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Concept Creation: Get Clear on the Big Idea

Marketing Scanning: Let Your Business Antennae Pick Up Trends

The Small Business Marketing Plan: Where do You Start and Where are You Going?

Collecting Customers: Build your Prospect Pool—Daily

The Marketing Trail: the Whole Experience— from Prospect to Repeat Business

Promotion on a Shoestring: Using Your Innate Flair not a Big Budget

Concept Creation: Get Clear on the Big Idea

Your whole business strategy is built on a very clear big idea—or it'll be flop anyway: the business has meaning and a sense of purpose. If you have prepared an 'elevator pitch' that conveys the essentials of the business in the time it takes to travel between two floors, you will have done a lot of the work to ensure a winning concept.

So what is marketing? It's a process of moving people towards a decision to buy. Thereafter the business process becomes sales. So it starts at the very beginning. First of all the business has to make sense. The concept, and therefore the message that you want to convey in your marketing, has to have what Guy Kawasaki (the author of the Art of the Start) calls meaning, or as he puts it, you need to "create a product or service that makes the world a better place." In this context take a look at a book called Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences. The authors Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff & Darrel Rhea) will guide you through the process from a marketing perspective.

Have you created a business name that speaks the business. Is 'Smith, Inc.' going to cut it? Or, if you have good reason to stick with 'Smith', have you added a few words that spell out what you're at? In my case, I hope 'WorkSavvy' conveys a message, but, I added 'business startup counseling' and then, 'Realize Your Business Dream, Start Sooner, Develop Stronger, Last Longer' to underline and reinforce what the business aims to help people do. It is what Guy Kawasaki calls a mantra (it used to be called a 'slogan') to both speak to the clients and to anyone in or around the business.

The business name is a good place to start. It is likely to be a permanent fixture, so make it work for you. My strategic partner, Phil Davis who creates business and product names, says that naming, "requires more than mental effort... it requires an element of brilliance to produce clarity. And clarity attracts more customers—the type of customers that naturally love your products and services." Phil adds that a name should, "shed light on exactly who you are and what you do... one that empowers your company and radiates its purpose, mission and identity." If you'd like his help, write to me (will @ worksavvy.ws) and I'll put you in touch.

The next step is not so much a step, rather a process of moving. It's branding. The average American mentions a brand name 56 times a week (according to market research firm Keller Fay Group)! It's not just a matter of giving your products or services a brand to identify them, but engendering understanding of the philosophy behind what you're offering. Of course you want to position your business clearly so it can be identified with specific qualities. That branding has to be embodied in everything that you do, not just what it says on the label. There is a popular buzzword in management these days: 'alignment'. There are whole consultancy practices built on it, but it's quite simple really. It's a matter of being consistent and deliberate in everything that your business does. Phil Davis can help you here, too: he's a specialist in branding and strategic positioning.

Marketing Scanning: Let Your Business Antennae Pick Up Trends

Remember, you don't always have to be first to market. But don't get left behind in the rush. A fast follower can often learn from the early fallers in the race. Do you have a way of knowing about customer buying behavior? How good are you at understanding customer buying motivations in your marketplace?

There are a number of ways to keep your feelers twitching. For instance, rather than chuck all your promotion budget at one medium, go for smaller marketing tests and see which ones prospects respond to. I have some thoughts on that and if you'd like to read the article Incremental Marketing:Entrepreneurs do a little every day, then send me an email (will @ worksavvy.ws).

I am a big fan of opt-in newsletters and email marketing, but if you use them, segment subscribers and send them different newsletters or mailings and check which work the best. You can use them successfully to get feedback and keep up with what you subscribers are thinking. This is a particularly effective medium for small business marketing. I have been using Constant Contact for several years, both with my former business and now with WorkSavvy for my newsletter, Lift-Off. You can try it free for 60 days, during which time you can get the hang of using their method. It is very flexible and easy. i personally maintain my subscription list on my own computer, but you can also leave it with them. I save myself some money by only uploading the list when I issue a newsletter.

