The 8020 Blog

I regularly (almost once per week) conduct a simple survey which consistently reveals that 92% of business owners think they have a truly great product but not enough clients.

The second part of the survey shows that 78% of the same people do less than 2 hours a week of direct marketing activity. Many of these people are stressed from not having enough clients but actually do zero hours of marketing activity per week.

Why is that? Well here’s my take: these people are neither stupid nor are they lazy. They simply lack a proven, effective, step-by-step process for engaging in marketing activity.

I’ve seen previously marketing-paralyzed business owners transform into marketing machines once they gain the confidence that a well thought out value proposition and approach gives them.

Get your product good enough (not perfect: good enough is good enough) and then develop a clear and compelling customer value proposition. Then refuse to be distracted by anything (e.g. developing another product feature or a new web site or an updated brochure) and invest 20 hours a week in marketing - do it right and in less than 4 weeks you will have more clients than you can handle.

The enemy of great strategy is the good idea.

Strategy is all about focus. That means that once you’ve identified the niche you want to dominate you learn to say no to opportunities that are not aligned to the execution of that strategy.

You stay focused. So when someone calls you or emails you and says “Hey I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t we blah blah blah …” you compare the idea to your strategy and say yes or no accordingly.

It’s the difference between being opportunistic and strategic. You know that you are being purely opportunistic when you feel like a dog chasing it’s own tail on a fast moving treadmill. You know when you are being strategic when things are not moving as fast as you would like but you make consistent forward progress.

People who maintain a strategic focus build earnings and businesses of wealth.