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Coworking, Office Space and Meeting Rooms / Strategic and Business Planning Consultant
Issaquah, Washington
Issaquah, Washington
Greatly helpful
out of 10
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Want to Grow? Work Smarter and Harder
Harder and smarter means you don't need to spend a lot of money on marketing to make an extraordinary impact. You have to be a guerrilla and use unconventional methods to achieve conventional ends.
Written Jul 05, 2011, read 3446 times since then.
In my corporate days, there was a hackneyed phrase about not working harder, but working smarter. This was a brilliant comment thrown out to a group of business heads when corporate or we had collectively decided that headcount needed to be cut in the face of a deteriorating economic climate. It was usually made by the controller that didn't want to spend the time to allocate reductions based on where a business was relative to plan and simply wanted everyone to take out 10% or a neophyte that had no business being at the table in the first place and wanted to sound clever. This genius wanted us all to know that life needn't be more difficult operating with fewer people if we just worked smarter.
Those of us that had to make it happen would then collectively turn our heads towards the individual and silently let he or she know that now would be a good time to shut-up. First; there isn't a lot of flexibility to work smarter in large corporations. They function like government to a great extent. An endless stream of unfunded mandates from paperwork to corporate operating initiatives only increased non-revenue generating activities to be absorbed by a fixed or diminished set of resources. Second; there was always only one way to work and that was harder.
In small business or as an entrepreneur, I preach that you have to work smarter and harder if you want to survive, particularly in marketing. Harder and smarter means you don't need to spend a lot of money on marketing to make an extraordinary impact. You have to be a guerrilla and use unconventional methods to achieve conventional ends.
I've been in marketing for over 30 years now and can speak with the authority of experience and success. You can deliver extraordinary results without spending a lot of money if you are agile, understand what the customer wants, understand the marketing weapons at your disposal, know your desired goal and are willing to devote the energy required to get the job done.
Agility
Don't study it to death, make it happen. This article will be completed in less than 45 minutes. My goal is not to convince you I should be a writer; it's to convince you that it doesn't take a big marketing budget to be a world class marketer. Getting my thoughts into words and publishing it doesn't mean I have to read it, edit it, reread and submit it to a dozen friends to get their feelings. My goal is to get my thoughts on this out to whoever is interested as fast as possible and move on.
You do need to maintain a level of quality that reflects well on you and your business. The measure of quality is not in this case meticulous sentence structure, but the quality of the advice. Knowing your real goals is paramount. Get your message out and place a premium on time-to-market.
Goals
Too many professional marketers completely lose sight of the real goal. In case you didn't know it is profit. I've had many a stare down with staff in the past that seemed to think the goal was for them to win an award for best trade show exhibit or promotional video and not to create an effective tool to help generate the next lead or close the next sale and produce profit.
I would get comments like if we only spend that amount we might as well not do it at all or our competition would make us look silly given how much they're going to spend. My usual response would be that we have never signed an order at a trade show or won an order as a result of a trade show and neither has the competition. The only one that will look silly is the one that spends the most being there.
Customers don't care about award winning promotions. They want to know what you can do for them that no one else can that will make them money or in the C2C environment, happier or more fulfilled.
You have common goals; you both want to make more money. Your job is to convince the customer that they can make more money by using your product or service than the other guys' and do that for the least amount of money possible. In other words, maximizing your return on investment.
Know Your Marketing Weapons
It's difficult today to get people to think beyond their website. Without going into a great deal of detail and making this article into a tome, the ways in which you can market your products and services both on-line and off-line have increased exponentially and are in many cases free. Even promotional tools that have been out of reach in terms of price for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the past are affordable today. The increased interest in on-line promotion has made traditional off-line tools like radio and television well within reach of small businesses.
A website alone will not drive business to your door. You need to use a variety of on-line and off-line tools in a coordinated manner to drive people to your website or storefront. There is no silver bullet in marketing; you can't afford to invest a disproportionate share of your available resources in a single marketing tool.
One of the reasons I decided to get back into the marketing game was because of the number of so-called marketing gurus out there that didn't have a clue and were hurting people and businesses as a result.