Try blogging. It is easy and inexpensive and the invitation for readers to comment will give you instant feedback. It is a much easier way to use the Internet for communication than building a complete website (but more of websites below). Andy Wibbels has written the excellent: Blog Wild!: a Guide for Small Business Blogging. Of course it's a good outward communication tool, but you can use it well for listening, too. If you read the blogs of others, you can spots trends, too.

If you want to keep up with trends and new products especially as you prepare your marketing plan, then take a look at the Amsterdam-based trendwatching.com than has more than 8,000 trend-spotters in 70 countries. Its sister organisation springwise.com is a rich source of new ideas for entrepreneurial minds. For 2006 and beyond, there's an excellent article, Ten Trends to Watch in 2006 in the McKinsey Quarterly; the list is subdivided into macroeconomic, social & environmental, business & industry. It's brief, to the point and well worth a look whatever size your business is. Watch out for the business consequences of the pension and healthcare burden that risks driving taxes through the roof; the spending power of consumers in the emerging economies will rise from $4 trillion to $9 trillion by 2015; the 33 million university-educated young professionals in the developing countries will be a powerhouse of talent.

You might also want to look at PubSub, a matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription (free); it reads millions of data sources so can scan at the speed of, well, the Web. You could never hope to work as fast or cover so much ground to get the information you seek on your chosen subject.

 You have a terrific info resource, so keep on sharing it! - a small biz blogger

Make a special point of looking for Market Disruptors. These are new businesses that completely change the game and may 'fly under the radar', so look carefully. Market disruptors are innovators that create breakthrough products or services to address a significant problem or fundamental human or business need. Obvious disruptors in history include the horseless carriage, the telephone, the laptop computer.  They'll tend to be technological, but may also be concerned with the means of delivering a product to customers. Professor Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School shook the business world with his 1997 best-selling book, The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller That Changed The Way We Do Business, which introduced the theories of disruptive innovation. These theories suggested that the practices managers had been taught as standard tenets of business practice, might actually lead them to failure. In fact, innovating to meet the needs of their best customers could open the door to attack from below and cause great firms to fail.

Take a look at Savvy Business Resources for more ideas on books, magazines and newsletters that will keep you in touch. See Savvy Web-biz for how to make good use of the Web for keeping informed, especially about website e-marketing and search engine marketing and other forms of Internet marketing. Remember that while marketing research may be vital sometimes, you can generally get the data you need through the sales process, making sure that your listening skills are well honed.

Welcome to WorkSavvy / Entrepreneurship & You / First Steps to a Business Start / Savvy Business Planning / Savvy Business Finance / Savvy Marketing / Savvy Business Organization/ Savvy Web-biz/ Sustainable Business Startup / Savvy Business Resources / About WorkSavvy! / Lift Off newsletter / Contact WorkSavvy : will @ worksavvy.ws

The Small Business Marketing Plan: Where do You Start and Where are You Going?

The marketing plan comes in many shapes and sizes. If you are a multinational it's probably a pretty complex affair. At startup the essential is a crisp and focused marketing plan, not least because you need to get out there and implement it.

Start with your mission, but not the kind of bland 'all-is-beautiful' platitudes that many big corporates print in their annual reports. A mission you feel from your heart and one that those who work with you can really share.

Marketing theory will tell you it's about the four 'Ps': Product, Place, Price and Promotion. Don't confuse marketing with sales—that's what you do with the results of  marketing. You don't have to over-complicate the process. Try answering the questions via a simple grid for each product or service.

Savvy Marketing Strategy Grid

This exercise is going to take you through clear thinking about issues from product positioning to distribution channels. It may not look very sophisticated, but if you have not already conceived it in an 'ah-ha' moment, it is going to get you sorting out your business model (Joan Magretta, former editor of Harvard Business Review says you can tell when business models don't work: when they don't make sense and/or the numbers don't add up to profits). If you have a business model established, then by asking the questions implied in the grid you are going to be able to test the robustness of your model. If you are having trouble getting to grips with the grid, then You will find some very useful problem-solving and decision-making tools at Mind Tools.

