Most people’s biggest fear is failure and I hope the following article will help you avoid it and instead assist in your successful business growth.

According to research, the 12 top reasons for business failure in 2009 were:

1. Failure to focus on a specific market because of poor research
2. Failure to control cash (by carrying too much stock, paying suppliers too quickly or allowing customers too long to pay)
3. Failure to ruthlessly control costs
4. Not adapting your product to meet clients needs
5. Failing to carry out decent market research
6. Not building a team that has the skills to finance, produce, sell and market
7. Failing to pay taxes
8. Failure to grow – businesses that attempted stability or didn’t try to grow didn’t survive
9. Failing to gain new markets
10. Under-capitalisation
11. Cashflow problems (growing too quickly)
12. Non-payment by customers

The great news is that most of these things are in your direct control – master these twelve elements and you are on your way to success.

Everything you do – or don’t do – sends a message about your business.  And it all starts with branding.

Whilst some companies believe only corporates or plcs need to understand and utilise branding, I’m afraid it affects every business; large or small and it’s crucial to your success.

Your brand is often the first impression of your business – if someone walks past your shop or office, or visits your website, they will make all kinds of decisions about you just based on your logo.  It sounds unfair, but we do exactly the same thing when we meet someone face to face – we rely just 7% on what they say and make the rest of our judgement based on their body language and the tone of their voice.

Imagine, just for a second, a Mercedes Logo.  Then consider what that brand conjures up to you, in terms of the culture of the company, the type of person who might buy Mercedes, the mission of the company, their target audience and key messages.

Chances are you may never have owned a Mercedes, but just from a logo, you’ve jumped to all sorts of conclusions about the company – and what you think you know about them.  Yet all of that can be collated often from just a simple collection of shapes, lines and sometimes words.

If you can do that with Mercedes – a brand you’ve probably heard and read a lot about, what are people perceiving about your business from your logo?  They may never have heard of you before, but they will be reading things into your branding – the question is, do they like what they see?

Unfortunately, Cumbria has been badly hit in recent new stories – Carlisle came 129th out of 129 cities in terms of customer service and the BBC used just one example of poor service the other morning, taken from West Cumbria:  A customer had been waiting an hour for a sandwich and, when they complained, they were told that if they wanted fast food they should have gone to McDonald’s!

I was born and bred in Cumbria, so I know these are isolated incidents and there are plenty of businesses who do offer great service.  I also know the rest of the country has examples equal to these but why, as a nation, have we come to expect poor service?

As customers, it’s usually the person you first meet in a business that creates your impression of that company.  For example, in a hotel the reception staff are crucial.  In a restaurant, the waiters and waitresses are critical, and for companies who speak to customers by phone rather than face-to-face, the telephone staff are the most important.

Unfortunately, these positions are generally low-paid and held in low regard by the public.  (This is quite the opposite in the United States, who lead the world in customer service.)  So, should we be paying more attention to that first impression?

It’s been shown that businesses with good customer service grow twice as fast as those with poor service, so should you be leaving anything to chance?

Customer Service can be the most cost effective form of marketing your company – it’s one area we look at first when we begin working with a consultancy customer, for two reasons:

1. If you could improve your customer retention by just 5%, the effect on your bottom line is between 25% and 125%
2. And, if your customer service is poor, why attract more customers in, just to upset them?  It’s better to solve the problem first

Remember – manners cost nothing.  We should all be grateful that our customers choose us – and thank them for it.

Check back tomorrow for more ideas on cost-effective marketing strategies to work into your plan for 2010.

Whilst we’re thinking about planning, we thought we’d share with you the top ten New Year’s Resolutions, according to our latest Local Choice magazine.

What’s important about this list is that you can check your own goals against those most popular with others.  But, perhaps more importantly, it will also give you an insight into the goals of your employees and customers, which will help with your strategic planning and marketing techniques…

Ten Most Popular New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Stop smoking
2. Get fit / lose weight
3. Enjoy life more
4. Cut down on alcohol
5. Get organised
6. Get a new job
7. Learn something new
8. Get out of debt / save money
9. Spend more time with the family
10. Do something to help others

These top ten things help you understand your customers and what their main drivers are – if you can tap into these trends and help them achieve some of their most important goals, that could be a remedy for success in 2010.  And could help ensure you achieve your New Year’s Resolutions.

