Recently while a guest on Small Biz Radio here in St Louis the hosts asked me for the most common mistakes businesses make in marketing. What are the most common strengths or weaknesses in executing a marketing plan – what constitutes a good marketing plan?

We went into detail on this on the program and came out with 6 key points – I have summarized them below for you.

Note: A week after being on this radio program a friend of mine posted a great article about making marketing awesome. His blog made me think of that conversation on the radio and how important these 6 basic points are. Really it inspired me to write this down and share it with you. If you read his article by clicking the link and then read my article here you will likely be fired up and ready to create some awesome marketing. That’s my goal – you all fired up.

1. Research

When we say research we really mean it. This step is often overlooked or is done incorrectly – for example researching only what the business thinks it needs versus what clients and potential customers thinks it needs. Research really means looking. Lots of looking. Look some more. Look and see what is there. Not what you think is there or what you want to be there but what is actually there. Then, look some more. The brightest ideas come from looking and observing and digging up information and looking some more. 

Marketing research does not mean looking into the best ways to use up a budget that has been allocated for marketing for the year. Research does not mean deciding which advertisers one will go with. That is the planning phase – it comes after research. Decisions to execute on advertising or to put in place actions in a company, made too soon and without data, can be more destructive to a business than changing nothing.

2. Simplicity

Okay, research is done. Good. Now, keep it simple. There is so much you could do. Like, tons, a lot. Just look at social media – you could tweet and pin and post and like and comment and share and on and on. Suddenly lots of busyness is happening but no measurable result. Simplicity means picking the highest level, largest impact items to focus on and doing them well. It might be as simple as a receptionist that makes every customer feel like a million bucks. Or actually attending that Chamber of Commerce meeting you have been meaning to go to. The impact of marketing and advertising – whether online or off – is magnified by the real world actions a business takes in building it’s brand.

3. Focus

Okay – this one can be tough. It goes hand in glove with point 2. Focus on your plan and get it done. Don’t allow other last minute “bright ideas” to cloud your focus. Or the focus of your employees. If a bright idea comes along that isn’t planned take a look back at your action plan. There is a small chance that you or your marketing person have executed so well on your plan, on all your steps of your marketing action plan, that there is in fact time to test a new bright idea! Typically not. But, if there is, go ahead and have fun with it. You deserve it.

4. Execution

Alright – execution. This point is actually very easy to miss. It seems like the marketing isn’t working – a plan was made and it was simple and your marketing person says things are rolling but one doesn’t see the results. This can be very discouraging.

Take a look at what is actually happening – is the execution actually taking place? I have heard tell that a plan wasn’t getting results only to factually discover that 90% of the plan was not being done – not a complicated plan either. It simply was not being done and the owner was being told it wasn’t working. Before you abandon ship do an inspection into your execution and get things on track.

5. Testing

What’s working? Monitoring key statistics in an office are important in marketing. This includes the easy ones to miss like incoming calls and inquiries via the internet. Plans that are working can be abandoned solely because sales didn’t increase. Often in this case other problems exist preventing sales from occurring – the leads are coming in but they are being mishandled. This is normal – fix the mishandling, continue the marketing and watch the statistics rise.

Of course there are times it simply didn’t work. Recognizing this and changing a tactic while strengthening the areas that did work is vital. Chad Lane has a great marketing checklist for seeing what’s working. You could simply use that for testing.

6. Consistency

Keep it up! Keep doing what is working.

Change management is a beast. The employee (or owner, cough cough) who is so used to doing things the same old way can be a problem that must be addressed. The external marketing efforts are rolling but no internal change has taken place. Consistency in your marketing means doing the plan across the board – and continuing to do that plan. Any good marketing plan contains internal actions too – things the owner and employees must do for success to occur.

Well, there you have it. the 6 points where one can misstep or succeed in executing their marketing. If you’re interested in a free marketing mini program you can visit my company site, Worry Free Consulting, and fill out our free marketing analysis. We will give you ways to increase your marketing effectiveness right now. 

Inspired by a recent article on how to stop procrastinating I decided to jump on here and spend two minutes writing. This “two minutes” point is important – I hope to use it to overcome writers block.

There are many topics I could write about on any given day: sales, marketing, networking, technology, websites, how-to’s…yet my thoughts don’t seem to align in the linear, good-for-an-article fashion that I see in blogs I love. You know the kind I mean, where you’re entertained, intrigued, and learn something – all at the same time.

The idea that I have to make a point or cause a change in you, the reader, puts a kind of pressure on what I say. This pressure to be great, write great, and cause a great change that helps you can also be called “the pressure to be perfect.”

But what of the old adage “don’t let perfect become the enemy of good enough?”

This pressure isn’t just in writing. We all experience it every day. From perfect wedding proposals to a perfect sales pitch – from the perfect name for your company to the perfect way to tell others what you do in 30 seconds or less.

How do we relieve this stifling pressure to be perfect? How do we stop trying to be perfect before we’ve even tried at all? How do we remove this potentially immobilizing force without sacrificing our standards?

There isn’t a one size fits all answer.

Perhaps the way to overcome this pressure is to recognize our fear for what it is: not knowing what’s coming next, the need to be in control of every outcome.

Every successful billionaire I’ve read about didn’t have it all figured out before they started. They just started and kept going. They knew they didn’t know and didn’t let it stop them.

