This week is part 2 of my guide on getting your marketing basics in place. Last week, we covered why it was important to know who your customers are; decide on what you actually do and know why your customers buy from you. But, there are three other things that you need to get in place before you’ll be sorted on the marketing basics. They are:

How are you different?

Time and time again I hear small businesses being asked how they’re different from their competition and then responses of “we’re cheaper”, “we give better service”, “we’ve been established longer” and so on. To be honest with you, I would expect you to offer great service, to know what you’re doing and to offer me the best rate – that to me is a given. What I really want to know is why I should use your products or services as opposed to your competitors.

Have a really good think about your ‘niche’. It’s often difficult to come up with what this is so I’d advise you to think about an area of your business that you’re really passionate about and would happily get out of bed for without pay in a morning.

My passion for instance is working with small business owners and helping them to realise that they don’t have to spend a fortune on marketing. So, what’s your passion?

Getting your literature in place

Another one of the marketing basics is having all your literature and website etc in place so that you can send it out immediately if potential customers ask for it. But, it’s really important that your business doesn’t stop while you’re putting this into place. I was speaking to a contact the other day who told me that she was just updating her website and that she would have to put the business on hold until that was done as she didn’t want any new customers being put off using her services by viewing her old website.

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At one point during one of the workshops I facilitated in Ireland two weeks ago, a CEO said, matter-of-factly, “… and you know what the half-life of sales training is…” He was discussing how his company took a more formal approach to sales effectiveness than just sales training, and the benefits that structure and process was delivering to his company. I had never heard the term “half-life” applied to sales training. Brilliant!

Just the other day I finally got around to googling, “half-life of sales training.” Most of the hits I got back were related to an original article in the January 2004 issue of American Salesman.

The subject of the article was a study commissioned by SPI (Sales Performance International) which found, among other things, that the half-life of sales training is just 5.1 weeks without post-program reinforcement. For 44% of the participants in the study the half-life is less than a month.

In the article, SPI Senior Consultant Bob McGarrah said, “According to our findings, without immediate reinforcement the greatest loss in the training investment occurs almost as soon as the training is over.”

Although this research was done more than four years ago, I couldn’t agree more. ESR has found that post-program reinforcement is the single factor with the most impact on long-term value of a sales training intervention. There are certainly others, such as management support and matching training to an accurate assessment of needs. But it’s post-program reinforcement—coaching, follow-up materials, tools, refreshers, etc.—that extends the value of training.

There is a vicious cycle taking place here:

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If you have arrived at the conclusion that selling your business is in your best interests and ultimately what you want to do then you should begin advertising that fact. You should use a non-disclosure agreement and consult an attorney to protect your business interests. You may then receive bids from a number of interested parties, and they may be from budding entrepreneurs, friends, employees, large chains or even your competitors. Selling your business could be difficult for you no matter who you sell it to but it may be even more of a bitter pill to swallow if you sold it to your competitor. However, this is one case of resentment that you should put to one side because selling your business to a competitor can often be in your best interests.

Why Sell To A Competitor?

Personal feelings aside, selling your business to a competitor can result in the best possible financial deal for you. Although competitors have traditionally waited until the best possible time to purchase business competitors in the local area, the local economy is important to them and enhancing their market share will often result in a great deal for you.

During the process of due diligence, a key issue in determining the value of the business is the potential growth. If an external company or individual were to place a bid then the price would likely be less because of your local competitor and its market share. As such, it is feasible that the potential growth would not be as great. However, if your competitor were taking over then it would simply be expanding his or her market share and so would enhance the potential for growth and profitability.

However, it may be an international competitor that wants to purchase your business instead of a local one.

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