A Rough Introduction

Lindsay Roberts re-read her emails. Again. She knew she was wasting time on trivial things to avoid facing her real business problems – if only she could clearly define them and find answers.

She was feeling stressed from 13-hour days with few breaks. Abruptly, she rose from her desk and reached for her jacket. Perhaps a coffee and a walk in the park would clear her head.

As she neared the front door, Lindsay caught a glimpse of her father’s portrait in the hall. “Get well soon,” she muttered under her breath. “I don’t think I can handle your job much longer.”

Several Roberts Quick Printing Co. staff members looked the other way as Lindsay walked by. They felt uncomfortable around the new boss. They missed Jack Roberts’ confident charm, though it often masked the little print shop’s difficulties in adapting to changing times. The staffers found the 32-year-old daughter a poor substitute for the man who founded the company 25 years ago and would still be at the helm if his fragile health would allow it.

Lindsay was now striding purposefully down the street to the coffee shop. She recalled how elated she’d been just a few months earlier when her dad asked her to take on running the firm while he followed doctor’s orders to take it easy after a mild heart attack.

But that thrilling moment had ended abruptly when she saw the disappointment in his eyes. She realized her sudden promotion was owed solely to her status as his only child – there was no accompanying faith in her ability to run the company.
Lindsay cradled the hot cardboard cup in her hands as she made her way to the park across the street. In the shade of tall Maple there was an inviting park bench and discarded newspaper. She sat down and began reading the news as she sipped her coffee.

As she lowered the paper to turn the page, she was startled to find an older man in a business suit standing right in front of her. “Can I help you?” she glared, annoyed by the intrusion.

“Perhaps I can help you,” the stranger replied. “I’m the StreetSmart Marketer.”

“Wow, that’s fascinating,” Lindsay said sarcastically. The stranger smiled in response. He clearly wasn’t getting the message that his presence was not required – or wanted. “You know,” Lindsay added sharply, “you look a bit like that Michael Hepworth marketing guru in the business section.” The man’s smile widened.

“But he’s much better-looking,” she jabbed. Then she raised the newspaper to block her view of the stranger; an obvious signal the conversation was over.

Lindsay had resumed reading the newspaper. As she lowered it to turn the page, she was annoyed to find the smiling man still standing in front of her. He hadn’t moved an inch.
“Look,” Lindsay said angrily, “there better be a good reason why you’re here.”

“I came back to retrieve my newspaper – for the business section.”

Lindsay’s face flushed red with embarrassment. “Oh my Lord, I’m so stupid. I had no ideal. I’m so sorry. I feel terrible. I’ve been so rude to you, I, I, I don’t know what to say… I’m, I’m…”

“A young businesswoman with marketing problems,” the man said, completing her flustered ramble.

“It’s that obvious?”

“That you’re a young businesswoman?”

“No, that I have marketing problems.”

The StreetSmart Marketer nodded. “Such problems are more common than you might think.”

Lindsay smiled. “That’s good to hear – I apologize that we got off to a rough start. Please forgive my earlier rudeness; I’m stressed out from running my Dad’s business while he recovers from a heart attack. Things aren’t turning out as I’d hoped – nothing’s working. I thought some time away from the office might help me think more clearly… I’m Lindsay Roberts. You mentioned that you’re the StreetSmart Marketer. I’d sure be interested in hearing any advice you can give me. I imagine you have some lessons I can learn, some keys to achieving success.”

“Actually, if I can find time, I can share eleven keys that unlock the secrets to rapid growth in your business.”

“Eleven?”

“Yes, I’m giving a speech in a few weeks and I’ve been writing down points I’ll be covering. I have to leave now, but here’s the course outline – hope you’ll find it useful,” he said, handing Lindsay a paper with 11 lessons in summary form.

Lindsay began reading the list. “This is amazing, when can we go over some of this?” she asked looking up from the list.

But the StreetSmart Marketer wasn’t there...

