bit of beard (or chin) stroking and reflect on your marketing activity over 2008.

Ask yourself these very basic questions as you’re sitting back, attempting to digest your turkey, mince pies, chocolates and the inevitable gallon of exotic booze. . .

• What did I do in 2007 that comes under the marketing banner?
• What went well?
• What didn’t go so well?
• What am I kidding myself about in my answers to the first 3 questions? Because let’s face it, if we’ve done a web site, produced a nice bit of print, or attended a humm-dinger of a networking event, but have got diddly from it, we might think we’ve done well (on effort), but we’re probably a bit light on results.

And here are the killers:

• What would I do again?
• Did some of my 2007 successes come from activities I didn’t class as marketing a minute ago? (If so, it’s time to revisit your notion of what marketing is, because those all important conversations with your existing clients that swell the order book count, as do recommendations that just seemed to ‘walk in the door’).
• What would I like to do that I simply don’t find the time for? (And if there are a few answers springing up to this one, ask yourself: What would it cost me to get some help for this. And would the activity convert into hard cash to pay for that help?

Answer these little Christmas crackers and you’ll be rolling into the new year with a part-baked marketing plan for the next 12 months. So once you’ve eaten the last sausage roll and downed the last sherry, you can come back to these same thoughts with a a renewed appetite for marketing that will make 2008 a joyous one. Ho ho ho.

Enjoy!

It seems that each and every time I engage with a small business, I have the same conversation over and over again.  How easy do you make it for ‘the word’ about your business to spread?  Do your customers pass on the good news about your product or service?  Do you give your customers the tools or materials to make it easy for them to be an advocate of your brand?

On a very simple level, we’re talking about ‘refer a friend’.  Your customer likes what you do and tells their nearest and dearest about you.  If you give them something to pass to that friend, like a business card, a flyer, a brochure, or even a memorable web address, you’ve made it so much more likely for that friend to get in touch, next time they want what you’ve got to offer.

The science behind this route to success is simple.  We trust what our trusted friends tell us MUCH more than any advertising message, cold-call or out-bound marketing activity.  None of us want to put ourselves in the position of guinea piggy for a product or service experience, when we can simply piggy back on a great experience that someone we know has already had.

This simple insight is equally valid in business to consumer and business to business settings.  For business to consumer its a simple numbers game – spread the good word and the chances are your footfall or enquiries will feel the benefit.  For business to business, recommendations can open up client development activity – by spreading the good word within an organisation to open up new opportunities and income streams as well as capitalising on recommendations between businesses.

So if you’re scratching your head about ways to give your marketing some extra sparkle in the run up to Christmas, spare a few moments to think about simple and effective ways you can help your customers spread the love. . .

I’ve been blogging for a good 6 months now and I thought it was time to see whether my marketing ideas have gathered an audience. . .

A friend of mine is looking for a final year business student who’s interested in all things marketing.  It’s a mini job (10-15 hours per week, paying going student rates tbc), and could potentially turn into a full time, temporary job for 4-6 months on graduation if things go well.  It’s working from home, doing web-based market research and analysis to a supplied brief.

If you’re interested and have a CV (it’s a German organisation and they are keen on such things), drop me a line to sara.scott.2772@googlemail.com

(I started my career in recruitment advertising – and it’s a great training ground for writing direct response advertising and marketing.  So fingers crossed there’s a target audience out there and you’re reading this right now!)

By trendy I don’t mean über flamboyant, or even at the vanguard of cool. But every business worth its salt should have its finger on the pulse of customer behaviour, know what your customer habits and preferences are right now and have a sense of what the trends are for the future.

In a nutshell, developing products and services that meet customer needs, ahead of the competition is what competitive edge is all about. More to the point, today’s savvy customers are likely to respect you more if they think you’re looking ahead and anticipating their needs.

Spotting trends needn’t be an activity that requires time carving out specially – close listening to the customers you’ve already got, reading the signals of prospects you come into contact with, keeping an eye on your industry and trade press, listening to gossip about what other organisations are doing. . . all of this counts. Just so long as you build in the most important activity of all – head scratching – and a bit of time to figure out the ‘So What?’ (does this mean for me and my business).

For a great pdf download on the top 5 tips for getting trendy, try here.

Let’s face it we all like to get something for nothing. And for small businesses, quite often it’s free advice and guidance that we crave in our quests to learn a lot as fast as possible to enable us to do the biz to the very best of our capabilities. No doubt that’s why people visit SmallBizPod itself.

So if you’re the kind of person who likes ‘free stuff’ sent direct to your inbox, here are a couple of sources of really useful marketing hints and tips that fit the bill for businesses who are trying to get their message out there.

The first is buzzoodle – a well written, informative marketing blog that helps you max the basics. Whether it’s your web site or your blog, or simply extend your network with a view to sales. Sign up and you’ll receive 20 newsletters, and if my first couple are anything to go by, they’re packed full of useful stuff.

The second is cardellmedia. The web site looks a bit dodgy – but sign up for the e-bulletins and again you’ll get some really practical hints and tips.

