The Most Powerful Marketing Tool on the Planet
Very few small business owners use it…those who do, can’t live without it

By John Jantsch

Let me get right to the point. The single most powerful small business marketing tool on the planet is a marketing plan. Now, stop rolling your eyes and let me tell you why you should read the rest of this column.

When I talk about a marketing plan, I’m not referring to the academic exercises you’ll find in college marketing books or the templated mumbo jumbo in business planning software. I won’t be asking you to determine your share of the market today. Give me a break. Share of the market? Most small business owners just need to figure out how to get 10 more customers.

What Is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a simple (in many cases, one page) document that specifically answers the following questions—and all in a way that everyone in your organization, network and client base can clearly understand:

•    Who are you?
•    What do you?
•    Who needs it?
•    How you plan to “grab them by the throat”?
•    When do you plan to do it?
•    How do you plan to pay for it?

How to Create a Plan That Works
Take one day and follow these seven simple steps to creating the most powerful small business marketing tool on the planet. You’ll find that life will become much simpler. Flowers will grow where weeds had previously resided, your children will say thank you at the top of their lungs, and your favorite baseball team will finally make that run for the pennant. Well, maybe none of that will happen, but you won’t be as irritated when it doesn’t.

Step 1: Narrow your market focus. With whom are you currently doing most of your business? Figure out why your customers do business with you. What is unique about them? Write one paragraph that describes your ideal customers’ characteristics. Take a good hard look at the rest of your clients and customers and decide if they fit the description of your best client. Start saying no when the phone rings and it’s not your target market calling.

Step 2: Position your business. Figure out what it is you do best and what your target market longs for. Then tell the world that you do that like no one else ever thought of. Maybe it’s serving a niche, maybe it’s a form of service, maybe it’s a way you package your products. Here’s a hint: you probably don’t know what it is. Call a handful of your clients and ask them why they buy from you.

Step 3: Core messages. Create several very compelling benefits of doing business with your company and find ways to work them into everything you say and do. Just remember—it’s not a benefit unless your clients think it is. Your clients don’t buy what you sell—they buy what they get from what you sell.

Step 4: Marketing materials. Recreate all of your marketing materials, including your Web site, so they convey only your core messages and speak directly to your target market.

Step 5: Never cold call. Make sure that all of your advertising, including yellow pages, is geared to creating prospects and not customers. You must find ways to educate before you sell.  Your target market needs to learn how you provide value in a way that will make them want to pay a premium for your services or products. You simply can’t do this in a 3 x 4 ad. Your ad needs to get them to ask for more information. Then, and only then, can you proceed to selling.

Step 6: Expect referrals. Create a referral marketing engine that systematically turns clients and referral networks into a 24-hour marketing powerhouse. The first step is to make providing referrals a condition of doing business with your firm.

Step 7: Live by a calendar. After you complete steps 1 through 6, determine what you need to do to put them into action and then schedule them on a calendar. Choose a month and pledge to have your action items completed by that month. Most small business owners get overwhelmed when they realize how much they need to do. Avoid this situation by breaking your tasks into action items you can easily accomplish. If you can schedule one or two activities each month, at the end of six months, you will have a fully developed referral system, a new Web site and a lead generation system.

So, what will you have completed by the time you read this column next month?