StreetSmart Marketer’s 11 Keys to Unlock Rapid Growth:

1. Ideal Prospects: All markets have ideal buyers. Focus resources on them: They’re more profitable; easier to serve; readier to buy.

2. The Un-Written Marketing Rule: Advertising/marketing making the same claims as everyone else, makes customers focus on price. This only costs money, eroding margins and customer loyalty.

3. Fix the Product or Service First: You can’t expect marketing to save a “me too” product or service. Businesses with generic or deficient products and services must first grasp what their market niche wants and then find ways to make the offer more compelling.

4. Sell the Bait First: To catch ideal buyers you have to use the right bait. People are resistant to being sold, but if you can first offer something free that your prospects want you have a much better chance of engaging them and selling them something.

5. Woo Prospects: Marketing, like dating, shouldn’t be rushed. Marketers who ask for too big a commitment early on run the risk of scaring off otherwise interested parties.

6. Reverse The Risk: Risk causes hesitation and hesitation kills sales so Shoulder the risk. Up-front guarantees are a way of doing this.

7. Create Effective Advertising: Simply changing a headline has been shown to at least double or triple response rates.

8. Expanding Buying Behavior: Once a customer has bought from you, expand buying behavior as they’re predisposed to buy again.

9. Repeat Mailings and Free Reports: If you only send a mailing out once you are only getting a fraction of the potential benefit.

10. Strategic Time Allocation: Being busy is the enemy of creativity and innovation. Entrepreneurs need to leave time for creativity and for working on the business, as well as in it.

11. Leverage and Mentoring: Leverage is the ability to create a large return with a small effort. Leverage can include mentoring.
KEY 1: Ideal Prospects

In all markets there are ideal buyers that are easier to sell than all other buyers. Focus your efforts and resources on ideal buyers: They are more profitable, easier to serve and more ready to buy.

It was early morning the following Thursday when Lindsay returned to the park cradling two cups of coffee and hopes of again meeting the mysterious stranger calling himself the StreetSmart Marketer.

She headed for the same park bench where they had met. Lindsay again found a waiting newspaper. But there was no sign of the StreetSmart Marketer. She was beginning to wonder if he’d ever really been there. Had the enormous stress she was under caused her to hallucinate?

Lindsay picked up the newspaper and immediately noticed a stick-on note that read: “I’m right behind you all the way, – SSM.”

Thinking he might be by later, Lindsay began reading the paper when a thought suddenly occurred to her. She looked right behind herself to find the StreetSmart marketer standing there.

Lindsay laughed. “Are you sneaking up on me? Don’t you make any sound when you walk, mystery man?”

The StreetSmart Marketer grinned in response. “Mystery man,” he repeated. “I guess I should tell you I not only look like Michael Hepworth, I am Michael Hepworth and I like to keep a low profile – but I like to ensure my clients have the high profile. I’m more comfortable making sure they get the attention, not me.”

“Your clients,” Lindsay mused. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what’s your advice going to cost? I’m sure it’s worth it, but I’d still like to know before we get started.”

“At this point, I’ll only charge one of those coffees,” he said as Lindsay handed him one. “I’ve got time on my hands right now – and I enjoy chatting about marketing. In fact marketing and myself are my two favourite topics,” he added with a grin. “So, there’s no charge for the advice in this outdoor classroom – unless you want to move to a more formal setting like a boardroom.”

“The park is fine,” Lindsay smiled.

“Good. First of all, I need you to understand there is a process that you need to follow in order to be successful as a marketer. The 11 lessons I showed you last week follow that process. If you learn the process and apply your learning, you’ll be successful. Now, tell me some of marketing difficulties you’re encountering.”

Lindsay described the circumstances of her sudden rise to acting company president, adding: “I really don’t want to let my dad down, so I’m working harder than ever and trying new things, but not much is working for me.”

Then, Lindsay described in more detail her frustrations in ineffectively dealing with a business in decline; her lack of managerial experience beyond her five years of design and limited administrative work; and, her biggest problem: her inability to successfully attract new customers and even keep some of her old ones despite peppering the entire business community with faxed and mailed flyers, and the company’s sales reps visiting as many firms as possible. “And there’s more,” Lindsay added. “For...”

