“Marketing – it’s all fluff and BS. Big promises, guff about brand, digital this ….. blah blah blah and what do I get. Denada – money down the toilet.”
Matt was on fire and all I could do was breathe through the heat blast until he paused.
But Matt is also a successful business owner and that was no accident.
So I started to unpick that.
Me: Do you go to business lunches, conferences, industry meetings?
Matt: Yes of course, networking is important.
Me: It is. But do you ever stop and calculate the direct costs of that lunch and travel and the opportunity cost of your time? Evaluate that against the handshakes and conversations. Connect that to a future introduction. To someone who wasn’t there.
Matt: No, that’s a weird way of looking at it.
Me: Yes and no. Relationships take a long time, and they can become valuable. However each time you went to a function or networking occasion, you were investing time & money.
You were talking about yourself & your business. How you could solve people’s problems.
Brand building. After all people can’t do business with you if they don’t know about you.
Matt: Right.
Me: So, that is marketing in action. You were doing it without being aware, and even though you could only occasionally attribute business outcomes to any particular event.
- You have to take a portfolio view of marketing and play the longer game.
- Individual investments could either fail, break even, or deliver a positive return – and a few could deliver stellar returns. And sometimes those timeframes are measured in years.
- It’s like Hollywood movies, venture capital, new business ventures.
You can’t tell what will work or not at the start.
You can apply best practice and due diligence but you cannot predict the outcome. But those industries still persevere, and make money.
It’s the same with your marketing.
The only valid question is: does the totality of your activity deliver a return?
We do.
Our Marketing Action Plans, or MAPs, ensure our clients have a clear path for how to achieve their specific marketing objectives.
>> If you’d like to have a quick chat about your firm’s marketing strategy and MAP, you can book an initial 15 minute chat with Alex Meijnen here >>
Invaluable to the growth of my business
“delivering Results took us back to the fundamentals of marketing and then created the communications for the business to help with the ‘sales’ process and reduce this cycle to almost half.
Since implementing these new sales tools, we have also noticed a steep increase in referrals from existing clients as well as new professional referral sources.
Overall, going through this process was invaluable to the growth of my business and I would recommend that all owners go through this process with Alex and his team regardless of how long they have been in business.”
Gavin Murray, Managing Partner, Hub Advisory Group