These guys are heroes of well targeted, well structured, direct response type marketing. Of course the free stuff! is just a sweetener to get you interested in what they’re really selling. . .

But hey. . .useful free stuff is the best kind of free stuff going. Right?

If you visit regularly, you’ll have gathered that I’m a big fan of DIY. For small businesses, with limited budgets, you can’t beat a well targeted blast of home grown marketing that comes straight from the heart and is held in check with a stiff measure of common sense.

But lets face it, time is money. And if you’re out doing the biz and reaping the rewards, there comes a point when you want to focus your energies 100% on what you do best. And it’s not marketing.

So you’re in the outsourcing game. Passing it to a professional (or a group of them), to do it faster and hopefully better, seeing as you’ll be paying for the privilege is all very well. But there are cowboys out there. And poor choices can lead to expensive mistakes.

As I’ve earned my stripes both in the cut and thrust of the agency world, and under my own steam as as an independent consultant (or freelancer), I thought I’d share some top tips for getting it right, when you decide its time to let go.

Agency or Independent?

Both have their merits. The first is more costly – but in return you get access to a spectrum of resources. Agencies come in all shapes and sizes. The bigger you go, the bigger the price ticket. If you want a full marketing strategy and your prepared to dig deep to fund it, this is the route for you. My rule of thumb for an entry point into this arena is a budget of £10K to spend. For that, a local agency will come and make you feel special. But be smart. Talk to a few and be clear on what you get for your money before you commit. If your budget is smaller, running to just hundreds or a couple of thousand, you’re better off with an independent, you buy their marketing expertise, usually on a day rate and anyone worth their salt will give you an idea of how far your budget will take you. Don’t expect the earth for a sixpence – they have to make a living too! In both cases, a solid recommendation from someone who has used the agency or the individual is the best possible in. If none is forthcoming, a yell search or a bit of web research should unearth what you need. Lets face it, good marketers should know how to get their own message out. .

Be prepared to invest time up front

Getting your new marketing partner on the same page as you will pave the way for a successful relationship. Be prepared to spend time sharing your information, your ideas and your aspirations. If you haven’t got these already committed to paper in some kind of documentation, you’re probably premature in contacting someone. They can help you articulate your strategy and proposition, but very few will be able to do the real thinking for you – and frankly if they could, they’d be selling a different set of services to ‘marketing’. All that said, don’t expect to dump a couple of reports on them and walk away – anyone worth their salt will probably want to get close to your business, talking to some customers, your staff, taking a look at your product or experiencing your service first hand. Be generous. Give access and tell them the full story.

Agree costs and deliverables

You may be off-loading your marketing, but you are gaining a supplier (or hopefully partner) that will need managing. Set the rules at the outset. Be clear about your objective – what you want to achieve and by when. Don’t be coy about your budget. And make sure you understand how their costing structure works. Typically, your budget is going to be eaten up fees (the thinking time, writing time, design time) and by the deliverables (which can involve buying images, print, media space etc). Make sure you don’t get caught out by additional business expenses, couriers and miscellaneous ’stuff’.

Be open minded

You’re paying for a different perspective. Any agency or independent worth their salt will challenge you. They may challenge your thinking, they may challenge you creatively or they may expose weaknesses you either haven’t seen (or are choosing to ignore). Embracing this challenge can be tough. But if it’s done right, this is the kind of tough love that can help you build your business on the firmest of footings – absolute conviction.

Could you sum up everything your business stands for in just one word?

Last year, M&C Saatchi caused a storm in an advertising tea cup by launching its agency’s new ‘big thing’.

Saatchi suggests that the world’s most powerful brands are built on simplicity – creating a powerful and single-minded thought – that in a perfect world, would be summed up with just one word.

Hmmm. . . ? Does the same apply for small businesses I wonder? As I sit and Scraatchi my head. . .

As a marketer and writer, I know that making something simple and single-minded is a tough challenge. I know that simple is good – because it makes it easy for others to get hold of. And let’s face it, that’s where the money’s at.

But one word? And not just one word – each business has to own a different word. Surely demand would quickly outstrip supply – and the big boys will win in the scrum down. . .

Check out the argument at onewordequity.com – those clever chaps have made the concept into a fairly cute podcast. Let me know what you think.

I think that small businesses should challenge themselves to articulate simple, compelling propositions. I believe that fancy creative ideas are no substitute for a grounded and motivating ‘reason to believe’ – especially for the small business. But one word??

Urm. No.

As I write this post, I’ve got half an eye on Sarah Beany on C4, telling two poor beauty obsessed girls that they are bombarding their bodies with toxic chemicals in lotions and potions that advertise themselves as ‘natural’.

Last night I watched a programme about a Leeds-based business man who had ripped off a load of innocent punters, selling and marketing student buy to let properties.  It’s a marketing scam of such proportions the guy is under criminal investigation.

And my point?  Marketing is open to abuse.  Making claims your product or service can’t substantiate in action may win sales, short term.  But it certainly won’t secure you repeat purchase, or customer loyalty.  More to the point, marketeers who are happy to tell elaborate lies in order to generate sales growth can and will eventually get found out.

