Several years back, a prospect called me in.
Without giving away too many details about the prospect, they were a 30-year-old local business, and at the top of their list of desires at the time was a new website.
Zynk30 does this kind of work all the time, so at first, I thought nothing of it and prepared the meeting as I usually do. This was a few years ago, so the meeting was in person – which was the norm at the time.
However, after doing some research on the prospect and studying up on their current situation, something felt off.
The prospect didn’t seem to actually need a new website.
Sure, the website could have used some tightening up, but they didn’t need a completely new website.
It was unnecessary.
It would have been a waste of time and money.
As we kept talking, we got deeper into the nitty-gritty of his business model, and we realized that the problem causing the lack of sales wasn’t the website and it wasn’t his product.
The problem was that there was no marketing plan being executed. They had no reliable consistent way of generating new leads.
They were trying everything, but there was no plan. They were shooting from the hip, despite having a very specific goal in mind.
This meeting changed the way that we do business at Zynk30. It was the foundation of our core ethos.
To an outsider, this meeting was kind of a failure.
Long story short, the business didn’t sign on with us.
The client didn’t get a new website – or at least, they didn’t get one from us.
Instead, I learned a valuable lesson from this meeting that ended up leading to the strategy that I use to help all of the clients that come through and work with us.
In the past, we’ve talked about why marketing plans are so important.
We’ve also talked about what our marketing plans consist of and how we make them so effective for our customers.
Time is money.
Even if the client in the situation above had signed on with us, and built a new website as they wanted, they still wouldn’t have achieved their business goals.
They’d still be in the same situation they were in when they called me in, only afterward they have less time, less money to spend on effective marketing endeavors, and they’d probably be upset with me too since their new website wouldn’t fix their sales issue.
This experience taught me a lot about working with customers, but the most important lesson here was that most companies that do not have a dedicated “marketing person” lack both the time and expertise to help them identify what their actual marketing issues are.
I didn’t get the business, the benefits that I can offer businesses were fully exposed through this interaction.
I just needed to come up with a way to show businesses how marketing works.
That led to a 2-year project focused on creating a new strategy.
Our marketing plans focus on analysis and planning, followed by execution.
Without a marketing expert on your team or in your inner circle, you usually end up focusing solely on execution, and as a result, you end up making very little progress at all.
But of course, marketing isn’t as simple as just these 3 steps.
After this meeting, I ended up spending 2 years developing a new marketing plan that included deep analysis and a new series of different approaches to growing businesses.
I slowly changed everything about my marketing approach and became a better communicator and an even better marketer.
It’s important to do good work, but it’s even more important to know why your work is good.
Before you can build something up, you need to break down what’s currently working, and not in a destructive way – in a constructive way.
To do x, you need y.
Without a marketing approach, salespeople end up working like hamsters on wheels.
They’re working really hard, they’re really tired, and they’re also making no progress.
To make progress, you need to isolate what’s working and what isn’t and create a plan around the positive.
We leave room for experimentation, but most of your marketing plan should involve absolutely zero guesswork. You wouldn’t play with your customers, and we won’t play with your marketing plan.
We also collaborate with our customers in a way that’s both high level and easy for them to understand.
Think of our marketing approach as the chocolate factory, and think of yourself as one of the lucky golden ticket winners who gets to have a tour of the whole extravaganza.
Sure, there isn’t a chocolate river, but with all those extra sales you’ll get from an effective marketing plan, you might want to buy one.
Closing Thoughts
The different aspects of a business require many different skills, including sales, product design, and of course, marketing.
It only makes sense to have each aspect of the business have a different person with a specific skillset focused on each aspect. I learned this the hard way when I interacted with that client several years ago.
In the time since then, I’ve been focused on refining Zynk30’s approach to marketing plans and strategies, and this has allowed us to help our customers reach their goals in new and refined ways.
I’m excited to see where we go next.