Running against the herd

Often, business owners concentrate on following the perceived wisdom about what works and what doesn't in marketing but this can result in loads of missed opportunities.

If your competitors are all doing the same types of marketing such as advertising in the Yellow Pages or doing mailshots with the same sort of offers and promoting the same features and benefits, then copying them won't get you anywhere. The way to stand out is to do something different - something that your customers or prospects won't expect.

Common marketing 'wisdom' states that your direct marketing should be short and punchy because people are too busy to read or they don't have a long enough attention span. I've lost count of the number of people I know who won't deviate from this belief which is a shame because it is complete rubbish.

The truth is that people don't have time to read boring and uninteristing drivel, but if what you have to say is vibrant and relevant they WILL read it, almost however long it is. If you don't believe me, think about it in terms of lifetyle magazines for things like cars, boats, travel, home improvement, etc. They sell by their thousands, often to successful and affluent individuals who spend time reading very long articles because it is something they are interested in.

I proved this recently by sending an 8 page sales letter to the CEOs of major international organisations promoting an opportunity with one of my clients. You would imagine that CEOs would be be far too busy to read such a lengthy thing but the content was relevant to them and I presented it in an exciting and unusual way - the result? SIXTY PERCENT of them replied - and they replied immediately because CEOs don't like wasting time!

There are loads of similar marketing 'rules'. Following them will get you the same mediocre results that your competitors get and your business will be viewed like all the rest. Break as many of those rules as you can and you'll soon stand out from the crowd, impress prospective clients, and find out that the crowd wasn't so wise after all.

Most useful book i've read for ages

I've just finished reading The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and I have to say that this is essential reading for anyone running a business who feels they don't have time to do anything!

The point of running a business is that you don't have to do all the technical work yourself. You will probably eventually want to hire staff to do some of this for you, freeing up your time to work ON the business, to develop it, rather than IN the business and trying to do everything yourself.

Many business owners know this but struggle to achieve it. Gerber takes the priciples behind business franchising and applies them to businesses like yours, graphically illustrating how to get staff to do what you want through systems, enabling the business to function like clockwork even if you're not there.

Anyone running a business flat out, and struggling to find the time to do any marketing or business development, or any employer who is constantly frustrated with staff that don't have the same commitment or attention to detail will find this book a revelation.

I've you want to check it out on Amazon, The E-Myth Revisited is in my list of business books to the left. I'm now reading the sequel, E-Myth Mastery, and will let you know if that's as useful when i've finished it.