But don’t just take my word for it.  As consumers get more and more savvy, integrity in marketing is becoming an increasingly hot topic.

Let’s face it, acquiring new customers is an expensive and time consuming business. So it follows that selling more to your existing customers represents low hanging fruit in the marketing orchard.

So this week I want to make a very simple suggestion. Talk to your customers – regularly. By this I don’t mean ad hoc conversations that happen in the course of doing business. I mean structured, diarised reviews.

Go armed with some questions. Get feedback on what they like and don’t like about your product or service. Ask them what you do well and what you might do better.

This simple action delivers a double whammy of benefits. You get valuable insights that will help you develop your product or service, directly in line with customers’ stated needs. But if that wasn’t enough, just having the conversation often creates the opportunity to sell them more of the same, or something additional from your box of tricks.

It’s amazing how many businesses get so caught up in the new business chase that they overlook their existing customers as a rich seam of income that can be developed and mined. . .

And clients/customers love to be loved. It’s something we forget at our peril.

I did a great exercise with a corporate client this week, that I thought would work equally well for any small business. It’s simple, it’s quick and it can shed real light on the kinds of different marketing messages you can think about developing. . .

Map your customer journey

It’s called mapping your customer journey to see where and when your communications touch him or her – and it allows you to think about the desired effect each layer of communication needs to have in order to be effective.

Start with a big sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the left hand side. Draw your customer at the top and put a number 1 at that end of the line. At the bottom of the line put a number 10. This is your customer’s journey. At 1 he knows nothing about you. At 10, you’re successfully selling to him and starting to figure out how to manage an on-going relationship with him.

Now split the remainder of your sheet into two big columns. In the first, brainstorm all of the communications (planned and unplanned) that currently touch your customer as they move along their journey. To give you a starter, there’s probably stuff like your web site, maybe brochures and mailers, emailers, letters that you send out. Towards the bottom there may be meetings, bespoke presentations and proposals. If you’re marketing hard, there may be some PR and events stuff in there. And don’t overlook the face to face contact you have, through meetings and networking etc – as your very own talktrack can be one of the most powerful elements of your marketing mix.

If column number one is looking busy. Well done you! But if it’s looking a bit sparse – it’s time to fill in column 2. The way you’d like things to look in a perfect world. To help you figure out what kind of activity might fit where, along the line, imagine this. . .

As your customer travels along, you need to move him through the following stages:

Awareness: If he’s never heard of your product or service, he surely won’t buy from you. So how can you get your name known, for the right reasons?

Interest: How can you begin to engage him? How can you connect with his needs as a consumer and make your product or service offer relevant in his world?

Desire: How can you convert that engagement into an active want or need for your product or service? How can you present a compelling arguement that makes purchase an imperative?

Action: Wanting simply isn’t enough. How can you drive the action that makes Mr Customer pick up the phone or walk into your shop with wallet in hand, ready to do business?

Fill in column 2 and you have your communications wishlist. Of course some elements of this mix could be quick wins, others are unlikely to be conceived and delivered in the short term. But simply completing the exercise should deliver a healthy perspective on your customer mindset and the different jobs your marketing has to do.

(The Awareness/Interest/Desire/Action model, was one of the first – and only – models drummed into me as I trained to be a writer. I’m not sure where it originates, but even in structuring a single piece of advertising text, it still works well. Thanks AIDA, you’ve served me well!)

There are, of course, millions of reasons why people decide to start their own business. For many, it’s the idea of working for themselves. For others, it’s about bringing to life a big idea. But for most entrepreneurs there is an element of doing well and making some money – if this isn’t layered heavily into the equation then the chances of success are minimal, to say the least.

But strangely, if you talk to many small business owners and start-ups, the crux of wealth creation – the Exit Plan – is treated like a taboo. Maybe it’s because the sheer energy, determination and momentum required to get a business on its feet, doesn’t sit well with a set of thoughts or a conversation that puts a definite marker in the sand for cessation. Or maybe it’s because of the level of emotional investment that goes along with creating something and nurturing it as it grows. (On more than one occasion I’ve heard friends refer to their business as their babies – and let’s face it there’s no real endgame for your kids apart from them being healthy, happy and successful in what they do).

For me, exit planning is a natural extension of goal setting. Putting a line in the sand that says that in ‘x’ years time, or when I hit ‘y’ financial target, I could ‘retire’ from this business and realise the prize value ‘z’. The better you plan, the better equipped you are to make choices – or change your plans. . .

But then some people think retirement’s over-rated!? And for the others, have a look at this really simple overview of key considerations for exit planning. It makes a whole lot of sense to me!!

I am a writer by trade.  And don’t get me wrong, being able to string a few meaningful messages together is a valuable skill when it comes to marketing yourself (and other people).

But I try not to forget the old adage – sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.  It’s true.  But so often I see business communications that are so tied up with spelling out the perfect message, that the visual gets overlooked.

Here’s my top tip for the week.  Regardless of whether you’re putting together a web page, a case study, a fact sheet or even a good old presentation, spice it up and make it engaging with some well chosen imagery.

