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  • Can You Practice Marketing?

    marketing practiceThe title to this post came from a discussion with one of my readers about the need to routinely teach everyone in the organization about what your ideal customer really buys from you.

    The suggestion from my reader was that this was the kind of advice that was a lot like practice fundamentals for say, a basketball player. Larry Bird, one of the all time greats, was legendary for shooting hundreds of free throws every day. He was the league MVP four times and led the NBA in free throw percentage each of those four years he was honored.

    So, what I’m wondering is this – What fundamental marketing “drills” should you, and every one in the organization be doing every single day to become marketing MVPs? (or at least get off the bench)

    Here’s my list for starters:

    • Review a description and perhaps even photos of ideal customers
    • Review a list of trigger phrases customers say out loud or to themselves when expressing a need for what you sell
    • Review and practice answering this question in a marketing way – What do you do for living?
    • Review and practice telling someone the most impactful way to describe the value your organization brings in 30 seconds or less
    • Answer at least one phone or written customer/prospect inquiry, no matter your job title
    • Call one customer and ask them to share something they need, want, like or dislike about doing business with your organization
    • Review a list of stated organization or personal marketing goals and the indicators used to track them.

    So, what about you, what do you organization’s layup and free throws look like and have you done them before bed today?

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    Posted by: John Jantsch on Jun 11, 09 | 7:07 am
    Category: Marketing Strategy | Tags:

    Comments
    • Keep (and share) a list of why clients say they do business with you.
    • How many times does a salesperson role play an important sales call? How many times do you practice leaving a voice mail?

      I like the use of the sports analogy, especially for sales. I think it is so important. Teams and individuals practice 95% of the time to excel at 5% of what they do. I wonder if business even practices 5%?

      P.S. I am as guilty as anyone else.
    • I think the most important question everyone in the organization needs to know is: what is it we're selling? If you walk through your company and ask employees this question, will the answer be consistent?
    • I like the concept of practicing at marketing to get better so you can close the deal. Whether you do this over the phone, face to face, or making a transaction over the internet. Never thought much about this analogy, but its something that we can try. Great info John!
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2579262/west_coas...
    • Listening to people’s concern. The majority of complaints are treated as constructive criticism.
      There is a solution to every complaint that helps to evolve your Business.
    • Great thoughts John as always.
      Really like the basketball analogy as I've always been a Larry Bird fan even from the other side of the world!!
    • Lay-ups and free throws for us are the constant attention to customer service. People normally know what they want so assist them in the finishing. If they don't know what they want, assist them in finishing. Either way it's just a small part of business and the customer goes away satisfied. Customer service should definitely be the easy lay-up that you should never stop practicing.
    • The short answer is- most ideas you can think of are good enough to start a business around – in short you can probably make some money doing almost anything.

      The real question is whether or not your business idea is worth the risk, and will provide adequate reward if it works out. For sake of argument let’s say adequate return is enough money for you to live on, at least replacing your current income. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

      Simply put your unique selling proposition (USP) is the reason I’d buy from you and not a competitor.

      Continue Reading Steel Tarps
    • brate
      Nice work Will. . The inbound links really helps a lot in optimizing the website for getting a deeper search engine penetration, hence increasing the overall ranking. In the latest advancements of the search engine spiders, search engine optimization has not left by mere re occurring your desired keywords, It is highly required that your website design and content should serve as an enticement to the web spiders. It’s of no use to have a site which doesn’t comply with the standards of search spiders. I got my medical website reconstructed from a web designer and marketing company named www.medicalwebexperts.com. They need to almost reconstruct every page to make it compliant with search engine algorithms. After a few months of time, the impact was definitely distinctive in my income. I have got a steady increase in the patients, which was a direct result of reconstructing and marketing my old obsolete site.
    • I like the point you are expressing on this article. This would invoke the readers, especially those who are interested in marketing to take a step back and realize how should and must they make steps for a successful marketing. I have read few articles about marketing strategy and I think people should also try your own version and see if it will work. -marian-"147waystomrktit"
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