Building It Bigger and Better

All you have to do today is open up a newspaper, or drive down 
the street, or in some cases talk to acquaintances and you will 
find people that have shut down their small business because 
they just couldn't make ends meet. They had the drive to sell 
their product or service, but they didn't follow through on 
getting out there in front of the people that would actually 
buy from them. So the businesses cease to exist.

Having a great idea is what starts a business. Marketing is 
what drives the business. Marketing is the only thing that 
keeps a business in business!

Yet so many business owners just don't seem to understand the 
importance of marketing. It's easier to avoid the whole process 
of marketing. After all, there are always more important things 
to deal with; like answering the phone, filing papers, and 
creating new products. 

There will always be someone else with your same business idea. 
There will always be other people to fill a niche in which you 
could have grown into greatness. What separates good businesses 
from failures is the ability to market. 

Marketing comes down to focusing in two directions: look for 
interesting and unique points in your business, or look for 
interesting and unique qualities in yourself.  

As the owner of the business, you are in the frontline of 
promoting. You live it, and breathe it, and carry it with you 
24/7. You are always marketing the way your business works. The 
more fun you have and show the rest of the world, the more they 
are going to want to find out why your product makes you act 
and behave the way you do!

There are literally hundreds of ways a company can use marketing 
to help grow their business. Unfortunately most businesses don't 
use more than four or five techniques, and even those are 
sometimes weak efforts. 

The key to getting known is to focus all of your energy on 
bringing your name into as many conversations as you can. When 
people think of your industry, your name automatically comes 
out. Combine your efforts with others around you, and create 
dynamic offers that people simply can't refuse. Always be 
watching for ways to catapult your business with the use of a 
current trend. Then sit back and watch your business thrive!

The easiest way to find new business opportunities is to work 
together with other businesses. It's more efficient; you can 
have access to thousands of more potential customers simply by 
combining your client lists. It's more economical; you can 
combine your money when creating marketing pieces, renting 
space, promoting, and advertising. And it's more fun; isn't 
it always more fun to be around a bunch of equally motivating 
people as yourself!

How can you apply this to your own business? Let me use an 
example from a recent trend happening in my hometown of Denver, 
Colorado. We have been living with drought conditions for the 
past several years. The newest rage throughout our area is 
Xeriscaping, which is simply landscaping using waterwise plants. 
Because we are on severe water restrictions this year, everyone 
is finding ways of teaching and helping people reconfigure their 
landscaping to include more of these plants. 

One of our local chamber of commerce's put together a Xeriscape 
festival at the beginning of the planting season this year. 
Many local landscapers, nurseries, architects, planners and 
designers combined efforts to put on this much needed festival. 
The chamber is getting a lot of press simply by being the host. 
The small businesses are getting free publicity by being a part 
of the event. Even other small businesses gained exposure by 
helping put together this timely event: rental companies, 
marketers, and printers-the list goes on and on. By working as a 
group of motivated people, the chamber and many local businesses 
are increasing their own business simply by combining efforts, 
and giving people what they want!

There are two things that make this idea so exciting. First, 
your exposure to other people and businesses is amazing. 
Instead of working within your own comfort level, you are out 
interacting in a variety of ways with a mixture of different 
levels of business opportunity. This alone will help you expand 
your business in directions you may have never even thought of 
before.

And second, the best way to get known is to put yourself in 
front of others that can help you. Simply by working with the 
many people that make it possible to pull off a major event 
will build a trust level. If you help someone, and provide him 
or her with something that makes their day a little easier, 
they will bend over backwards to reward you. It's the "You 
scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" theory. It works. It's 
worked for hundreds of years. Give it a try.