I had a client that was working with a marketing firm that was bleeding him dry. Their big idea was to rent a theater out for a first run movie and invite, with minimal qualifications, a prospect, their spouse and children to come see a movie and have a good time. The thought was that they would make "friends" and when that friend needed financial advice, they would come looking for him.
These events were costing him $10 thousand a shot and bringing in no business. This was several years ago when financial advisors were dropping like flies. My comment to him was that he didn't need friends, he needed clients. Understanding it's all about relationships is one thing, throwing money into a theater at $10 thousand a shot with no clear goals is quite another.
He declared bankruptcy about six-months later. I looked into this marketing guru. He was a mortgage broker when the real estate market collapsed. He's now found his niche in social media marketing. Very sad and very unnecessary. Diversify your marketing investment.
Work Harder
A lot of the great marketing weapons are labor intensive. Be prepared to put your time in or pay someone else to do it for you. Remember that others cannot replace your involvement, only leverage it. As an entrepreneur or small business owner, your involvement is required to get the content and message right.
A great example is building a website. Many an entrepreneur or small business owner pay someone a healthy amount of money to build a website and are dumbfounded when the developer delivers a site of forty pages filled with blank boxes and their logo at the top.
Software techies aren't the ones you want to create content for you. Even if you added the expense of a content writer, the writer needs to know what you know. Who is your target market, what are they looking for and why, what can you do to satisfy their needs, how is different from other solutions, how have you helped people in the past and what is their next step or call to action when they're finished reading? All of this must come from you. Someone else can put it into pretty words and make it keyword enriched, but the message is yours.
You can delegate and outsource just so much. Your marketing message determines how the world sees you and your company. You should and need to be engaged. Again, leverage yourself with others.
Conclusion
The point is that with a commitment in time and some creativity, you can create a small business marketing machine with a minimal investment in dollars. Understanding your goals, understanding the customer, being agile, using multiple marketing weapons and working hard can produce extraordinary results and grow your business beyond your wildest dreams.
His corporate career was focused on restructuring failing businesses. Gabel worked with management to develop a viable strategic plan. Most often, he would then assume control and implement the plan. He now prefers to help small businesses grow.
Learn more about the author, Richard Gabel.
Comment on this article
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Posted by Laura Dodson, CPA, Seattle, Washington |Jul 05, 2011 -
Posted by Nick Webb, Seattle, Washington |Jul 05, 2011 Great article, Richard. My biggest takeaway was know your intent. If you write an article to convey timely and relevant information to your peers/customers, it does not have to be perfect (unless of course you are a writer).
That is a big trap that a lot of us fall into... it's smart to set time bounds on writing articles and other tasks that can take over a whole afternoon or day if we let them.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |Jul 05, 2011 Thank you Laura and thank you Nick.
The need for perfection is a huge barrier to getting things done. I'm not talking about the teenage tendancy to do the minimal amount required. I'm thinking about giving it your best effort in a time period that is justified by the expected return.
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Posted by Julie Hutton, Kirkland, Washington |Jul 05, 2011 "Customers don't care about award winning promotions. They want to know what you can do for them..."
Boy, isn't that the Truth! We are all exceedingly self-focused (and that is not a bad thing) and we need to keep our message focused on the receiver.
Great reminder Richard. Thanks, Julie
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Posted by Timothy Sternling, Gig Harbor, Washington |Jul 06, 2011 Mentioning money or profits as a goal usually generates blank stares.
Thank you for reinforcing the concept of profit as an objective.
A client who was a jeweller once said, "I can't eat gold or diamonds!" How very profound...
Best, Timothy
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Posted by Michael Hartzell, Seattle, Washington |Jul 06, 2011 Too many professional marketers completely lose sight of the real goal. In case you didn't know it is profit.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 06, 2011 Timothy and Mike,
It is amazing that in a capitalist society we are bashful talking about profit. So often it's treated as the dirty little secret that we're in business to make a profit.