The StreetSmart Marketer held his hand up to signal a stop to Lindsay’s diatribe. “Let’s focus for now on the specific customer issue you just raised,” he advised, “starting with a key consideration: who are you trying to sell to?”

“Everyone and anyone who buys printing,” Lindsay replied.

“But how big is that number? In other words, how many people does that represent?”

“I don’t know,” Lindsay admitted, “but there are literally thousands of businesses – potential customers – within ten miles of our shop. I’m trying to reach as many of them as I can.”

“What’s your marketing budget?”

“Oh, I spend about $4,000 a month on marketing activities.”
“So,” the StreetSmart Marketer concluded, “that means you spend only a few cents per prospect each month! What’s the likelihood of you getting noticed with all the competitors out there and all the advertising?”

“I can’t afford to spend more on marketing,” she protested.

“Agreed – but rather than spend more, why not spend what you’re already spending, but spend it smarter? Instead of trying to reach the whole market and spreading your dollars so thinly they’re completely ineffective, you should focus on a small segment of the market where you’ll be noticed and where you can dominate. This brings to mind the story of the monkey trap used in Zimbabwe where money-eating tribesmen developed a simple but ingenious way to catch monkeys for food. They used gourds, which are like small pumpkins, but have a hard woody skin. If you put a small hole in the gourd, just big enough for a monkey to put his hand in and then remove the pulp inside, you have one of the most effective tools for catching monkeys. The tribesmen do this, and then place a few peanuts or kernels of corn inside and finally they fasten the gourd to a tree or a peg. Monkeys, being inquisitive, put their hands inside and grab hold of the food. However, once they have hold of it, they are unwilling to let go, and get caught. They refuse to let go even though they’re terrified as the hunters approach. Logic doesn’t enter into the equation.”

“Interesting; how does it relate to marketing?” Lindsay asked.

“Well, many people try to serve everyone instead of specializing in a specific niche. This slows down growth. Prospects want to deal with specialists who are experts in their field. When you try to serve everyone you undermine this positioning. Others try to sell too many services and their message becomes diluted and hard to follow. We do this because we think having multiple offers and serving different markets covers the bases, when in fact the opposite is true. For most people this is counter-intuitive. They believe there is safety in serving multiple markets with multiple offerings. The problem is: most people won’t specialize because like the monkey, they’re scared of what they have to give up; they don’t want to open their hand and let some of the market slip between their fingers, so they get stuck in the monkey trap. Yet if they let some of the market go, they’d be able to keep the rest, make it their own – and escape the trap. When you decide what you do and who you do it for, the funny thing is that the people you need to meet, do show up. To use another animal metaphor, you can’t chase two rabbits; they both get away. Understand?”

As Lindsay nodded agreement, he continued: “In all markets there are ideal buyers that are easier to sell to than all of the other buyers out there. There are four traits of an ideal prospect: Do you know what they are?”

“They need what you sell – and they have money.”

“Good start, but I believe there are four key attributes: They want your product; they have the ability to pay for your product; they have the authority to purchase your product; and, most importantly, they have bought products and services similar to yours before. If they have bought before it means they have an established need and have demonstrated a willingness to spend money to solve the problem. Contrast this with people who may have a need but have no interest in solving the problem.”

“Can you give me an example of this?” Lindsay asked.

“Sure, when I was at school studying marketing, my lecturer told a story of two shoe salesmen who visited a poor African country to determine if there was a market for their products.
When they got there, each noticed almost no one wore shoes. One salesperson sent a telex back to his head office that stated: “This is a fantastic market – 90 per cent of the population does not wear shoes. I will be staying here an extra week to set up local agents.” The other salesman also sent a telex to his office. This one read; “This is a terrible market; 90 per cent of the population doesn’t wear shoes. I’ll be returning on the next flight.”

Lindsay looked perplexed. “So who was right?”

