If you asked me what I hear most during my consulting meetings, I would have to say “I don’t know.”
How many more jobs can you do a month?
“I don’t know”
How much do you have set aside for advertising?
“I don’t know”
How many jobs did you get last year from your current advertising program?
“I don’t know”
Starting to see a pattern here? This lack of knowledge can often times be linked back to having to spend so much time working in their businesses and not on them. So today I am going to give you a quick project to help you get out of the “I don’t know” dog house. Print the page, answer the questions, and hang it up somewhere you can look at it every day. Make any changes needed as you, your business or your market changes.
Ready?
Who is my target audience:
_______________________________________________________________
What is my call to action for my target audience:
_______________________________________________________________
What are my convenience factors: Examples are personal service, 7-day turnaround, etc..
_______________________________________________________________
What are my most profitable products or services:
_______________________________________________________________
What are my confidence factors to my customers:
_______________________________________________________________
What is my business function: (Hint, making money isn’t the answer)
_______________________________________________________________
What makes me different from my competition:
_______________________________________________________________
Who do I compete with:
_______________________________________________________________
What additional lines of business could I add to improve profitability:
_______________________________________________________________
Why do I advertise:
_______________________________________________________________
Current media activities:
_______________________________________________________________
Do I have co-op available:
_______________________________________________________________
Customer type: (male, female, corporate buyers, high income, all ages)
_______________________________________________________________
Ad headline: (what tagline appears on all of my advertising and marketing, and “nothing” is another bad answer!)
_______________________________________________________________
Again, this should give you some insight into your own company and how you think about it, and how your prospects perceive it. Maybe you haven’t had a chance to do some deep thinking in a while? Hopefully this will give you a chance to check your current business plan to decide if any changes are needed to improve your top line revenue for the rest of the year. Let me know how you make out!
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Solid article Darren. Knowledge is the key.