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Posted by Kristin Slice, Phoenix, Arizona |Jul 07, 2011 Could not agree more! We started our business for the same reason. We knew that marketing and sales should be easy and affordable for small businesses. We are a marketing and sales company but we got involved in social media because soooo many people were wasting thousands of dollars on "social media campaigns" to create 1,000 of followers but no clients. The latest and greatest marketing tool is only as good as your strategy.
Well said!
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Posted by Ric Phillips, Toronto, Ontario Canada |Jul 07, 2011 Loved the article and I especially can relate to your words re: building a website. Luckily in my case my close friend helped build my new site, and at the same time taught me how to add the content myself. In this way I can always adjust my message, pics, pages, add videos etc. There can be a drawback to this, as sometimes I flip-flop, but all in all I much prefer having control over my content. I would hate to see what a techie would write for me! ;)
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Posted by Stephanie Williams, Kennewick, Washington |Jul 07, 2011 I totally agree!
Similar to diversifying your marketing weapon arsenal business owners need to really investigate the people (and their qualifications) who they rely on to help them with marketing strategy. If they can't show clients how they are agile and goal oriented keep looking!
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Posted by Nancy Meadows, Kirkland, Washington |Jul 07, 2011 I love it, Richard. You call a spade a spade. Unfortunately, we've probably had "gurus" make it sound easy. I know I have. By the time I realized that there is no quick remedy, I had invested alot of time and money. It would seem to be true, that business is business both online and offline. The internet has given the small business person much more leverage, but in the end, no matter how we market, are we making money?
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Posted by Randal DeHart, PMP, QPA, Lynnwood, Washington |Jul 07, 2011 Richard,
You packed an enormous quantity of sage business acumen in a minuscule space.
Warm Regards,
Randal
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 07, 2011 Wow, a lot of comments this morning. Kristin, Ric, Stephanie, Nancy and Randal thank you for taking time to read the article and post your comments. It seems like I touched on a couple of points that resonated with the entrepreneurial community. We're far more sensitive to getting the results we're looking for out of our marketing dollars.
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Posted by Pete DiSantis, Seattle, Washington |Jul 07, 2011 Dick, You are so right on.
Who said entrepreneurship was a get rich quick scheme? If it was, the corporations would be empty.
I always endorse working smarter. Why do it wrong faster? What sense does THAT make?
I do not usually endorse working harder and I understand what you mean. For me, working harder is doing all the stuff that is not my core competency. That means: marketing, sales, accounting, HR and IT, etc. It's harder because 1) I have to do it, when I don't want to; 2) I have to learning it; 3) It takes time away from my core competencies and generating revenue.
Back to work. Crack the whip!
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 07, 2011 Good morning Pete. You're so right and I stand corrected. There's a place for hard work in marketing if you know what your doing. A man's gotta know his limitations.
Ooops, already one plagarism scandal going on in Biznik. The preceding comment is a quote from Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, I apologize to anyone and everyone that I might have given the impression that those were my original words. I apologize to Bizniks everywhere for the unforgiveable transgressions. For those of you that think I've lost my mind, please see
http://biznik.com/articles/social-media-marketing-why-it-might-not-be-working-for-you
That said, this is exactly why someone should contact Meadow Creek to assist in their marketing activities. We offer both planning and execution. Thanks for the segue Pete.
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Posted by Chas Wyatt, Gladstone, Oregon |Jul 07, 2011 Great article. I especially like the feedback it has garnered. 45 minutes to write an article- I must be doing something wrong; I've attempted to write two articles on Biznik and get booted-off when I hit send, if they're not complete in 15- I do have slow-hands on the keyboard.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 07, 2011 Charles,
I should probably take longer. I do go back and read it after I publish it and scramble to fix all of my typos.
You should ask Andrew what the problem is with sending your articles.
Tahnk you for taking time to comment.
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Posted by Elizabeth Dyer, Blairsville, Georgia |Jul 07, 2011 Great article! The truth is, anyone is in business to make a profit. I once read sign years ago & it has stuck with me.... "Running a business without making a profit is like eating soup with a fork. You stay busy, but you stay hungry too."