The numbers that need to concern you are the product revenue goals (and the pricing of course) and the budget that you are going to devote to the implementation of the plan.

As you prepare the plan, remember to focus on the customer's eye view. That will ensure you pay attention to the value proposition—the utility and/or merit of what they purchase.

As you answer the questions posed in the grid, it will become apparent that the marketing plan naturally forms a part of a business plan. For a startup though, what's vital is that the document is usable. If you are an executive in a big corporation, you'll be wanting to impress colleagues as well and you can even use marketing plan software, but a small business marketing plan could be sketched out on a single piece of paper. That's why the grid is so useful, because you'll avoid wordiness and get to the core of the issues.

Caveat 1: The marketing texts will ask you to think a lot about and measure your competition. Competitors are there, of course, and it's as well to know who they are, but don't get too hung up on them. I don't mean you to ignore them. I had a bank branch manager in France who had never heard the name of the worldwide bank from I was getting two full percentage points more interest than on his deposit account. His credibility with me was never high, but at that point I stopped even thinking about asking his advice. However, it is more important, especially at startup, to focus on creativity, rather than market share or stealing sales from the competition. Create your own marketspace. The world is an abundant place not one of scarcity. Think about this quote from the Upanishads, "Out of abundance He took abundance and still abundance remains." If you are entering a cut-throat market, you better be ruthless yourself! Take a look at Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. There's a Sufi saying that relevant here, "There are treasures beyond compare in the ocean. If you seek safety stay ashore." Build your business from the ground up first—then think about the competition. If you build it on the basis of what's already out there, you may give up for fear of not matching up. If you work up your product based on the strengths and weaknesses of the competition's offerings, then you'll confine yourself to the parameters they've set, rather than setting the boundaries for yourself.

Caveat 2: Avoid over extending your product range. You'll hear a lot about 'meeting and exceeding customer needs'. Take care though. While I recommend that you give more in use value than cash value, if you fall over backwards to offer complexity in the hope of 'customizing' your product for every taste, you may build in too much cost and defeat your own object. If you offer too wide a range of choices in product, you may not do better than a more limited selection.

There was a time when 'mass-customisation was the marketing cry—in other words offer to build individual products for individual needs. However, too many choices can be bewildering and therefore put the customer in a psychological quandary that results in a decision not to buy. I don't know about you, but I like some dining options, but a restaurant with a huge menu spoils my appetite and I suspect that they can't do justice to every dish. I used to have a favorite place on the Left Bank in Paris: called  L'Entrecôte Bordelaise; they only did steak with a perfect bordelaise sauce. The steak melted in your mouth. You could of course choose how well done you wanted the steak and there was a choice of salads; you could choose your wine of course and there were mouth watering deserts. The place was always packed.

Kim Gordon (see her book below) asks the entrepreneur to learn to think like a Chief Marketing Officer. "It requires an up-close and personal understanding of your customers, a dollop of innovation, and the ability to follow through on marketing plans and programs," she says. Her tips are: become proactive, not reactive; let your customers lead you; stay one step ahead; reward employees for ideas; schedule time for strategic thinking.

Welcome to WorkSavvy / Entrepreneurship & You / First Steps to a Business Start / Savvy Business Planning / Savvy Business Finance / Savvy Marketing / Savvy Business Organization/ Savvy Web-biz/ Sustainable Business Startup / Savvy Business Resources / About WorkSavvy! / Lift Off newsletter / Contact WorkSavvy : will @ worksavvy.ws

Collecting Customers: Build your Prospect Pool—Daily

Start collecting a list of potential customers before you even open for business and whether or not you're writing a marketing plan. Contact Database Building, you could call it, or CDB for short. Whatever you call it, start right now! Years ago, once I had decided to set up on my own, my next activity was to build a prospect list. At the beginning it was just a list of company names. Then I went about get the names of executives, company details and other data to build useful profiles. I actually had two customers before our new company was registered. You can do the same, even if the product is not quite ready.

