• Home
• Business Articles
• Contact Page
• Link Page
• Our Partners

Building a Your Business

Step 1: Create a Business Plan

One of the quotes you will find on WhoSezhome.com is "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail." Very few people succeed without a road map of where they want to go. (Ref Article 12 Steps to Home Business Success) Once you have a plan in place you can proceed with fine tuning it. One area of that fine tuning is your marketing plan.

There are many books and articles that discuss creating a marketing plan. Some are very involved and some are quite simple. Here are some simple, but effective, marketing goals that you can follow to help create your roadmap to success:

1. Put your marketing plan in writing. State exactly what you want to achieve and how you plan to accomplish it.
   Post it where you can see see it everyday.   
2. Stick to your marketing plan. Follow it faithfully and give it a chance to work. You should keep good
   records.
   
3. Pay careful attention to the details in your marketing efforts. Misspelled words and grammatical errors will
   be noticed. Convince others of the quality of your work with your flawless presentation.
4. Define your target audience. Learn about their habits and where your product can fit..
   

   The answers to these questions would help you devise a marketing plan. In answer to the first question, you can find out who your audience is by making a profile of your ideal customer. In answer to the last question, study your competition. Find out their strengths and weaknesses. Can you do something that they can't? Can they do things you don't or can't do?
   
   When doing this research you can use sources like your library, Gales directory, Bureau of Labor Statistics, or visit U.S. Census Bureau
   

5. Follow through leads and follow up when you make a presentation. Sales are not often made in the first contact.
6. Part of knowing your target market is defining your products, the market need and directing your business in that direction.
7. Understand the scope of marketing. Sales, advertising, public relations, and graphics design are specialized activities that
   fall within marketing. But being flashy is not all there is marketing. When you get advice pay attention, take notes, but use your
   own gut feel.
8. When you acquire new business treat them as gold. When you acquire new business, double your efforts to keep it. Never neglect current customers in your search for new ones. Studies show that retaining a client is five times cheaper and easier than acquiring a new one. The customer comes first!
9. Conduct a communications audit frequently. Check the way the phone is answered … have someone leave a detailed message to be sure it is transmitted correctly … review all correspondence. With every communication be certain your firm represents itself appropriately and enthusiastically.
10. Establish goals and provide on-going training. Is staff knowledgeable? Are they able to cross-sell effectively and do they do so as a matter of course? Do you have measurable performance requirements and does everyone know what they are?
11. Use your goals as a measure of results, then focus on what works and eliminate unproductive strategies.
12. Treat everyone you meet as a potential customer. Fairness, honesty, courtesy and respect are hallmarks of professionalism.
13. Keep accurate records.

In building your business, your advertising strategies need to be planned every week. When you start advertising should be consistent and repeated 5 to 7 times before the effectiveness of the ad can be determined. Find out where and when your ads were, and how many people looked at them. Doing this online is easy with "ad trackers" and "website statistics trackers". Check out www.google.com/analytics for an excellent tool for website tracking.

As your business moved forward your advertising records will tell you what has worked and what failed. You will know what keywords and phrases gave you the best response and the best profit. Once you have some experience you can start with free ads and maybe even to go to "pay per click" submission services" after earning some money. Research has indicated that a customer may have to view an ad five or six times before making a response. You may have to place ads for weeks before you see results.