Driven to Business with Eddie Mayfield

Sometimes it’s hard to face realities.  One I had to face, as do many of you, is that the terrific personality we were born with may not be enough to sustain business growth.  When I first started EMA, most of our business came from relationships I had nurtured.

But, we needed more, and so we employed various sales people.  At first, the results were disappointing and my tendency was to blame the sales person.  I came to realize over time, that a big part of the problem was our lack of a strategic and coordinated sales and marketing system.   We were forced into rectifying this, as many companies are forced into doing the right thing, when times got a little tough. While we certainly don’t know everything, we have enjoyed great success with our marketing programs, and we trust that in sharing them, it can benefit you.

On this Driven to Business episode, I’m going to address some common errors in marketing, and provide some practical tips to help you. My goal is to encourage you to do a better job at marketing your business (and perhaps AVOID the tough times that would force you into it.)

First; a little bit of definition.  The terms “Sales” and “Marketing” are often interchanged, and they are indeed related. However, in a general sense, sales is more a push function, while marketing is a pull function.

Sales is meeting needs as opportunities arise in an individual method. This is often a person to person interaction.

Marketing is building a brand identity, and widely distributing information.  When you walk into a prospect and they have heard positive things about you..  that’s good marketing.

Marketing cannot be separated from customer service, in fact, some would argue that customer service IS the driver of marketing, especially in a world where your business gets instant online reviews from websites like Yelp and others.

Regardless of the size of your business, or  even if you are a non profit such as a church or other facility, establishing your brand and disseminating information is essential.

I start off with the very basics:  Information is Marketing; Marketing is Information.  We first of all need to establish the WHAT – WHEN – and WHERE of our message.  This has to have more weight than how pretty our marketing literature or websites are.

I’m going to spend a fair amount of time talking about website marketing.  I’m continually amazed at how even large companies and non-profits  make simple errors in this area that cost them business and frustrated clients.

Give it a listen

Eddie

Driven to Business with Eddie Mayfield airs every Saturday at 11 AM on Atlanta’s business radio..  Biz 1190 AM.   The program is streamed live on biz1190.com and podcast on eddiemayfield.com and itunes.

Simply the best business radio in Atlanta..  Driven to Business.