Keep a database. Your address book should soon be bulging. You will find prospects in the most unlikely places. I had to hitchhike the other day and I got talking about WorkSavvy!™ to my ride and he revealed that he had a long cherished idea for a business. Before leaving his car, I proffered my business card. You never know! Join networking organizations. On line, try LinkedIn: . Otherwise, you'll find many bodies you can join; they'll include the chamber of commerce, trade associations and the 'old chestnuts' the Rotary or Round Table if that's your thing. Offer to speak at their meetings, if not.  ZoomInfo is a place designed to enable recruiters, marketers and salespeople to quickly and easily find useful information about people and organizations on the Web, presented in concise summaries. It scans millions of corporate Web sites, press releases, electronic news services, SEC filings and other online sources, and then compiles a summary about a specific individual or company. Or take a look on the Web: you'll surely come across Business Networking International. You can use Plaxo (free or premium version) to keep your contact address book up-to-date and update your contacts' address books when your details change and get a Plaxo alert when a contact's details change. As you think about your database, bear in mind the three kinds of people described by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point (see below): the 'connectors' who know lots of others and have a knack for making friends and acquaintances; the 'mavens' who are knowledge accumulators and pass it on (though they are not 'persuaders'); the 'salesmen' who sell almost by contagion.

Networking is an overused term, but nonetheless a vital activity. Apart from the Web-based networks, you of course have those that have grown up with you on your passage through business life. You have consciously to build new ones and cull the old ones. Your network is only as useful as you make it be. Put time and effort into it. Make sure that you offer something (without expecting a return) and when a contact mentions someone else, do not be shy about asking for an introduction, or say, "Perhaps I could be of help to that person... would you give me the contact details, or perhaps you would mention my name..." It is interesting to note that 'cross-referencing' is very important in the networking business. 'Oh yes, Charles told me about you..." or "That's interesting, I saw your name mentioned in..." are real reinforcements for turning contacts into networks. Your net needs to be cast wide, by writing articles, commenting on blogs, attending events, abd generally making sure you circulate in places where your prospects are likely to be.

What about marketing research? It's not always a great investment at the beginning. It takes some experience to make good use of the techniques and the data may mislead—if you don't know what you're doing. There is one way to start learning and that is to use one of the several online market research systems.

I suggest Zoomerang—the online survey tool that enables businesses to get fast answers to important questions. Zoomerang is part of the MarketTools family, a leading provider of technology and advisory services for conducting Web-based market research. With over 100 million surveys sent and counting, Zoomerang has grown rapidly and is used in over 200 countries. With Zoomerang, gauging customer satisfaction, gathering feedback is easy, so get started today! You can start with a basic version of their product for free (up to 30 questions and 100 responses). Then you can migrate to one of the more sophisticated versions when you've got your feet wet. You could do something as simple as asking, "Would you be likely to recommend us to others?" Then you could add, "If yes, why?" and "If no, why?" If you are daunted by undertaking a survey, then read 10 Tips to Improve Your Survey Responses.

If you want to find out what Google thinks about just about anything or anyone (including you) at www.googlism.com. Of course you can get heaps of market data and statistics for free on the Internet (often from trade bodies and government statistics departments). It may not be angled just how you want it, but it'll probably help orientate you. The Go Big network allows startups to access a massive community of investors, employees, freelancers and experts, all of whom are specifically focused on startup companies. Members may create a free profile, search other member profiles for their needs, or post a public request that other members can respond to.

Another handy tool is Google Trends—for a quick look at the interest you might find for your product or service, as searched for on Google. Enter what the product or service is (or better, enter several words or phrases separated by commas so that you can compare popularity of search on those terms)

But you can find out what your prospects will buy very immediately—by making them an offer of a product that exceeds their specification, even before you're fully ready for the market. Go discuss your proposals and get them to define what will meet one of their un-met needs. Then make the product. The sooner you can get customers on board, the sooner you'll get feedback and improve your offer. You may even think about giving your product away early on—just to get that essential user reference.