I had the privilege yesterday of interviewing the very first candidates for the Lancaster Award at Lancaster University – and an amazingly bright bunch they were too.

During one of the interviews, we had the unexpected pleasure of an English literature student explaining to us how Wordsworth had used a form of ‘spin’ in his promotions.  The widely held perception is that Wordsworth ‘wandered lonely as a cloud’ and simply popped out one day and wrote an amazing poem about what he’d seen.

This particular English literature cohort weren’t that easily convinced however and, using the diaries of Wordsworth’s sister, they deduced this famous poem was probably written over days, if not weeks, as Wordsworth perfected the words.

Never before has anyone linked Wordsworth with marketing in my presence – it was a joy to behold.  Thank you Neil and very good luck in your future career in marketing – I have absolutely no doubt you’ll be a fantastic success.

If you think of a mobile phone and imagine the dial tone, the tune you will invariably come up with is the Nokia ring tone.  It’s been used in adverts asking audiences to switch their phones off and is the ubiquitous sound when anyone in the media wants to suggest a mobile phone is in use.

Nokia cleverly manufactured all their phones with a single ring tone – which most people didn’t change (possibly because they either didn’t know how to, or couldn’t be bothered).  As a result, the tune has become an integral part of the digital world we live in.  And it promotes the Nokia brand every time it’s heard.  It’s fantastic marketing.

Other pieces of music which have been used in marketing and have become an integral part of the brand include the Hamlet and Hovis tunes.  Apple have also used music to great effect in their adverts; many of the tunes having since become top 40 hits.

Appealing to the senses in this way makes perfect ‘sense’; particularly if you can match the music to your audience, as the brands in the previous examples have shown.  For example, if you have a retail shop or restaurant, what music would your audience typically want to listen to – is that what you’re playing in the environment where customers buy?  The supermarkets are experts at sensory marketing – next time you have a wander round, listen to their choice of music and see if you can tell who they’re targeting.

A year or so ago, my husband and I drove past a beautiful building in Edinburgh.  It looked like a shiny black block of Lego and stood out from everything around it.  The sign on the top simply said ‘Dakota’.

We were so intrigued, we ‘googled’ Dakota when we got home and realised it was a very elegant hotel chain.  Upon seeing the website, we vowed to visit when we had reason to.

Since that time, we’ve told so many people about the building and the hotel that we’ve been promoting them without ever having visited.  We’ve heard stories from other people who’ve been and they have supported the brand.  We’ve been told that David Coulthard is apparently involved and the picture has slowly filled out.

Yesterday, I booked two nights in Dakota over Christmas and then the real test will begin.  Will it live up to the expectations that now surround it, after all the brand-building that has gone before?

This is a real story of marketing in action.  It shows buyer behaviour which is very typical and it all began because their building has been incredibly well designed – and that’s backed up with a great website.

Is your building working hard to market you?

Just as you have seven seconds to make a first impression, so does your shop window and your sign.  But, how many of us simply put our company logo on our signs and mistakenly think that’s sufficient?  We have an amazing opportunity to share our marketing messages, but we choose not to.

Top Tips for Making the Most of your Corporate Signage:

1. Tell people who you are
2. Tell people what you do
3. Tell people why you’re good
4. Give them a way to contact you
5. Give them a call to action
6. Locate it where it can be seen by the most people
7. Illuminate it, so people can see it at night
8. Use your corporate colours to great effect
9. Ensure it matches your other branding
10. Use a professional

Your sign may be the first point of contact between you and a new prospect.  It’s a perfect opportunity to create an impression of your business, so don’t leave it to chance.  Have your signage professionally designed – by someone who understands both design and signmaking, so they can advise you on the best brand design as well as the best materials to achieve the look you’re aiming for.

If you’re in an industry that is suffering, should you just sit back and bemoan the difficult times, or could you be slightly more proactive and work smarter to beat the odds?