There are loads of photo libraries around.  i-stock is a good one if you haven’t got lots to spend.  But flickr has been an absolute revelation to me.  It’s a repository for people’s snaps (from happy snappers like me, through to amateurs and professional photographers).  It’s easy to search and in a lot of instances the photographers are happy for you to download and use at no cost.  But in some instances they do request a credit, or levy a charge.  So just make sure you read and abide by the rules. . .

These days it seems a web site is compulsory, if your business (however small) is to have credible marketing presence.
The web is often the first place your customers look when they’re deciding to buy.  And increasingly it seems that it’s the second, third and fourth place they look too.  Our world is so virtual these days that very few people have a ‘real’ shop window – moreover customers don’t want to pay the extra that having premises will undoubtedly layer into your product’s pricing.
So we’re agreed the web is important.  But so many small businesses still struggle to get their web site working for them.  The standard fall back position seems to be 6-8 static pages that do no more than reproduce the pages of a brochure, (A brochure that in many cases never got printed, because these days people prefer to look at the web. . !)
So this week, I wanted to show you a great example of a simple web site, done well.  It’s one I happened on by accident in my quest for personal development.  But subject matter and the actual service to one side, have a quick click on this link and when you get there watch out for these features that make this site so hard working:

•    It clearly identifies the target (thirtysomethings – very clever cos it probably gathers in a lot of fortysomethings who haven’t moved on yet)
•    He clearly articulates what he does in buyable chunks (writer, speaker, coach)
•    He connects directly with the issues and concerns of his audience in order to engage them
•    He adds value through additional available content (and the downloads are pretty good!)
•    If you’re interested enough to want to read more, he’s got you signed up for a newsletter before you know it.
•    And he’s got some of the knobs and whistles – like a blog, clearly signposted from the web, which means his web is likely to be clearly signposted from his blog. . . he’s even got video testimonials!

Whether you like the style or tone and regardless of whether you’re interested in the products and services at all, this is a well thought out site that pulls its weight in a way most small businesses could learn from.  It makes the most of emerging web function (that 2.0 stuff) and it benefits from the most valuable small business resource going – plenty of thought.

Bonus Ball

And as a bonus ball, if you’re a pre-birth small business.  i.e. someone currently being a wage slave and researching like crazy to figure out what your small business is going to be. . .sign up for the Ezine and have a read of the sample chapters from ‘Find a Career that Fits.   They’re great!

Sara Scott talks to Hannah Cameron, Junior Juice Press

Can you give me the background to the Innocent success story?
Innocent was created 8 years ago by just 3 guys. Now the business employs 230 people, 150 of them at Fruit Towers, but we also have offices in Dublin, Hamburg, Munich, Copenhagen, Sweden, Paris and Amsterdam. A lot of our growth has happened in the last 2 years or so – as when I started 2.5 years ago there were only 40 people. The original guys are still very high profile in the business, Adam takes care of Europe, Richard is our Brand and People Director here at Fruit Towers and Jon is our Ops Director – making sure we make loads and loads of lovely smoothies.

What are Innocent’s guiding principles as a business?
From the outset, we wanted to create a healthy drink for people with busy lifestyles. Everybody told the guys that making a drink without using concentrated fruit juice was an impossibility, but we stuck to our principles. Now we’re the market leader, with around 70% market share. But sticking by our guns took real persistence and the idea had to be nurtured – keeping that belief when a business is small can be tough. Now that we’re bigger, it’s almost easier to remain true to our beliefs, because we have more pulling power and more weight.
So how would you sum up the secret to Innocent’s success?
It’s exactly the same as it was 8 years ago. For us, smoothies are the centre of everything we do. We have a set of core values: Be responsible, entrepreneurial, generous, commercial and natural. Everything follows these beliefs. Our recent Village Fete in Regent’s Park was a perfect example. 50,000 people came along, there was a real family focus and we raised £150,000 for charity. We had great music, ferret racing, duck herding and a load of other attractions – as well as plenty of smoothies for people to enjoy.

What advice would you offer infant businesses looking to establish themselves?
Don’t take NO for an answer. Our guys went to loads of banks to pitch their idea – just to be told no. But they didn’t give up. In the end they sent an email out to friends saying, ‘do you know anyone rich?’. They found a business ‘angel’ who was prepared to back their belief. They must have been really disheartened at times, but their persistence eventually paid off.

What about your branding, what tips have you got for us?
Be consistent. All of our branding communications go through a single person for approval, to make sure our message doesn’t get diluted. In 8 years, we’ve only made the tiniest of changes to our logo. We want to be recognised and remembered, so keeping things simple, in line with our identity and true to the brand values is vital.

So what’s the most smoothies you’ve drunk in a day?
On my first day I had 8 smoothies. I haven’t really done it again since. But there is a fridge opposite my desk, fully loaded with 200 yummy smoothies, so I probably have a couple each day.

This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hannah Cameron – Junior Juice Press at Innocent. (The full interview will follow next week).