Go to events, attend exhibitions—and never stop asking questions and collecting those business cards. Don't hold back from contacting people in your field—especially those who may be referrers or linkers themselves. Make your elevator pitch and ask them who they know who could be interested in your offer. Take a look at The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell.

How do you work out who your customers are, anyway? Are the important defining characteristics geography, lifestyle, demographics—what?

Savvy Customer Profiling Grid

If you want to go further into customer definition, write to me (will @ worksavvy.ws) and ask for a copy of the article, Think Big, Start Small: SPQR—10 Ways to Small Profits, Quick Returns. 

The Marketing Trail: the Whole Experience— from Prospect to Repeat Business

Many people think of marketing as being about making the right offers to customers and delivering them in the right way. It surely is, once you have identified where your market lies. However, every function of your business has a marketing role. For instance, if people in production don't have a focus on why they are making what they are making, they risk not producing the product that will delight. The finance function is very often one that is considered a service to the business, when the fact is that they too have many customer contacts and can be a significant influence on how the market reacts. Every function in the business has an accountability for customer satisfaction.

A business startup must make sure that the cost of acquiring customers is economical. So that means being parsimonious with marketing budgets and ensuring that the cost of the sales process is pruned to the bone. But the investment in the customer once aboard should not be skimped. Remember that repeat business is the most cost-effective kind to get. Look after your customers like friends. They will be equally rewarding.

Deliver on your promises. Don't view customer service as a cost to be contained. All too often after-sales service and technical support are seen as the Cinderellas of business. This is a grave error. Often the people in those functions are at the bottom of the staff heap. What does that say about your business. The value of such people is very high, no matter what their salary. Even when a customer is pleased at the moment of purchase, the delight can quickly turn to dismay, if problems are not seen as opportunities. Remember that gripes tend to get embellished when told to friends. In a recent shopper survey only 6% bothered to complain to the retailer, but nearly a third complained to their friends.

If you accept that word-of-mouth is the most effective means by which your business grows, then be sure to support your customers in becoming advocates in your favor, not bad-mouthers to your detriment. A 2005 study by the consultants Bain & Co surveyed 362 firms, of whom 80% believed they delivered "superior experience" to their customers. When Bain asked customers about their own perceptions, they rated a mere 8% of companies as truly delivering a superior experience (Tuning In to the Voice of Your Customer, Harvard Management Update, October 2005). See how easy it can be to lull yourself into a false sense of marketing security! There is a delicate balance between efficiency and service. make sure you get it right.

Make sure customer service works for you, not against you. Here's a little (sad) story about Zinio, the company that delivers magazines on line. An amazing service from a tech point of view. That's how I get my Business Week magazine delivered each week—right to my desktop. But when the sub runs out, I'll go back to paper. I had a problem one week; my four written email attempts to get help (they only promise a slow response anyway) resulted in zero response; in frustration I called McGraw Hill, BW's publishers, direct and spoke (yes actually spoke) to a charming and helpful customer service rep who could not help with the Zinio problem, though she tried; finally she gave me the name of the person who runs BW Online who could not sort the problem either. However he passed me on to BW's Director of Worldwide Customer Service & Fulfillment. She of course could contact a high-up at Zinio and that she did, resulting in an immediate resolution of the frustrating little tech glitch. RESULT: grrh for Zinio whom I would not recommend to anyone and three hurrahs for BW and McGraw Hill who obviously understand customer service!

Go for customer intimacy in all that you do. Be personal, relate and respect your customers. No only does it pay off in terms of customer satisfaction, you will be more satisfied too and they will more likely give out positive messages as well. It has, of course, to come from the heart and the top of the organisation. If it's just a 'ploy' it will be transparent and surely backfire.

