Forward Thinking For Your Business: It's not who you know in business, it's who knows you

By Jennifer Layman

I don't know what I should be doing to market my business.

I don't have time to commit to marketing.

I tried marketing in the past and it hasn't worked.

If you're struggling with marketing, this book is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Book Publishing
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781956193879

Book preview

Contents

How You Can Use This Book

What Marketing Is and Why It Matters

We’ve Been Here for Years

Word of Mouth vs. Referrals

I Don’t Have Time for Marketing

Advertising with Your Competition

Giving Is Marketing Too

The Reluctance to Change

Addressing Negative Comments

The Two Sides of Risk

Getting Comfortable with Sales

When Competitors Copy Your Ideas

Acknowledging Personal Bias

The Value of Knowing Your Best Customers

Before You DIY Your Design Work

Writing for Your Audience Matters

The Elements of Professional Emails

The Secret to Dealing

with the Competition

Give Your Marketing Time to Work

The Efficiency of Experts

Making a Budget for Marketing

The One-Page Marketing Plan

Insource or Outsource Your Marketing

How to Handle the Critics

Recognize Your Small Business Strengths

About the Author

FORWARD THINKING

FOR YOUR

BUSINESS

It's not who you know in business,

          it's who knows you.

Jennifer Layman

Forward Thinking for Your Business

Jennifer Layman

©2023 Jennifer Layman. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher (except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages and/or show brief video clips in a review).

ISBN:

978-1-956193-87-9

Book Design & Publishing done by:

Global Book Publishing

www.globalbookpublishing.com

Disclaimer: The Publisher and the Author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy and completeness of this work and specially disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contain herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the Publisher nor the Author shall be liable for the damages arising here from. The fact that an organization or website is referred to in this work as a citation or potential source of further information does not mean that the Author or the Publisher endorses the information the organization or the website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is used. 

To every person who had the courage to start their ​own business and to the people who supported them.

I love you Mom and Dad.

How You Can Use This Book

Many business owners don’t have a lot of time for marketing. People are busy, and time is limited. Things that are not immediately necessary can be deferred, and marketing is often in that category. And then one day, you hear your competitor’s ad on the radio or see they have acquired a company and are expanding their services. You feel the need to do something to remind customers you’re still here, so you scramble to buy some ads.

Suddenly, you are reacting to what your competitor is doing.

The problem with reacting is that you are just playing catch-up. You are always behind your competitors, chasing them, not leading. When you’re the leader, you have more opportunities to gain customers, ward off competition, and take your business to the level you want to take it. Marketing can help achieve that.

You can make better marketing decisions by focusing on certain things and thinking in a certain way. This is not about spending more time on marketing but about spending the time you do have in a more effective way.

Having worked with a varying clientele of business owners, from single owner-operators to multi-million-dollar organizations, there are common situations that prevent businesses from marketing effectively. Foremost among them is time. If I am going to convince you to use marketing to your advantage, I must be efficient with your time or else it won’t get done. I get that; it’s why the chapters in this book are short and on point.

Business owners have a truly unique drive and determination. Businesses provide products and services to communities, which influences community growth and prosperity. Business owners are experts in what they do, but they are not always experts in marketing what they do.

If you are going to reach your potential in your business, you must make good marketing decisions. To make good marketing decisions, you need some insight into what is worth pursuing and what won’t bring you the expected value. The impact of marketing decisions is not immediate; it happens over time, so if you are pursuing the wrong thing, you won’t know that right away. What you need is a quick reference, a guide of sorts, on how to make the best decisions.

To make the best decisions, you need to know two things: what to do and how to do it. This book is your reference to accomplish that.

What Marketing Is and Why It Matters

It is difficult to be motivated to do something when you don’t understand what it is and why it matters.

Marketing is everything you do to make people aware of your business. Most of the time, we think of marketing as being promotional in nature: advertising, business cards, instore sales, or customer appreciation events. But marketing is also evident in how you sell your business—conveying product information, putting together a proposal for a contract, and the customer service you offer when someone makes a call or sends an email to ask about a product or service you provide. Every time you communicate with someone, whether indirectly through advertising or directly through a phone call, you are marketing your business.

If you think about how often you communicate with a current or potential customer, you will soon realize you are marketing every day. It is perhaps the one thing you do more than anything else in your business, so it matters a great deal that you do it well.

This book contains specific aspects of marketing that guide you to making the best presentation of your business in the most effective manner. I also want to address some of the frustrations that business owners face with marketing and provide you with some ways to think about marketing that give you greater control (and less stress) to do it well.

Here are some things I have heard people say when they are resistant to investing in marketing.

I Did Marketing Before, But it Didn’t Work

Marketing involves three things: saying the right thing to the right people at the right time. If your past marketing efforts didn’t work, one of these things was off. This book will discuss how to say the right things, choose the right people to hear it, and select the best time to prompt action.

I Have a Hard Time Seeing Results from Marketing

You must give yourself some time for marketing to build. There is a chapter in this book where you can complete a one-page marketing plan to help guide you through a year of decision-making. Marketing is a continual process, and when you have a guide on what you plan to do, it will make the time you spend on marketing more efficient and productive.

I Don’t Have Time to Do Marketing

Only a business owner understands how much time goes into running your business. I totally