But it’s fair to say from the moment your call is answered at ‘Fruit Towers’, ‘. . . good afternoon, Innocent bananaphone, how can I help?’, you know you’re dealing with one of those businesses that manages to take its branding SO seriously, it can afford to be tongue in cheek. What’s more, consumers love ‘em for it!

Innocent is a great British Brand. Working from a standing start (and a great idea), 8 years ago, the business is steadily building a global presence and now operates in eight countries.
Want to know the secrets of Innocent’s success? I’ll give you a taste. .

Here are Innocent’s 4 top tips for business success, drawn from the advice and thinking that has served their business so well in recent years:

1) Keep the main thing the main thing. i.e. Understand why you’re different and don’t let that slip. Take every opportunity to communicate it and extend that difference.
2) Pay attention to the details – everything matters. Especially when you’re small. People notice things – make sure they notice you for the right things – from the way you answer the phone to the tone you use in your website.
3) Everything takes longer than you think – obvious but easy to get over-optimistic and carried away thinking things will happen instantly; they don’t.
4) Try before you buy. Don’t commit too much to something new without checking it first – really easy to forget, especially when in a rush.

Tune in next week for an interview that’s as packed with good stuff as one of Innocent’s smoothies! Mmmmmmm!

Social networking sites seem to impinge on every facet of my life. If I need to find an old colleague, I might cruise myspace (over-run with music wannabees and pr junkies to my mind). To track down old college mates I might log on to facebook (gah! I know I haven’t got enough mates to make that worthwhile). And just last weekend I had an introduction to Bebo from a close friend’s teenage daughter that both impressed me (their technical competence), and terrified me (fourteen year olds’ with pictures that make one of Britney’s ‘better’ – I use the term loosely – videos look tame). And that’s just in my personal life.

In business too, companies with any kind of public profile are likely to attract groups and references across the social networking landscape. Needless to say for every supporter of a company, product or cause, there is a dissenter lurking not too far away. So the democratic nature of t’Interweb means that there’s negative exhaust to be dealt with as well as a much coveted, glorious slipstream of praise to enjoy, as the social networking sites rev their collective engines.

A great paper to give you the lie of the land can be found here. And the general gist is not dissimilar to The Engagement Principles, that I’ve linked previously. But whether you’ve caught the SNS bug yet or not, maybe it’s time to lose your cherry and have a go. Poke someone (yup that’s the terminology. . .) and wonder how on earth the term lol caught on (it’s for losers, I’ve been told by a teen, but plenty of male thirtysomethings seem to use it instead of a fullstop).

Anyone remotely brand savvy should be testing their social butterfly wings about now. Cos this media has definitely reached its tipping point. It has its own rules and them that learn ‘em, are bound to steal a march on them that don’t. I’m going to my room. And if anyone calls, I’m not in!

One of my friends set up his own business recently. He spent oodles of time messing about, hand crafting document templates, using complex headers and footers. And glitzing up powerpoint slides in a way that overtook his business critical activity (drumming up clients and securing billable work) for a good couple of weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, I like good design and I think that every business should project a professional brand image. But in those very early days where securing orders can make the difference between staying in the black, or going into the red, I would strongly advocate focusing your attention on generating sales, rather than the knobs and bells of marketing.

Which is why I liked the idea of a load of natty templates on the Microsoft Corporate site. These could save you valuable hours in your early days and allow you to pop your own label on some pretty cool layouts. There are also some ‘creative’ presentation slides that come without a cheese warning. Fab.

Subject matters
What you put in the subject line should not be underestimated. Make sure your name or the business name features – after all, if your customer has ‘opted-in’ they’ll be expecting something from you and are more likely to open your mail.

No spam thanks
Avoid spam traps by making sure you don’t over capitalise your heading. Don’t include exclamation marks, or use words like ‘Free’, ‘Offer’, ‘Money’ etc. Spam filters are on the look out for this stuff and will relegate you to the junk box, if they let you through at all. If you’re in doubt, find a free on-line spam checker and run your message through that.

Test a patch
Test your subject lines before you send out mass mailings. A couple of days before you’re due to send out a mailing, take a small sample from your list and divide into 3 or 4 and try a different subject line to each segment. Track the results to identify the ‘banker’, by looking at how many people open the mail and importantly how many people respond. Keep testing. Refining content and the detail of your offer may make a real difference to your results, depending on the numbers you are targeting. (Obviously if your database is very small and very, very targeted – much better to invest your time into hand crafting communications that address the specific needs of these individuals).

Give, and you’ll be more likely to receive
Add value through your content. Unless you really do have the best offer in the world, being overtly salesy in a way that fails to engage with your audience’s needs on a personal level, are unlikely to get you the returns you want, (this applies to all of your communications, not just emails!). And make sure it’s your name that appears in the ‘from’ field. People like communications from people – rather than from a faceless business.

Structure your content
If you don’t hook your reader straight away, they’ll click close, or delete. So say it well and say it fast in the first couple of lines. Don’t make the mistake of writing an emailer in the same way you’d construct an old fashioned letter. In its most simple state, my formula would be this: make a provocative statement or ask a question that connects directly with a customer problem or issue, spell out what you can do in respect of that statement (your proposition) and give some key benefits in a way that resonates with the customer’s situation. (Easy huh??. . .ok it’s not, but don’t make the mistake of making things more complicated than they need to be. Vague is bad. Short and loud and clear is good). For a full and easy to understand guide on all things email, try here.