“In my view it was the second. Yes, there was a need, but the people were not predisposed to buying. To win in that market, you would have to educate people about the reasons for wearing shoes and change the culture. Not a very easy task. Realize also that customers that have previously purchased from you are more likely to do so again, while firms that don’t know you and may not have significant printing needs are less likely to buy. Focus mainly on ideal buyers as they are more profitable, easier to serve and more ready to buy from you.”

“Should I just ignore the less-then-ideal buyers?” she asked.

“We’re not at that stage yet. We’ve first got to figure out who you want to focus on.”

“So, I should sort the customers out into groups, mainly concentrating on the ideal buyers, while still reaching out to the next group with good potential and spending a lot less time on those who are much less likely to buy?”

“I’m not saying don’t do business with people outside this ideal prospect group. In fact in your current situation that might be dangerous. I’m saying concentrate all of your resources on finding and acquiring customers from your ideal prospect group.”

Lindsay smiled. She now knew the ideal prospect population for her printing business was much smaller than she’d realized.

“Essentially,” the StreetSmart Marketer continued, “you need to target the ideal buyers to get more customers. At the risk of being repetitive, every market has a smaller number of ideal buyers as opposed to all buyers. Ideal buyers are: easier to sell; easier to serve; more profitable; generate more referrals – and they’re likely to become the best clients. Focusing on the relatively few prospects who will probably be high revenue generators allows you to concentrate your resources on this critical group. In practice this means investing your marketing budget in pursuing the potential customers who will generate the most revenue. Your investment per prospect is your total marketing budget divided by the number of ideal buyers.”

“So…” Lindsay said hesitantly, “suppose I do target the ideal buyers – how do I actually go about turning them into customers?”
“To convert best buyers into customers, you must target them consistently and ferociously. This is a five stage process in which you shift your prospect’s attitude to your favour. The five stages the prospect can experience are as follows: One: ‘I’ve never heard of this person’. Two: ‘Who is this person?’ Three: ‘I think I’ve heard of this person’. Four: ‘Yes! I’ve heard of this person’. And, five: ‘I want to meet this person’. You basically help them make the transition from having never heard of you to wanting to get to know you and do business with you.”

“Impressive – but isn’t it a lot of work?” Lindsay suggested.

“It can be,” the StreetSmart Marketer concurred.
“But remember, the best clients are the easiest and most profitable to service. They buy more, spend more, and refer more. Therefore, the amount of time and effort you spend cultivating them is apt to generate far greater rewards than you’d achieve with even greater efforts with other clients.”

“I may need to change the way we do things…”

“Perhaps so – but that’s not as daunting as it sounds,” the StreetSmart Marketer advised. “If you focus on your ideal customers’ needs, you automatically tailor your business to meet their needs. Also, ideal customers buy faster, and in shortening the selling cycle you generate sales revenue sooner and at less cost. And by increasing the frequency at which your best clients buy from you, you can grow your business faster.”

“So things start to fall into place,” Lindsay pondered.

“Exactly,” the StreetSmart Marketer smiled. “Once you have satisfied the best buyers, you have qualified yourself in two important ways. First, you can sell them more. And second, by asking them for referrals you can acquire more clients like them —the best clients.”

“And I should really focus my marketing dollars on this ideal group,” Lindsay considered, “as the best buyers offer a lot more bang for my buck…”

“They sure do,” the StreetSmart Marketer agreed, “and you can accomplish much more by dedicating your budget on the people who give you the best results. For example, let’s say you have 1,000 prospects and a monthly marketing budget of $10,000. If you target all prospects, you can spend $10 per prospect. However, if you target the critical 10 per cent, the ideal buyers, you can spend your $10,000 on only 100 prospects. How much more marketing can you do for $100 per prospect?”

“A lot,” Lindsay grinned. “Oh, I’m sorry, that was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?”

“It started out as a rhetorical question – but you’ve made a personal question that you’ve answered with enthusiasm – and I certainly can’t fault you for that. In fact, it’s terrific that you’re really taking this to heart and finding ways you can apply these concepts to your business.”