Welcome to WorkSavvy / Entrepreneurship & You / First Steps to a Business Start / Savvy Business Planning / Savvy Business Finance / Savvy Marketing / Savvy Business Organization/ Savvy Web-biz/ Sustainable Business Startup / Savvy Business Resources / About WorkSavvy! / Lift Off newsletter / Contact WorkSavvy : will @ worksavvy.ws

Promotion on a Shoestring: Using Your Innate Flair without a Big Budget

Say the word 'promotion' and you may immediately think big budgets. It is not necessarily so. You can do promotion on a shoestring. Successful promotion does inevitably require creativity. Not necessarily creative in the sense of artistic, but more in taking care to use imagination and intuition about the best ways of conveying messages. It will require concentration on how the customer is likely best to receive the information being sought. Whether it's local or global, there are media that you'll be able to use. Take a look at the story of the Hush Puppy revival in Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point. Read what he has to say about Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen: "people pass on all kinds of information to each other all the time."

When you approach your promotional activities, be quick to take up opportunities as they arise, but if you can, plan your use of the many media available to you. Be clear what audience you want to address (or more than one), what message you want to convey, what sales channel you want to impact and what result you are expecting (purpose). I suggest that you approach promotion in an organized way. Here is a way you can analyse what promotional medium you are considering. If you take this approach, you are likely to be more effective and spend less:

SAVVY PROMOTION MEDIA GRID

Audience:                         Message:                         Sales Channel:                         Purpose:

Notes:

• clearly define what the promotional medium is;
• consider timing, especially relative to your other commitments ;
• when you consider cost, make it relative to results expected (e.g., in cost per contact);
• can you do the job in-house or will you have to buy in outside services;
• what of your own staff resources will the job or its consequences take;
• how will you be able to measure or evaluate the effectiveness of the promotion?

There are very few startup businesses that can allocate big bucks to promotion. So, if there is not a lot money what kind of ideas can you use to create strong impact? Find ways to be in the places where your prospects go for good information:

• The publications they read can be accessed not only via direct advertising, but also via unpaid editorial; make sure you can provide the press with the information they want and in the way they want it, when they want it. If it scares you, plenty of help is on hand via the Web. Just type 'media pack' into Google—you'll be amazed how much free help there is; you'll find that publications and broadcasting stations have media packs which tell you all about the audience and lots of detail about the sector in the case of trade publications. of course they want to sell you advertising, but you'll be able to see what sort of subjects will be of interest. Go to Press Exposure or My PR Genie and circulate your own press release for free. Another service is FV Newswire that you can join for $25 a year and issue as many releases as you like. PR Web is an online press release submission service (they have tele-support in the US and UK). Make sure you optimize the release and that it has performing keywords so that it rates high; ensure there's a link to your website, too. Read up on what you need to or speak to journalists, but learn to think like a journalist. You can see the top-rated stories on PR Web to learn about what works. According to research by Outsell, Internet searches fail 30% of the time, people are spending more time searching for information online, and press releases have surpassed trade journals as the leading source of information for knowledge workers.
• Find a logo design firm and do a trade with them for one of your products: a great logo can convey a huge amount, especially with a telling tie-line.
• WOM, WOM, WOM—word of mouth marketing is vital and costs just your energy and creativity.
• Get user endorsements and testimonials; don't hesitate to involve customers in making news, in ways that they share in the promotion of success stories.
• Organize user conferences. Invite a few 'hot prospects' to participate and learn of customer enthusiasm and ideas.
• Run seminars: invite speakers on subjects related to your own and you provide the 'keynote' and chair the seminar.
• Do not forget the effectiveness of your printed letterhead and business cards as a medium of promotion. Use them freely. Make sure they have a selling message on them. Add what's called a 'signature' at the bottom of every email you write and promote your wares or your website—your email program will do it automatically for you.
• 'Take the brand for a walk'. This is the advice of Jason Aldous of the Vermont Department of Tourism in the US. For example his organisation partnered Cabot Creamery a Vermont maker of cheddar cheese, at a show in New York City. It gave them a showcase among a new audience that enabled him to take stock of what potential visitors were thing about his state.
• Create a website—nowadays it is an essential part of your business, even if you are not using it for direct sales. See Savvy Web-biz.
• Start a blog (the word blog may conjure up the picture of effusive teens or campaigning critics, but don't be fooled—75% of blog readers earn $45K+). You'll be amazed how much believability your passion will build for your products/services. Visitors will respond to the informality. Be sure to promote your blog, too. You can enrich prospects' knowledge of your business and make them feel they know you. Get Blog Wild!: a Guide for Small Business Blogging by Andy Wibbels or check out Business Blog Basics and Technorati that monitors millions of blogs, or use blogsearch engines such as Sphere , so you can get a sense of what's out there).
• Be the expert that you are and write articles, an e-book or a self-published print book. There are plenty of outlets for your pieces on the Web, too (portals, e-zines, trade sites...) and in print (you could even try magazine or newspaper syndication if you like writing and are good at it). Your expertise will underwrite your products and you can make links to your website or reference to your contact details. Take a look at the article I have written: Book Benefits to Your Business: Self-Publishing, Books-on-Demand & E-books.
• Never neglect the 'overhanging fruit' and make sure nobody else in the business does either. The caller waiting to be put through to another extension—never give them musak, the visitor waiting in reception, a client with a simple account query... You never know what they may be in the market for. Ask questions.
• CRM: I suggest you use some form of customer relationship management (CRM), keeping detailed and orderly information about your potential and actual customers and the actions you take to secure orders. Try the free Zoho CRM, one of the free productivity tools from Zoho (brings together your sales and marketing teams by integrating sales force automation with campaign management, lead generation, pipeline analysis, sales forecasts, sales quotas), Free CRM—CRM Software for Small Businesses or free Personal Edition CRM from salesforce.com, but otherwise be sure to keep track of sales potentials, suspects and prospects at the very least, so that you can monitor your activity and pipeline. If not you are going to find that when a sale is done, you suddenly have to start from scratch, the repeated filling of the pipeline is essential.
• Now, this is just a start. You are going to be much more creative and you are going to be do and be marketing every day! If you want to know more about what I mean, read my article, Incremental Marketing: Entrepreneurs Do a Little Every Day.

Small Business Marketing Resources

I commend to you is to make use of a good virtual assistant (VA). Virtual assistants, if versed in marketing and especially Web-based marketing. I have one to commend to you.  She is called Lori Davis of Davis Virtual Assistants. Like other VAs, she can handle all sorts of tasks that, if you had the budget, a personal assistant on your payroll could do for you. She can do all sorts of admin—database, appointments, proofreading, newsletters and more, but she is a whizz at creative and fast Web-based marketing. Contact her and have a conversation that could be very stress relieving.

Here is another person you should find out more about. The name of her business reflects who she is. Samantha Bovat has contagious energy, hence the name of her business. Visit the Contagious Energy website and discover how she can help you get the the core of your message and find ways to connect with the people whom you wish to influence or impact. She will write website content, brochures and other marketing materials, but most of all she will work with you interactively to get results.

Here is another cool idea for anyone starting a business with a local focus in the US. Sign up with Merchant Circle and get yourself better noticed in the locality. You can write a blog, post special offers and more. Like any other promotional activity, you would need to work at it and keep the listing up to date and add more features as you find it works. It is free to start and as you get used to how it works, then you can increase the sophistication. Most of the promotional activities have a free version and a paid-for option as well. As a member you can widgets to your Website, with links to your blog, ''talk-to-me' connection, run newsletters. In short it can really be a one-stop promotional shop for people like retailers, local service providers, professionals. It is new, but it is my impression that momentum is building fast. Click on the link and take a look. It costs nothing and could be the start of something good.

Books: Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea. People are looking for meaning in their lives and consumer marketing companies need more and more to offer products that offer good feeling through the experience of using what they have purchased, as well as delivering functionality at the right price.