Email marketing suits a lot of small businesses for the following reasons:

• it’s fast to administer;
• it can be highly personalised;
• the performance of an email campaign can be easy to track and measure;
• regular email contact with your customers can be a powerful route to brand building and awareness, if you are able to supply value-adding content relevantly and regularly;
• it doesn’t cost the earth.

But email marketing has a couple of big drawbacks too. The number of emails sent each day far exceeds 2.25 billion (Verisign) and could actually exceed 60 billion, according to indicators from Yahoo in 2006.

Of this, spam emails account for 38% of all emails sent (IDC). Put these two factors together and you hit the inherent problem with emailing … will your important message make it into your customer’s inbox? And if it does, will it get the attention that you undoubtedly think it deserves?

Next week, I’ll be offering up a few top tips for making it through the spam filters you’ll inevitably face, if you decide to try your hand at emailing. But firstly a couple of fundamental considerations about who and how.

Who goes on your A list and B list?
Target existing customers (repeat purchase and loyalty) and keep a prospect database that clearly distinguishes warm from cold leads. Anybody who has expressed an interest, or anyone who fits a target customer profile should qualify. (As long as you’re prepared to qualify their details mis-addressed mailers rarely get results).

Get technology working for you
It may sound obvious but put this information into a database. On a very simple level Excel will do, but there are a whole load of off the shelf products out there that can help you with sales and marketing functionality.  A lot of small businesses struggle on with paper based records but these simply aren’t going to cut the mustard if you decide to do some regular, outbound marketing.

Detail matters
Keep as much relevant information about your customers as you can, including their buying habits and areas of interest. Your customer data is a really valuable resource – treat it as such. And be prepared to invest some time or money (or both) in managing it, polishing it and protecting it. Furthermore, make sure that every communication you send out is recorded, so that you have a history of what contact you’ve had and when. Your objective should be to build a coherent dialogue, even if the traffic is predominantly outbound. You want to tell your prospects a story that builds in depth and regularly reinforces key messages to build recognition and awareness.

Play by the rules
If you send unwanted and un-asked for communications to anyone, your mail is technically spam. This is incredibly bad practice and whilst the web police are unlikely to arrive at your door with sirens blaring, you should avoid getting involved in this kind of thing. You need to give your customers and your prospects an opportunity to ‘opt-in’ to your mailing. This could be as simple as verbally asking customers whether they want to receive further information. Or if you are collecting customer data at events, or off the back of advertising, put in a tick box for ‘I would like to know more’. If nothing else this gives a very basic pre-qual of your leads. Customers who don’t want to know about you are unlikely to want to buy from you either!

Once you’ve got your list (which could be anything from 10 names to 10,000) the next hurdle is to craft content. But in the spirit of shorter being better, I will return to this challenge, next week.

If you want to plug into some of the freshest, ideas-rich thinking on what makes a brand, chances are you need to be reading this.  I’ve only just stumbled across it, so I’m yet to have a proper read.

But I understand it’s the musings of some of the brightest stars in the current brand and marketing bloggersphere.  All the contributors are listed here. (Another great brand related blog).  By my reckoning if you followed each of these named links, plugged them all into your RSS and browsed regularly, you’d have very little time in your life to do anything else. . . but you’d also be about as clued up about the future of brand and marketing as it is possible to be!

I dropped into my career in advertising, marketing and all things brand and communications related by accident.  OK, so I picked up a literature degree – but that was reading, not writing.  Still, someone, somewhere figured that my studies qualified me to become a copywriter and off I went, hammering out bits of text that began to appear in the public domain.

I used to get terrible writer’s block.  With fingers frozen under the pressure of having to turn out ‘perfect’ pieces.  For me, blogging has been a great liberation.  I don’t censor myself too heavily and simply see what comes.  (Hence occasional spellers, nonsense sentences etc).  I’d highly recommend a bit of blogging to ANYONE, for precisely this reason.

Fact is, most people can write – after a fashion.  And plenty of people write well, but write themselves and their abilities off.  Thinking – oh you have to have training, or be ‘creative’ to be able to write.  Rubbish I say!

If you’re the owner or manager of a small business and the marketing burden falls on your shoulders, 9 out of 10 cats really shouldn’t despair.  You can probably DIY a perfectly respectable job for most basic marketing applications – letter writing, emailing, presentation building.  Even a bit of content creation for a web site.  If your confidence is lacking, get some support.  A second pair of eyes to give your stuff the once over.  As long as you remember to put yourself in your customers shoes and explain things in a way that they’ll understand, you should be ok.

Not all marketing communications have to be front-ended with some fancy creative concept.  A clear and simple reason to buy will often do the trick.

My link for today is for anyone looking for writing type insight.  If you have to write (and so many of us do, best try to write well). The copywriter’s crucible is a blog I keep tabs on through my RSS.  Great writing – but also some really useable tips and great thinking.  I’m a regular customer and I love it.

