• Visibility
  
• Credibility
• Profitability

It’s fair to say that without visibility, you can’t be credible and without credibility, it’s very difficult to be profitable.  But, how do you get the right kind of visibility for your business and ensure you’re remembered for the right reasons?

This week we’ve been focusing on the importance of first impressions – networking can be a great way to meet new people face to face, but you need to be sure you take advantage of it…

You will no doubt have met people at networking events who make some of the following mistakes:

• Invading your personal space
• Shaking hands with their business card
• Only talking about themselves
• Trying to sell to you
• Asking for your business card and then spamming you for the rest of your life

We attended a Referral Institute Conference recently and one of the speakers described this as Invisibility or Irritability Networking.  People who do these things certainly leave an impression, but it isn’t a favourable one.

If you are using networking as a marketing tool, remember most people won’t buy from you when they’ve just met you.  And they’re even less likely to refer you to someone else and put their reputation on the line.  In order to be visible, people have to have contact with you a number of times.  You could keep in touch using some of the following ideas:

• Follow-up the initial contact
• Arrange another meeting / telephone call
• Send them something useful
• Invite them to a relevant event
• Help them in some way

By helping people, you become more visible.  And…what goes around, comes around.  BNI has a principle called Giver’s Gain and it really works!

Their customers are primarily office workers, who pop into the shop for chocolate bars, snacks and cigarettes and they have a fairly consistent turnover from that market, but it’s only just covering the bills.  They have a sandwich shop next door and a restaurant on the other side; both of which also attract a lunch-time crowd.

The couple also have a block of 700 offices within yards of their door, in which no-one delivers sandwiches, coffee  or newspapers.  This untapped market could massively boost their profitabliity and negate the need to open at weekends (or could fund a member of staff to cover those late shifts.)

Often, as business owners, we only see the area that we control.  But, if we look outside and think more broadly about potential customers, we can find a huge amount of opportunities, right on our doorstep.  Why would you travel further?

You need to be seen and trusted first (Visbility and Credibility), before people will buy from you.  But how can you be sure you’re achieving profitability through your marketing?

If you’ve heard of Pareto’s Principle, you’ll know that (on average) 80% of your customers bring you 20% of your revenue – and 20% of your customers bring you 80% of your revenue.  In which case, do you want any customer, at any cost, or do you want another one of the 20% who bring you 80%??  (If that makes sense.)

If you don’t keep records of profit, you may be seduced by increases in turnover.  But anyone can be busy, all day long.  That doesn’t mean you’re making any money.  For example…

If you ran a hotel, you could let all your rooms for £10 each and you’d probably have 100% occupancy – and lots of money flowing through the business.  But, if it costs you £12 to service each room (in terms of cleaning, breakfast, electricity etc.) you might as well have stayed empty – you’d have made more money.

Duncan Bannatyne often quotes “Turnover is vanity and profit is sanity”.  So, know your numbers and ensure you’re making good profits.  (If you’re not, then turn away the unprofitable business and spend more time with your family.)