Marketing That Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World, by Chip Conley and Eric Friedenwald-Fishman. I believe this book by two entrepreneurs is a must-read for any leaders of a values-driven startup concerned to integrate their marketing practices. Traditional businesses determine their success most frequently using the measurement of return on investment (ROI). The authors propose that this is combined with the measurement of advancement of mission (AOM). It's all very well to have high aspirations for the sustainable enterprise, but their results need measuring, too. Under ten headings they set out very practical ways that to "navigate in the swirling waters at the intersection of marketing and meaning", as Mal Warwick (chair of the Social Venture Network) puts it.

Maximum Marketing, Minimum Dollars: the Top 50 Ways to grow Your Small Business by Kim Gordon. This is a practical guide for those stepping outside jobs in which they feel comfortable. Marketing need not be daunting and you don't need an MBA to do it. If you can't wait for the printed book, download her e-book, Big Marketing Ideas for Small Budgets.

Marketing Express by John Mariotti, who was formerly President of Huffy Bicycles and Rubbermaid Office Products. He's produced a powerful short book that talks directly to the business startup person. He gives help on e-marketing and offers ten steps to marketing success: 1. Plan (see the Savvy Marketing Grid above); 2. Integrate strategy and its execution (be clear about the what and the how); 3. Serve Customers (get close and closer); 4. Communicate (make sure it's two-way; 5. Homework (do it fast and remember there's more information available than you think); 6. Talent + Passion (good enough—isn't); 7. Relationships (partners are customers, suppliers, employees and associates); 8. Speed + Reach (use the Internet fast and far); 9. Fast break (find the future now); 10. Never Lower Your Guard (He quotes marketing guru, Theodore Levitt, "The purpose of a business  is to create and keep a customer" and adds, "happy!").

Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide: Over 1500 Great Marketing Tricks That Will Drive Your Business Through the Roof by James Stephenson. This book has tons of ideas, sources and checklists for practical ways to market your business. If you can't find a solution to a marketing question here, then I don't know where you will! I personally would not have called the ideas in this book 'tricks', because they are 'truths'. You'll get good advice on everything from research and planning, customer service, promotion, networking, selling to online marketing and much more.

Sign Me Up! : A marketer's guide to creating email newsletters that build relationships and boost sales by Matt Blumberg and Michael Mayor. The title says it all. Interesting to note that this is a book that is self-published through I-Universe. It shows how a self-published book, distributed through booksellers, promoted on your website and in other ways can promote your business. The authors of this one are in the Web marketing business.

Marketing Software: If you are interested in software to help you build your marketing plan, then you should try Jian's Marketing Builder. It is an application program that manages a collection of sample business marketing plans that you can easily edit using Microsoft^®Word. It includes the Marketing Toolkit collection of 29 management support spreadsheet tools and other goodies. There are sales forecast and breakeven spreadsheets that you could also use in your business plan. Many things can increase sales, but what to do first... plan & analyze...so click here to learn more about marketing plan software.

Marketing Articles:

• Beware of Dissatisfied Consumers: They Like to Blab a Knowledge@Wharton article by marketing professor Stephen J Hoch.
• Talk to Our Customers? Are You Crazy? a Fast Company article by Ian Wylie about a Swiss Bank's experience immersion program.

Small Business Marketing Links:

www.smallbusinessmr.com was created to provide small businesses like yours with free and low priced marketing resources. By using these resources small businesses will be able to market their companies, like large companies do, without paying the big bucks.

Do-it-yourself logos: try LogoYes. It's really simple and you don't pay a penny until you're satisfied with what you have created. I found it far more effective than any of those I tried.

Marketing Sherpa is a research firm publishing case studies, benchmark data, and how-to information for marketing, advertising, and public relations professionals—so you can use it too; lots of helpful articles on the site.

Globe Trade is a US online business offering marketing services designed to help entrepreneurs and small businesses go global. Laurel Delaney, the founder, and her team can help in this minefield.

Knowing what impact you are having in the media is a difficult business, but help is at hand: you can help to measure your media profile and evaluate your media relations program with Impact Evaluation.

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