Imagine this. . .

You’ve done a bit of marketing – maybe networking, maybe followed up a couple of referrals, maybe a couple of leads have come in from your web site or blogging.

You’ve followed them up. The prospect was warm. You’ve got a meeting. More to the point, they’ve been interested enough to round up a handful of key decision makers to hear you present.

The marketing goose appears to have laid you a golden egg.

How do you feel?

If your immediate response is ‘bring it on!’, presenting is what you do best, then good for you.

If, however, the idea of standing in front of a room full of VIPs (they are very important, if they have the authority to sign off a purchase of whatever you’re selling, regardless of their job titles), gives you a churning feeling in the pit of your stomach, then it’s time to put your hand in your pocket.

Being able to deliver a compelling presentation is a rare gift. But learning these skills is a present you can give to yourself and it needn’t cost the earth.

I have always been a shrinking violet when asked to get on my feet and impress a room full of people. My excuse? I’m a writer. Give me a keyboard and I’m happy as the old pig in you-know-what.

On my feet has been a different story. Knotted tummy, crimson blush and depending on the prevailing wind sometimes I’ve got away with it, sometimes not. But each and every time I’ve found the experience truly harrowing.

So, today I paid for a remedy. A day of presentation skills training. Video camera, tough subject matter. The lot.

And guess what I learned. 1. I’m a lot better than I thought. Seeing yourself on camera explodes the myth that your audience can magically see what you’re feeling. That pause that feels like eternity when you lost your thread can actually come across as composed refection (given the right lighting. . ) 2. Pretty much everyone who has to stand up goes through the same thing. 3. Every audience likes to be told a story – we’re all still kids at heart. Bin the bullet points and tell a tale, it’s easier and it gets a better response if it comes from experience. 4. It’s ok to be yourself. When I try to be someone else my earthy northern accent is stronger than when I relax. (Go figure??!!)

I learned all of this for the princely sum of £350. The training provider was Blue Sky. But I have no doubt that there are hundreds of similar companies out there who can help you more with your marketing than a million well written words ever will.

If you could be better at presenting, build a bridge. GET OVER IT!

A few weeks ago, I walked you through a process that could help you define a set of values for your brand. The exercise involved an exploration of two sets of drivers to purchase – rational and emotional.

This week I’ve been struggling with a purchasing decision of my own.  It’s a biggie. And guess what?  The rational and emotional values involved were completely at odds with each other.  The result – major anxiety for me.  Even a few sleepless nights.

The problem is I’m not buying a well managed brand.  In fact the product isn’t branded at all.  I’m looking at buying a new house.

But what it has given me is a clear, first hand look at what happens when there’s dissonance between the rational and emotional.  As a consumer I’m paralysed, not knowing which way to turn.  Head is doggedly playing a broken record of practical considerations – the price, the features, the benefits, my material requirements.  But the heart is thumping to a different tune – one that captures lifestyle, relationships, aspirations and even through it sounds romantic. . . dreams.

And guess which pull is stronger?  You got it.  For me the heart wins hands down.  Unfortunately for my ‘other ‘arf’ the rational argument seems to be winning.  Oh oh, I think it’s going to be an interesting weekend. . .

Let’s face it, if you haven’t got a web site these days, you haven’t arrived! But that’s not the half of it!

Doing the bare minimum

Loads of businesses recognise that web presence is a ‘must have’ for their marketing mix and so diligently get themselves a website – either off the shelf and self-populated, or by paying someone to knock a few pages together. So they can say ‘Done it! I’m here!’ and of course equally earnestly, they apply the web address to all business cards, collateral and anything else that goes into production for ever more.

Why a little, isn’t enough

These guys have got it right in one critical respect. Our ‘virtual world’ is getting more real by the day. 30 million UK users are on-line and 80% of those have Broadband, according to the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau). In a nutshell this means that the Internet is fast emerging as a primary (and cost effective route) to reaching your customers. Which is why it makes sense that the Internet should act as a communications hub for a lot of businesses. The thinking is simple – put a reasonable amount of company and product/service information on-line. Then use other, carefully chosen media and printed tactics to drive traffic to the web.

Where a lot of companies fall down is by believing that having web presence is enough. These days, best practice in web design is a science in its own right. Rather than give you a super-techie manifesto for good web design, here are a few handy tips and key considerations to point you in the right direction.

Be seen! Your web address on a business card is not going to be enough to drive traffic to your web site. Your content needs to be optimised for visibility to search engines. That means good structure and ‘tags’ (doing this is not a job for an amateur – but shop around and you won’t have to pay the earth for the right kind of technical help).

Keep it Simple! You can have plenty of content on your site – but make sure the structure of the content is straightforward, intuitive and easy to get to. The navigation is critical – but also don’t succumb to any desires to dress things up with fancy animations that are going to slow your site down. Time is your reader’s most valuable resource.

Write with your reader in mind – give them the information they want, not knobs and bells. Research suggests that an on-line audience responds differently to an audience looking at a pretty piece of print – so don’t fall into the trap of recreating a printed brochure, page for page, on line. Structure information to give important facts in a sensible order.