“I can see this approach making a huge difference with prospects,” Lindsay enthused. “And likely customers too?”

“Yes, absolutely. Once prospects become customers, the same considerations apply. How much better service can you provide if you focus on totally satisfying 200 ideal customers rather than simply serving 1,000? Clearly it is easier and less expensive to understand and meet the needs of 200 ideal customers than to try the same thing with 1,000.”

“How do I figure out who my ideal prospects are?” she asked.

“Well, apart from the four characteristics I mentioned a few moments ago, most of the answers lay inside your business: You need to look at your client base and see who your most profitable customers are, who are the easiest to sell, who does the most repeat business with you, who are the most fun to serve? Also look at where you have a competitive edge, and so on. You need to do this kind of analysis before you can go much further. You need to see if you can find a well targeted niche that you want to target. You can design every aspect around satisfying that need.”

Lindsay looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I know you don’t sell hamburgers, but let me give you an example: Who do you think McDonalds target customers are?”

“Children, people in a rush…”

I don’t know this for certain, but I believe it’s families with small children. Everything about their business is geared to serving this group. That’s why they have play areas, provide toys with the meals, market the kind of food they serve, and so on. You have to know who you are serving and understand specifically how your product solves their pain and how to communicate that to them. You can’t do this if you serve everyone. There’s an axiom in marketing that’s important to remember; “If you sell everyone you sell no one and if you sell everything you sell nothing.”

“That’s right,” Lindsay confirmed, “we don’t do any marketing beyond sending out basic flyers. We depend instead on networking and referrals to get our customers.”

The StreetSmart Marketer smiled. “Lindsay, networking and referrals are part of marketing. Once you know who your ideal prospect is, it gives networking more purpose. You go where you are most likely to meet prospects or people who already know who you need to know. In fact, potentially the most important question you can ask yourself is: “Who already knows the people I need to know?” The answers to that question can be a shortcut to many lead-generating activities.”

“Just about everything seems to be marketing…”

“Lindsay, a lot of people don’t understand that anything you do to attract and keep business is marketing. This key understanding is important because when you grasp that, you begin to realize that we’re all marketing – then you can assess whether your marketing is effective or ineffective. It’s surprising how many times I’ll hear someone proudly state they don’t do any marketing. In fact, I hear this fairly often from professional services businesses. In many cases I believe this to be because people are scared to do what they don't know or understand, and for many professionals, marketing is scary unknown territory. It need not be if you learn a few basic principles, but many people find it easier to believe they don't market or to believe they have found the “secret sauce” that means they don't need to market.”

Lindsay nodded agreement while the StreetSmart Marketer continued. “Lindsay, you mentioned you rely predominantly on networking and referrals. To me, marketing is everything a business does to acquire and keep customers. So in my book networking and referrals definitely fall into marketing and are not the cost-free tactics they might appear to be. In fact, I believe that these two tactics are often the default for people who have no marketing strategy or process. While these tactics can create quite a successful business, they eventually limit your growth because ultimately the amount of networking you can do is limited.”

“How so?”

“Well, for one thing, when you are networking you can’t deliver, and when you are delivering, you don't have time to network. If these are your only marketing tools, it will be extremely difficult to grow your business beyond a few customers. The truth is that networking and referrals have lots of hidden costs that are actually marketing costs. For example: lunches, dinners, coffee, membership fees, meeting attendance, your time, travel etc. Don’t think your time is free. It isn’t; it’s probably your scarcest and most valuable asset as a business owner. If you don’t revere your time, your customers never will. And remember, there is also an opportunity cost to doing these things.”

Lindsay’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t considered the real costs in money and time that I have to pay for networking and referrals.”

