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The Bright Marketing Legacy

Part Three of a three part series that looks at the Bright Marketing workshop tour.  The 23 Principles of the Bright Marketing Manifesto that evolved from the unique Barclays Bright Marketing Seminars have changed the lives and fortunes of thousands of the UK’s small businesses.  Here we examine more of the Manifesto Key Points and some final tips and  techniques to get your business ‘cooking on gas’

 

The first Barclays Bright Marketing seminar was run in June 2002. Since then the workshop has been delivered over 100 times to approximately 10,000 people who run small/growing businesses. 

BRIGHT MARKETING MANIFESTO CONTINUED…

Here we continue to explain some more of the 23 Bright Marketing principles.

BRIGHT MARKETING MANIFESTO PRINCIPLE #15: DON’T COMPETE ON PRICE

More often than not, competing on price is the road to bankruptcy!  Your big competitors, the national suppliers, can always provide cheaper products and services because they have bigger budgets, better purchasing policies, more purchasing power, better trained salesmen and bigger brand recognition through their awesome marketing and advertising spend. To compete with them is to attempt to go into a price war with someone who is almost ‘doomed to win’.

Every penny that you reduce your price is a penny that you will not receive in your back pocket.  A reduction in price reduces your profits and means that you have to work harder to stay in the same place (like trying to run up the down escalator). Putting prices up may mean that you lose some customers but normally the customers that leave are what I would describe as pond life, customers who are a pain in the backside, and who you are quite happy to lose!

You must compete on everything but price.  For instance, make a feature of the fact that you are local, or high tech, or first in the industry, or the fastest, or the friendliest, or your guarantees.  Try and take away the risk that the customer has by offering a ‘try before you buy’ package or a ‘money back guarantee’ – these remove the customer’s fear of buying from you because they have less to lose and because, in their eyes, you wouldn’t make such an offer unless you were convinced that you were not going to lose money.

This particular principle is not easy if you are constantly pitching for tender work eg you are a builder, but I do advise you to compete on quality rather than price if you can.

BRIGHT MARKETING MANIFESTO PRICIPLE #16 - UNDERSTAND THE SALES PIPELINE

You need to see the way that you acquire your new customers as a pipeline – or a hopper.  Stuff (new customer contacts, leads, referrals) comes into the top of the hopper and you have to convert them into paying customers. The better you are at that conversion process, the less hard you have to work to get new customers. The key processes and places where you can make improvements are

• Where, when and how do you get leads and what is their quality – are you being seen by the right people? How can you make sure that you are attracting more of the right people?
• The conversation – how can you improve the quality of your conversations /dialogue with potential clients?
• The Proposal – how can you improve on the way that you seek to close business?
• How can you make sure that you convert people to actually buy from you?

Improvements at each of these stages of the sales pipeline will significantly improve your business performance.

BRIGHT MARKETING MANIFESTO PRINCIPLE #17 – CREATE A MONEY AND TIME BUDGET FOR MARKETING

Very few businesses set out a specific budget in terms of time to be spent as well as money to be spent on their marketing activity.  Usually, people just invest in a marketing resource/activity (an ad in the local paper, or a mailshot) simply on a whim.  From experience and testing your previous activities, you should know how effective each activity is (ie you know how much it costs to acquire a new customer or at least a lead) and so you can prioritise which activities should be put at the top of the list.

Personally, I divide up my customer database into ‘strangers’ (people I don’t know at all, ‘friends’ (people who like us but have not yet bought) and ‘lovers’ (people who are existing customers) and of course ex-lovers (ex-customers).  Most businesses invest their marketing/sales time as follows:

• 70% with strangers
• 20% with friends
• 10% with lovers

... which I would like to challenge. 

We know that it costs more to acquire a new customer (roughly seven times) than it does to sell to an existing customer, so it makes sense to spend much more of your marketing effort with people who know you rather than with absolute strangers.  So, especially for professional/service firms I would like to propose that you turn the budget of time and money upside down and spend more time with your existing customers because they are your ambassadors and if they like what you are doing with them already then they will be the ‘low-hanging fruit’:
Try allocating your marketing time as follows:

• 10% with Strangers
• 20% with Friends
• 70% with Lovers.

I believe that for many businesses, this allocation of time will be far more effective in terms of cost of acquiring new customers and their profitability.

SOME FINAL TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM BRIGHT MARKETING MANIFESTO

The whole Barclays Bright Marketing Seminars experience has been remarkable for delegates, speakers, and bankers alike.  Rave reviews from delegates on the day have been very flattering for all concerned but the real success is that of the  delegates, the people who attended on the day and applied the principles to their businesses.  We now have a body of evidence showing how businesses that attend the seminars (and follow through on their decisions) see significant improvements in their business performance. Typical activities include:

• Sacking problem customers
• Sacking unprofitable customers
• Putting annual price rises in place
• Putting prices up by 5% to all new customers
• Spending time with existing customers
• Putting systems in place to measure all marketing activities
• Scripting and starting to positively ask for the business
• Create initiatives to systematically ask for referrals and testimonials

The results of these activities have been seen in significantly improved bottom line performance, better profits, better use of one’s time and getting the owner-manager to feel that they are running the business and not the other way around! No mean achievement and congratulations all around!

SO SOME FINAL ONE-LINERS

• The whole Bright Marketing Manifesto needs you to systemise every stage of your marketing activity: test, measure… test, measure…
• Brand the business; brand yourself… Branding is the messages that leak like radioactivity… what messages do you send out to your customers? Stop and decide what messages you want to send out and set about presenting those characteristics to your potential customers
• Stop procrastinating - do it - NOW!
• Make it easy to buy from you. 

MY ONE-LINER OF THE DAY

Marketing is a not a battle of the products – marketing is a battle for the mind of the customer – if they think that you are better than your competitor then they will buy from you.  Clearly it helps if you are better as well!

POSTSCRIPT

GA Timmons published an excellent study of nine key entrepreneurial qualities that Bright Marketers also seem to adopt:

• A high level of drive and energy
• Self-confidence to take carefully calculated, moderate risks
• A clear idea of money as a way of keeping score
• The ability to get other people to work with and for you
• High, but realistic, achievable goals
• Belief that you can control your own destiny
• Readiness to learn from your own mistakes and failures
• A long-term vision of the future of your business
• Intense competitive urge, with self-imposed standards

 

How do you rate yourself against these criteria?

 

NOTES

The Barclays Bright Marketing Workshops will be delivered by Robert Craven in Spring 06 visiting 20 towns.  For further details of the Bright Marketing Manifesto go to 
www.directorscentre.com/barclays-bright-marketing-diary.php

Customer Is King – How To Exceed Their Expectations by Robert Craven, Foreword by Sir Richard Branson.  Virgin Books, ISBN 0 7535 0968 7  RRP £10.99

About the author

Robert Craven is a keynote speaker and author of the business best-sellers 'Kick-Start Your Business' and 'Customer Is King'. He has recently been described as 'one of the UK’s leading marketing specialists' and the 'entrepreneurship guru'. He runs The Directors’ Centre, helping growing businesses to grow.
For further information, contact Robert Craven on 01225 851044. (rc@directorscentre.com) www.directorscentre.com

Robert Craven©2006

publication details

DUE TO BE PUBLISHED: 2006 Start Your Business magazine.