Remember the web is dynamic – it allows you to link to content (your own and others) in a way that can add value to your story and weight to your sales message. (I could write reams about how to make the most of the dynamic potential of the web – but the best thing to do is browse a few of your favourite big-brand sites, clock what’s clever about the way they present their info to you and see if similar rules can be applied to your stuff).

Keep it fresh! If you want any potential customers to return to your site more than once, you have to treat web content and web build as a marathon rather than 100m. Engaging, relevant and up-to-date content is the order of the day. If you produce your web site and then forget about it, the likelihood is that your customers will too!

If you want to become just enough of an expert on all things web in a couple of hours, to leave you sufficiently well versed to find and brief a competent web specialist, I can highly recommend Killer Web Content by Gerry McGovern. Easy to read and straight to the point. Just like a good web site!

I recently went to a business event, where the speaker boldly proclaimed: ‘Let’s face it, unless you’ve built a business that you can walk away from for 6 months and it will still run without your day-to-day input, you haven’t got a business. . . you’ve got a job!’

I suppose for plenty of people in the first throes of building an infant business this might sound overly blasé. Plenty of business people who consider themselves successful, never attain the idyll of cultivating an operation that ‘runs itself’.

Nevertheless, the statement hit a nerve for me. I’ve met loads of people who proudly introduce themselves as ‘running their own business’. In fact I’ve been one of them! But scratch the surface and you’ll discover that they are simply working for themselves. Self employed. Otherwise known as ‘freelance’.

There’s a big distinction here. For me (and for plenty of others), there’s a giant leap between having a business with yourself as a sole trader, and getting into a situation where your business involves more work than you, alone can deliver. Cross this important line and you either get into shaky co-operative or partnership arrangements, or you bite the bullet and start to act like a real business – employing others.

But what I really want to talk about is how a marketing mindset plays a part of this distinction. When your ‘business’ is just you, it’s completely natural to feel ambivalent about your marketing. After all, marketing takes a tonne of effort and involves activities, such as planning, networking, writing and cold calling, that a lot of us don’t feel entirely comfortable doing. And of course doing all of this stuff takes your focus away from the ‘real’ doing – the raison d’être of your business. Add in the extra complication – do too well in your marketing and you’ll end up with too many customers. You won’t be able to fulfil all their needs. You’ll let em down. Or (god forbid), you’ll have to think about employing someone!!! Gulp!!

It’s an interesting conundrum. A lot of very small businesses want customers, yes. But they only want a nice, steady manageable stream of customers who ask for stuff, at the right time. Marketing can play a vital role in moving past this milestone – for those who are really in the business of building a business. For the others (and good luck to them – there’s nothing wrong with the idea of an idea of an easy life, even if the reality is probably far from easy), marketing will probably remain a grumbling devil on their shoulder, or a frequent feature on a long ‘to do’ list – an unwelcome distraction from their real ‘job’.

The moral? Marketing is a fundamental business activity, not an optional extra! Real entrepreneurs don’t put an immediate cap on their own imagined success. They will push through the pain barrier and put themselves in uncomfortable situations, if it means getting the customers that spell success for their business. And importantly they do tend to have ‘big picture’ plans. This may not include building their business to such a point that they can happily walk away from it for long periods at a time, but it will most probably involve a vision that sees them ‘running their business’, rather than their business running them!

If you ever spend any time with creative agency types, or anybody serious about communication strategy, you might hear them ask the question, ‘does this idea have legs?’

I thought I’d have a go at explaining what they mean. Because for anyone trying to manage their own brand and communication, without the help of lofty (and expensive) experts, quite often you end up finding your ideas are absolutely legless (having stumbled off the path you hoped they’d head down and instead lie curled up in a ditch rather than impressing the world, and your customers, at large).

An idea ‘with legs’ (aka THE BIG IDEA!), is the core of a concept that sits behind one or many communications. It’s usually tied to the core product or service proposition and brings it to life in a creative way. The difference between an idea that has legs and one that doesn’t, is the much coveted ‘leggy’ idea will run and run and run. In other words, it lends itself to being campaigned (or put another way, you can creatively interpret it over and over again, in fresh and exciting ways).

Your poor legless idea, might be quite charming, visually stunning and terribly witty. But it’s likely to be a one off. Little more than a novelty. A good idea that hits the mark just now, but is likely to feel out of date in a week or two.

A great idea of an idea with legs would be the O2 use of the bubble that has come to represent a revolution in the way mobile phones were marketed to the UK public. O2 have won a host of awards for advertising effectiveness for this big idea – but the proof of just how strong its legs are – is that it’s still being used in its virtually unchanged format a full three years after its inception.

I wish I could give you a great example of an idea with no legs (Sainsbury’s certainly had had one too many for a few years before they finally got Jamie Oliver on board – although trying to substitute a celeb for a good idea is a pretty poor show). But beyond that I’m struggling for a good example – simply because the ads you tend to remember are the ones with some longevity and lovely long legs!