I remember a great example someone shared with me a while ago about a realtor (estate agent) in the United States who attended an industry conference in the midst of the recession.  Whilst his colleagues were lamenting the terrible situation, he was telling everyone he’d had a great year and asking what they were complaining about.  The other attendees couldn’t believe it and some questioned him about how he was enjoying success when everyone else was struggling.  He told them that he was finding it tough too, but that noone wanted to know that.  People buy from successful, enthusiastic people, so that’s what he was – and it was working.

There are some estate agents who have been enjoying success even in the past twelve months, with property prices falling, whilst vast amounts of the market have been cutting staff and reeling in costs.  So, what makes the difference?  Why are some really busy and others terribly quiet?  Why are some still making lots of money, even in a downturn?  It’s not a different industry, different geographic areas, or a vastly different model.  So, if it’s not the model, is it the business owner?

We had a recent example ourselves of how great marketing, backed up with fabulous customer service can generate property sales.  A few months ago, a property developer customer of ours launched the first phase of their development; just nine properties.  Because of the way it was marketed, over 300 people attended the launch weekend.  Two people turned up with cash deposits and fought over one of the plots and, a few months down the line, eight of those nine properties are sold and seven more have been sold off plan for the next phase of the development.

(I should add that this company has three local competitors, all offering lower priced new properties within a few miles.)  So why were they so successful?

Of course, I can’t tell you exactly what we did, because they paid a lot of money for that strategic help, but it shows it can be done.  The top tips were:

• Focus on your audience – understand who you want and target them specifically
• Do something different – every estate agent advertises in the property pages and on Right Move.  How can you make people stop and think, and take notice of you?
• Offer people something for free – the power of free champagne cannot be understated!  (In fact, the competitor up the road announced a champagne open weekend the day before this particular launch – I love it when competitors copy you – it shows you’ve had a great idea!)
• Create a fear of loss – with so many people at the launch, prospects wanted to make sure they got the property they wanted, so they committed on the day and put down sizeable deposits to reassure the developer of their serious intent.
• Have some fun – I cannot tell you how much fun this project was.  We worked alongside a graphic designer, a web designer and a copywriter.  To have the luxury of a creative team meant the customer benefited from four creative brains – and it definitely paid off.

Give it a go – what have you got to lose?

I’ve just started reading Brian Tracy’s ‘Advanced Selling Strategies’; a fantastic book that I can highly recommend.  It got me to thinking and the first chapter alone reminded me of some great sales tips that I’ve come to take for granted.  They are definitely worth repeating though, as they could make a huge difference to your sales conversions…

1. One of the most important tips focuses on attitude.  If you enter a ‘sales opportunity’ thinking you’re going to fail, or be knocked down on price, then you probably will.  You generally achieve the outcome you imagine, so focus on the positive and you’re likely to improve your success rate.
2. Consider yourself to be self-employed.  Whilst you may well be self-employed, you may have sales agents or employees who are not.  But, it’s only when you (or they) take responsibility as a business-owner for sales and targets, that conversion rates increase.
3. Be the best sales person you can be.  If your role in the business is sales, you need to learn how to be good at sales.  Read sales books, attend seminars, develop your skills and invest in yourself.
4. Take a consultancy approach.  The top sales people see themselves as consultants or problem-solvers, not sales people.  They have great relationships with their customers and find solutions for them – which may or may not be what they’re trying to sell.  They put the customer and their relationship with them first and the sales follow.
5. Become a doctor – examine, diagnose and then prescribe.  Leading sales people ask lots of questions.  And the better the questions you ask, the better the answers.  You get to the route of the customers problem, before you ‘prescribe’ a solution.  That way, you can offer a better solution – and are more likely to get the sale.

These are just five tips from a single chapter of Brian Tracy’s book.  If you’re responsible for sales, I would recommend reading the rest of it (I won’t be sharing any more of what I read, as that wouldn’t be fair, so it you want to benefit from Brian’s experience, you need to buy the book – it’s only £7.50 on Amazon!)  It would also be worth sharing this book with your sales people.