5 Common Mistakes Around Your Marketing

By Christina Suter on Dec 22, 2018 at 02:00 PM in Business Issues
5 Common Mistakes Around Your Marketing

I admit-- even after 14+years of being a small business owner, I don't always do a great job of telling people about my business. People at my monthly FIBI Pasadena meetings often joke that they know more about me as a mom than they know about what professional products or services I offer. I make the biggest mistake around marketing-- avoiding talking about my business-- by not getting the word out about what I do and have to offer, especially during a networking event run by me

Marketing is enrollment; it's telling people what you do and getting it out there on the main channels so people can learn what you do.

Five Marketing Mistakes

1. You Don't Speak Up- It is your responsibility to tell people that you can help them. If you knew the cure to a deadly childhood disease, would you keep it to yourself because you didn't want to aggrandize yourself? Or would you know that it's your duty to share the fact that you found the solution; to tell people you could help save thousands of children's lives? You're that person-- it's probably not a cure to a disease, but your business is the cure for somebody out there. What you know and what you do brings them relief and peace of mind. There's no excuse for you to avoid telling people what you do.

There's a difference between, telling or enrolling people, and the joy that you have around what you're capable of helping people do and being a taker, being a salesperson, and using tricks to shove your stuff down someone else's throat. Marketing is the permission to engage and invite people in. Sales is making sure you're asking for the sales; it's simply offering the opportunity for people to choose in. If you don't give people an opportunity to choose in, you can enroll them and tell them about everything you have, (which is great marketing) but you fail to give them an opportunity to choose in, to buy in.

Enrollment and sharing from your joy are incredibly effective.

2. You Avoid Marketing- You are referral only, meaning you rely upon your clients to refer you more clients, which may garner you some customers, but only a small percentage of what you could have. You set people up for not being able to find you and to be helped by you when you don't market. Being transparent and putting out there what you do is part of your gift, part of your purpose, and part of you being engaged. Spirit meets you at your point of action; if you don't put it out there, no one can meet you. If you hide it and keep it close to your vest it's not going to grow. Put it out there with confidence and assuredness because even if what you know is just a little bit, the little bit you know really well helps. False humility doesn't help you fulfill your purpose. 

3. You Fail to Utilize Social Media- Social media has probably come into being during your business. It started off as an option and now it's almost necessary for business success. Regardless of the size of your company you need to have a presence on a few social media platforms.

4. You're Inconsistent- I am not the most consistent at social media, so I'm speaking from experience. I have a social media manager who keeps me on track and if you're like me and find yourself posting inconsistently put systems in place to schedule posts, answer questions, respond to comments, and market via social media. Social media is about building community and exposing people to your brand. We've all had an inconsistent friend and we know how it feels when they fail you or flake on you... you learn to not trust them.

Inconsistent marketing deteriorates people's trust in your brand.

Do you avoid setting up a sales gap? If you offer a service and people come to you with a problem do you answer their question and then send them away? If so you've done them two disservices. The first being that you've given them a list of steps they most likely don't understand how to implement-- as evidenced by the fact that they've yet to implement them. The second disservice is you've failed to make their lives better by giving them the answer without teaching them how; you fail to make their lives better. You want them to see that the gap in their life that they need help with is one that can be filled by you, therefore giving them a chance to buy in.

The sales gap is helping them confirm what their hope or vision is and restate or confirm what's happening currently and then you make the gap between what they have currently, and what they hope for, obvious.  

5. You Don't Have a Clear Brand- Your brand: Who is your company? What do you do? How do you do it? When someone says Nike you know immediately what their brand is. You know their quality, what they make, and where to find them. This allows people to choose in and teaches them what you offer and how or where they can partake. 

If people don't know about you they can't choose into you. If people can't choose into you, you can't help them, and you might be the one that has the answers they need.