Tag: Small business

What is the mystery ingredient in success?

Posted on by philipdodson

What is that mystery ingredient in success? By Philip Dodson

Ingredients to success

I have read many business books, blogs, articles, listened to many speakers…..I have read about ‘eating frogs’, systems for this, strategies for that.

There are so many, so called experts out there, all offering free tips, downloadable chapters from their award winning books. We are told that we need a business plan, a marketing plan, a mission, vision, and so on.

We must have systems for follow up, we must have processes for this, we need advisors, non-execs, mentors, coaches….the list goes on.

A number of the above things are vital, as long as they are simple & can be actioned quickly and I am not for one minute suggesting you just start a business and see what comes.

However, after 26 years of running businesses, some for others and some for myself, I have realised that all of my successes have hinged on one thing, that without some other elements in that win, the success would have still happened, but not without the mystery ingredient.

So what is it?

Passion

Without it, you will never achieve your goals or get the successes you are truly capable of. I would not buy from anyone who isn’t passionate about their product or service. I would not employ anyone who doesn’t have it. Life pure and simple, whether for business or personal, will be 100 times more enjoyable and fruitful. If you do the things you love, then you will be truly passionate about it.

I mean passion that is 100% honest and from the heart, not the manufactured ‘reality TV show’ kind, where everyone unconvincingly blurts out how they are really ‘passionate’ about ‘cooking’ ‘selling’ ‘whatever’

So my successes have only come when I’ve been doing the things I love to do, because that’s when the passion flows.

One life – be passionate

Focus on your customers – it’s free

Posted on by philipdodson

Focus on your customers, it’s free – by Philip Dodson

Happy customers

I’m sure most of you are familiar with Jay Conrad Levenson and his Guerrilla Marketing. Well there has never been a more apt time than now to adopt his teachings and apply it to your business.

We are living through the digital revolution, the rise of the self-employed, which will be the green shoots of economic recovery for the developed world economies.

However, with all these fledgling start-ups, often being established by young or relatively inexperienced entrepreneurs from ex-corporate backgrounds, there is a danger that if they are not resourceful they will fail.

Jay Conrad Levenson described marketing ‘as every interaction your business has with the outside world’. Essentially marketing is the most important thing in your business.

If you are prepared to be a ‘guerrilla’ marketer and not get caught up in the costly traditional marketing approach, then it won’t cost your start-up business a small fortune that you simply don’t have.

So marketing is about your website, your business card, your pitch, your Tweets, your Facebook page, your newsletter, how you answer the phone, your email address, your invoice, and so on.

However, one of the biggest aspects that people overlook is their existing customer, even if it is just a few when you start out or possibly just one.

Traditional marketing is all about sales, often sales at all costs, ticking a box when it’s done and then onto the next prospect.

Guerrilla marketers realise that it’s not sales, it’s profit that matters and there is a great deal of cost involved in getting the sale, so why not focus on keeping the ones you have got happy.  Statistically 60% plus of all customers are lost after the initial transaction due to apathy after the sale and poor follow up.

Delivering great service and following up with your existing clients costs very little. Not only will great service cost you very little to deliver, but, neither does good follow-up. That can be via newsletters, surveys, regular phone calls, offers, updates, events, face-to-face meetings, just by giving and not taking all the time and so on.

Keeping customers means lower cost repeat business and more importantly will lead to testimonials, word-of-mouth and referrals. A considerably less expensive form of marketing and likely to have significantly higher conversion ratios.

So before any spending on getting new customers, think first about making the ones you do have big advocates of you – get them to love what you do for them and finding new ones will get 100 times easier.