Let’s take a lesson from these successful pioneers in their field and apply it to our every day lives in business.

Just start – and keep going.

Nelson Mandela passed away today. I am saddened by his death. We all are. We can be yet inspired to a greater degree than this sadness by the life he lived, the people who are happy that he lived – the people whose lives are changed because he did what he did.

He was one of the greatest humanitarians ever. Facing, less than 20 years ago, a monstrosity to human rights. This was not “long ago” – no, this was barely yesterday.

A human being is known not by what they say but by what they do. If what they do carries on so to do they.

Nelson Mandela is not dead. He lives forever, in the lives he saved, the supporters he inspired, and in the free people of South Africa who live his legacy every day.

There are people who focus all their energy on the impression they leave behind after a sales meeting or a presentation to a board of directors. And then there are those who are focused on winning the moment. To these I ask: What of the moments that follow – just after yours has passed?

The impression you leave shouldn’t be one of thick sales tactics and attempted domination – one that leads to “the executive eye roll” as my friend Gill Wagner put it.

If you leave a meeting feeling like you won – you may have done something wrong. If you leave a meeting feeling like they won – you know you did something right (and sure, you will feel like a winner too).

It’s not about selling what you have. It’s about finding the best possible product or service to help the person in front of you do better and be more successful. If they win, you win.

With this in mind, the executive eye roll will never afflict you behind your back. And it does afflict people – we only experience the “we went with someone else” phone call – we never get to see the eyes roll right in front of our face. If only we could stand there five minutes after the presentation ends, when we would normally be getting in our car, and watch the board of directors roll their eyes at the obvious sales tactics being employed.

I have been guilty of receiving the eye roll, many times – although I have never been there to watch it happen. One such time stands out clearly: Years ago a seasoned fundraiser and I sat down to have a visit with a potential donor for a capital campaign. The moment the visit began I went right into it, positive I could sell the idea and get a gift – assured success on my first try! I told all the reasons why the project was important and how much it meant – I even told of my background and tried to relate to the person in front of me – I went on and on. The visit went horribly. I don’t think we managed to raise anything on that visit.

The seasoned fundraiser I was with, who evidently refrained from slapping me in the jaw, took me outside for a walk and did his best to tell me one thing, nicely: shut up and listen. It was then I realized that learning to listen would be more difficult than I thought.

Selling is so easy when you shut up and listen.

(And if you need help learning to do this, try reading Power Questions – it certainly helped me.)

Branding. This term has a specific meaning and purpose. A good purpose, one which helps brand managers create a product their customers care about – and choose above all others, even at a higher cost.

But what does it mean for a small business? One that offers services, not products – or one that sells others brands? (Such as a boutique)

Is branding so important in this case?

I remember playing golf with a friend who was about to finish college with a minor in marketing – he kept saying “I get marketing, it’s all about branding.”

Huh?

I was playing too horribly to argue anything about branding but this comment stuck with me – I pondered it for a bit.

A brand coach will tell you “your brand is the most important aspect of your business.”

No. It isn’t.

Not to rock any boats but let’s be honest here: is your brand for your service-based small business more important than the level of service you provide? Is it more important to your local customers than customer service? What about profitability, your business plan, researching your target market – is branding more important than these things?

No, it isn’t.

Branding isn’t the same thing as Positioning. When I see many small businesses focusing mainly on their “brand” I most often see a business owner who has made the mistake of focusing inwards rather than outwards.

Your small business and it’s brand are only as good as the level of service you provide – it’s about being better, not catchier. It’s about creating word of mouth because you are awesome – not about having the coolest logo in town.

When you are big and powerful and have an ad budget that’s over ten million a year – talk about branding.

Until then talk about your customers. How to make things better for them, simpler for them, more streamlined for them – THIS is how you build a brand. It’s how Steve Jobs did it. He started with an idea – not a logo. He started with a drive to change the world – not to trick the world into loving his brand. The branding followed because he focused on user experience and customers – not because his ads tricked people into thinking his mouse trap was better.

A brand built on nothing is better left unbuilt.

Get building.

When you get into business for yourself there is a piece of advice you will find repeated in books, blogs and from the minds of those who have made it in years past:

You are going to need a banker, a lawyer and a CPA. Go and find those three first and get yourself into a good relationship with all three.

Alright. That’s true. But it is missing something, or rather, someone. In the 20th century days of building a business with no website, email or cell phones the above three connections were really a stable foundation for a business plan to begin to work (this assumes you have a plan, as well as a marketing plan).

In the 21st century I believe there is another key person you’ll need: an IT person.

This dawned on me during a conversation with my wife. Her mom uses me as her own free tech support. I happily do this and it pales in comparison to all she does for us. I don’t know what “normal people” do when they have the kind of issues her network and computer has – do they suffer through hours of tech support? Call an IT person just to restart a router?

If you have an IT person as a part of your network – one who likes you and gives free advice (or who pops over in exchange for a meal) it is a valuable asset to have. Especially if it means business continuity.

I’m in marketing, but when it comes to technology I certainly know my way around. For serious IT issues I have the good fortune of a brother who can do anything when it comes to IT.

In closing, get a lawyer, a CPA, a banker and an IT person – you’ll need them all.