There is absolute truth in this. We can't pay our bills or keep our business going if we don't make money.
Also, what happened to the man's "friends" when he filed bankruptcy???? I bet most were not around.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 08, 2011 I responded to Elizabeth privately about what happened next. The story does not have a happy ending yet, it got way worse.
Incompetent people claiming guru status destroy businesses and lives.
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Posted by Pete DiSantis, Seattle, Washington |
Jul 08, 2011 Elizabeth, I love that quote. Do you have a reference for it? I did not find one online.
ciao, Pete
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Posted by Penny Zenker, Devon, Pennsylvania |Jul 08, 2011 I agree that working smarter is the answer. As a business performance coach, I work with companies to Work more ON their business than IN their business. Strategies will win over tactics every time.
I am so glad you used the P (Profit) word, companies loose sight of this.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 08, 2011 Penny,
It is amazing how many people that have an aversion to strategy.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 10, 2011 This article has inspired more comments than any of my previous articles. I think. I'd like to leverage that and ask those of you have read it and those that will read it an important question. When you are creating a campaign for yourself or someone else, how much time is spent on considering the objective versus the content of the campaign.
I have fallen into the trap of considering the campaign only myself so I'm not looking for the faults of others. Misery loves company. Is this a common problem?
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Posted by Elizabeth Dyer, Blairsville, Georgia |
Jul 10, 2011 Pete ~ I wish I knew who to credit the saying to, but currently I do not. I may go by that business next week, though, and see if I can find out who should be credited.
Richard ~ I always start a campaign by defining the object and working on content and delivery that can reach that objective.
I also try to keep a log of random thoughts and inspirations that I can go to when brain storming and see if any of them fit my current needs.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 10, 2011 Elizabeth,
I only have erred on my own marketing campaigns. It's the sting of those experiences that have cemented my resove on others. As for the quote, it must have been a competitor of Campbell's Soups.
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Posted by Elizabeth Dyer, Blairsville, Georgia |
Jul 10, 2011 I know what you mean. I'm good at helping others, but it is hard to be objective on one's own campaigns. I am looking for a mentor for my business to help with just such a thing. One technique I use that has helped me is for me to actually go through my own process and pretend I am a client. Set a budget, expectations, time line, etc. It has really helped me to focus.
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Posted by Nancy Meadows, Kirkland, Washington |
Jul 11, 2011 Elizabeth, what a great idea. Your technique of being the client gives a whole different focus. I'm going to try it!
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 11, 2011 I like it too. I fired myself this morning.
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Posted by Anna Weltman, Del Mar, California |Jul 26, 2011 Hi Richard! I laughed at your last remark/comment! I really enjoyed your article. I totally agree that despite the 'oh wow' factor of some larger corporations for what they produce, they really are run like governments - very wasteful, very slow, very inflexible.
I'm in the service biz (consulting services) and was wondering what are some more of the tools you mention - the guerrilla marketing weapons that are at my disposal (of course, not TV) - and the online and offline tools you refer to? Can you suggest to me some of those unconventional specifics (are you talking about putting a business card in specific places, and other types of 'actions' that can be taken to drive traffic to the website?) -
Posted by Elizabeth Dyer, Blairsville, Georgia |
Jul 28, 2011 Because of the interest I had about being one's own client, I wrote an article. Its my very FIRST, so please be gentle. I'm going to write a second part to it and I hope someone finds it to be a benefit to them and their business.
http://biznik.com/members/elizabeth-dyer/articles/be-your-own-best-client
As for the quote, I could not find the author....sorry, I tried.
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Posted by Richard Gabel, Issaquah, Washington |
Jul 29, 2011 Anna,
Here is a short list of at least 200 weapons. You may not immediately think of each of them as marketing tools, but they are or can be.
Personal letters Community bulletin boards Door hangers Television commercials (micro market ads on cable are very inexpensive) Chat rooms Webinars Speaking Special events Gift certificates Radio talk show guest Testimonials
Humerlis Tweets
Richard's current promotion
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Updated Sep 15, 2012
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- marketing
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