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Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.  Vince Lombardi

Chapter 10

How to Make Yourself Heard

Rule #21 – Learn Good Marketing Skills

When I first went into business for myself, my first client said, “I already have a service provider, but they won’t answer the phone, and they won’t call me back.” So that became my first rule: Always call them back; always be available. One thing I’ve learned, people will accept a lower standard of quality if you are easily available. Not returning phone calls is very frustrating to people no matter how great your quality of services or products are. If they are in a hurry, if they need it done right now, and they know they can get a hold of you, they will call you even if your quality is not as good as the other guys. This is not an excuse for poor quality, but just to show how important good marketing is. Being available by phone is part of marketing.

You don’t have to be the best in your field to be successful, but you do have to know about marketing. Marketing can include many different things:

• the way you dress,
• phone call etiquette,
• business cards,
• websites, etc.,
• AND knowing who holds the key in your market.

One of my accounts told me that they used our quick responses to phone calls and service calls to sell their products because the other service provider at times took months to get the jobs done. So we use our fast response to phone calls as part of our marketing. We put on our business cards, “We return telephone calls promptly.” That wholesaler used us to market their products.

Marketing does not have to cost a lot of money. I like the principles of Guerilla Marketing which is low cost or no cost marketing. It is very effective even though it might be free. One of the best authors on the subject is J. Abrams. He is great at Guerilla Marketing and has written several books on the topic. Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition is one of his well-known books.

Sometimes all it takes is one or two good ideas to make a huge difference in your marketing.

I remember reading in one of Robert Kyosaki’s books a conversation he had with a young female writer. He said, “I have read your work and you are very good.” “Yes,” she responded, “but I don’t sell very many books.” Robert said, “You need to look into marketing.” She responded, “I am a college grad, and that would be ‘sales’!” (Sales are a little beneath the class of a college grad). Robert told her he was not nearly as good a writer as she was, but he sold a lot of books. He said that marketing is the key. You don’t have to be the best at your craft, but if you can market well, that will put you right up at the top.

If you have days or a week or two when you are not busy (as we all do if we run a small business or are self-employed), one thing to know is that you will get busy again. So, in those off times, that’s when you can concentrate on marketing. You can:

• Work on your website or websites.
• Work on your twitter accounts.
• Clean out your truck.
• Organize your materials.
• Post to Facebook.
• Post to Instagram.
• Work on expediting your processes.
• Talk to your mentors.
• Talk to the key pins in your marketing process such as wholesalers, manufacturers, or large clients.
• Read books on marketing.
• Strategize.

In order for people to beat a path to your door, they have to know about you. Every field requires a different marketing strategy. Marketing can also include branding, a logo, and/or twitter accounts. If you are marketing a book, Michael Hyatt’s book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World is helpful.

Another book is Jeff Walker’s book:  Launch: An Internet Millionaire’s Secret Formula To Sell Almost Anything Online, Build A Business You Love, And Live The Life Of Your Dreams.

Probably the biggest key is to pray a lot. God’s hand is with you because you are one of His children, and you should expect to see His hand at work to open doors for your business and to protect your business.

The Bible says that wisdom is worth more than rubies. Marketing is a type of wisdom. Once you learn the importance of it and the rudiments of how to do it, it can make you a lot of money. Without marketing, you could have the greatest service, product or book in the world and be very short on sales.

I have asked many people what they do to market their business. Many times their response is, “My work speaks for itself, and I get most of my work or business through referrals.” I believe this is a lazy man’s way of saying he is content with what he gets even if it is not much.

Marketing works. If all that was required was word of mouth, why do so many businesses advertise?

Walmart, Kohl’s, Stihl, movies, drug companies, Ford Motor Company, and the list goes on forever. It is because marketing works.

Many people are very good at what they do, like the female writer above, but they never really reach their full monetary potential because of a lack of understanding of marketing. We want to not only be good in our craft, business or books but good at marketing, too. That gives us a full package for a prosperous venture in our living The Prosperous Life.

Proverbs 21:5 Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity,

but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.  New Living Translation