The StreetSmart Marketer gave a reassuring smile. “You’re not alone in that department – many people don’t take the real costs into consideration. But, by doing all these activities, the costs add up. You’ll be surprised to discover how much a new customer really costs you, even with these seemingly free activities. Calculate how much you spend on the items I’ve mentioned each year. Once you know all of your “marketing” expenses for the year, divide that number by the number of new customers you get each year. You might be surprised at how high the number is.”

“This is all quite an eye-opener,” Lindsay acknowledged. “I’ve just done a very rough calculation in my head, and those lunches and other costs really add up.”

“That’s what you spend buying customers each year,” the StreetSmart Marketer explained, “and the danger in not initially understanding this is twofold. First, there may actually be cheaper more efficient ways of marketing your business, but without any understanding of the costs, how can you tell? Second, if you think of your activities as free, you don't look at them as an investment in creating and keeping customers and this alters your behaviour on marketing and client service – I believe you take it less seriously than you should.”

“But it’s really a costly investment,” Lindsay ventured.

“Exactly,” the StreetSmart Marketer confirmed. “The first step is to recognize that you’ve invested large sums of money over the years of building your business. I believe marketing is simply a way of buying customers. For some people this may sound distasteful, but you should try to get used to it. Simply put, whether you acknowledge it or not, your business buys customers. If you get better at marketing than your competitors, it becomes cheaper for you to acquire each customer than it does for your competitors and the more customers you get. And, you can become a good deal more selective in the type of customers you acquire.”

“The idea of buying customers will take a bit of getting used to, but I can see that’s just what I’m doing,” Lindsay considered.

“Reaching that realization, as you’ve just done, is an important step,” the StreetSmart Marketer advised. “Once you see marketing and client acquisition as an investment, it leads you to ask yourself: How do I protect that investment? And, how do I optimize that investment?”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Lindsay said. “You’ve given me a wealth of information, a lot of very good advice. I just hope I can remember it all…”

“Not to worry,” the StreetSmart Marketer said, handing her a slip of paper. “I’ve prepared some notes on figuring out who the ideal prospects are.”

“I just want to say that these points are very interesting – and effective,” Lindsay said, looking up from the notes.
But once again, the StreetSmart Marketer had disappeared.

KEY 1: Ideal Prospects: Summary

1.In all markets there are ideal buyers that are easier to sell than all other buyers. Focus your resources mainly on ideal buyers, as they’re more profitable, easier to serve and more ready to buy.

2.Ensure prospects buy from you and not your competition, by tailoring your approach to fit their needs. Instead of pestering them with calls asking them if they’re ready to buy, keep in touch with them by providing useful information they can use. You then emerge as their first choice when they are ready to do business.

3.Understand that marketing is everything a business does to acquire and keep customers; then work to make your marketing efforts more effective.

4.Networking and referrals are part of marketing. These two tactics are often the default for people who have no marketing strategy or process. While these tactics can create quite a successful business, they eventually limit your growth because ultimately the amount of networking you can do is limited. When you’re networking you can't deliver, and when you’re delivering, you don't have time to network. If these are your only marketing tools, it will be extremely difficult to grow business beyond a few people.

5.Networking and referrals have lots of hidden costs that are actually marketing costs. For example, lunches, dinners, coffee, membership fees, meeting attendance, your time, travel etc. Don't be fooled into thinking your time is free. It isn’t. And remember there is also an opportunity cost to doing these things.

6.By doing all these activities, costs mount up and you will be surprised to discover how much a new customer really costs you, even with these seemingly free activities.

7.Whether you acknowledge it or not, your business buys customers. The first step is to recognise that you have invested considerable sums of money over the years of building your business and understand that marketing is simply a way of buying customers. For some people this may sound distasteful, but you should try to get used to it.

8.Marketing and client acquisition is an investment. In order to protect that investment, you have to do everything to ensure that once acquired, a customer comes back regularly to buy more. This is true in businesses where clients only buy once or occasionally. Even in businesses where marketing is restricted to networking and referrals, client acquisition is still the most expensive thing you do. The best way to protect this investment is to fall in love with your customer rather than with your product or service. Falling in love with your customer will ensure you provide service that is without peer.