Remarkable. Creative. Successful. Upmarket businesses push the envelope -- does yours?
Erica Holthausen is the Chief Instigator behind the Honest Marketing Revolution and creator of the 10 Steps to Honest Marketing. As a marketing mentor, she helps solopreneurs and microbusinesses fall in love with sales and marketing so they can help more people while building thriving, life-sustaining businesses. She believes marketing is an integral part of how you serve the world. Sound good? Sign up for her email newsletter and join the revolution!
Julia Child’s popularity was due in no small part because she was so different. Not different from you and me, but different from what you saw on television. But the television personality and cookbook author we know so well is only a small part of who Julia Child really was as an individual.
Earlier this month, the internet exploded in response to some very old news about Abercrombie & Fitch. It turns out that the popular clothing retailer has established very clear criteria for the types of young men and women who should—and should not—be wearing their clothes. And most of us don’t make the cut. This is not new news.
With all the newfangled marketing gizmos, fancy social media platforms, and mobile technology, traditional advertising is often treated like the black sheep of marketing. I’ve even heard a few people go so far as to herald the death of print advertising. But reports of the death of this and other traditional marketing tactics have been greatly exaggerated.
Before you can make effective use of the tools in the marketing toolbox, you first have to know who you want to reach and exactly what you want to say. In other words, you need to have a strategy. Without a strategy, your marketing message will lack both cohesion and effectiveness.
As a business owner, it is essential that I understand my finances and take full responsibility for all financial decisions. I may choose to hire an accountant, bookkeeper, and financial adviser, but handing over the whole kit and caboodle is foolish, irresponsible, and incredibly dangerous. The same is true for marketing.
Your brand is the emotional response an individual has to your business; it is the story she tells herself about whether your business can provide what she needs. Branding consists of all the actions you take to infuse your business with personality so you can elicit a specific emotional response from your ideal client. It is how you show her that your business can indeed provide exactly what she needs.
You understand the bigger picture and the importance of good relationships. Your primary goal during a sales conversation is not to close the deal. It is to be of service, to understand if what you have to offer is really the right fit for the person with whom you are speaking. You abide by a philosophy of service over sales. And you know that even if a sales conversation does not result in a sale today, it is an opportunity to build an even stronger relationship that may result in a referral or a sale later.
When crafting your marketing message, only one thing really matters: resonant clarity. A strong marketing message clearly indicates who you work with and what results you help them achieve. To be effective, it also must resonate with the people you wish to serve.
Relationships are tricky. They can bring out the very best and very worst aspects of our personalities; they challenge us to be true to ourselves and to have the difficult conversations. We have to show up—and that isn’t always easy.
While some partnerships work out beautifully, a fair number end before they even start and more than a few are unmitigated disasters. If you’ve been in business for any length of time, chances are you’ve experienced each of these outcomes. The key is to learn from the unmitigated disasters, allow those that end before they begin to go gracefully and enjoy every moment of the ones that work out beautifully!
