PR Lessons Learned From My Suicidal Fish

We're so busy doing the things on our to-do list and cleaning out our in boxes, that we don't do the most important things that guarantee our futures!

Oftentimes when I am consulting or coaching, I ask my clients a very simple question. "What are the three most important things you could be doing to build your business?" I have them make a list.

Then I ask them a follow-up question: "How much time did you spend doing those things in the last 7 days? How about the last month?"

The answer is always revealing, and most of the time shocking.

The vast majority of people spend almost no time doing the things that will build their business.

And that's as suicidal as my beta fish refusing to eat!

What are you not doing that you really should be?

Let me just throw out a couple of things that maybe should be on your list of "as important to your survival as eating" list that deserve daily, or at least weekly attention.

- Talking directly with your customers - when's the last time you personally spoke to each of your top 10 customers? Your top 100?

- Working on differentiating yourself through excellence in your product. Of marketing's four P's (product, place, promotion, and pricing), product is the best one at creating lasting, real differentiation. (Remember that product is a generic term for whatever you sell, be it a product or a service.) You can have the best promotion in the world, the cheapest pricing, and the best distribution, but if your product doesn't stand up as being a better value, you're dead after the first purchase. What have you done this week to improve your product?

- Promoting your business - getting your differentiating message in front of more members of your target market is essential to growth. What new thing have you done to expand your reach or to improve your messaging this week?

Remember that part of promotion is generating more publicity for your company. One great tool which I recommend is Media Relations Power: 199 Ways To Get Free Publicity For Your Company,Cause, or Product
http://www.marketerschoice.com/app/adtrack.asp?adid=64056

- New products - this is where your future is created. Remember to focus on creating new products that are superior to the viable alternatives available to that target market. Again, you don't win on pricing or promotion, you win on product superiority. Kill all new product development that isn't looking like it will be superior to the competition.

I beg you - don't join my fish Alpha in his quest for early, permanent retirement. Remember that if you're not working on those 4 areas constantly, you're slowly starving your business to death!

Tags: Marketing Publicity TimeManagement Profitability BetaFish Differentiation Customers Promotion NewProducts