Why the title "Building your house" for a marketing blog?
I picked this analogy to use as it is universally understood by anyone from any industry. To build a house you have to have a foundation. The same thing is true in marketing a business. The foundation you need to have in place is you. You as the owner, CEO, President or the person in charge. If there is no one in charge, guiding people and resources then the business will fail, therefore marketing it is not necessary.
Next you need the framework. Without framework, no building will stand. This framework is your staff (hired or contract workers) and suppliers. The staff and suppliers should be knowledgable and reliable. If you are lacking in staff, knowledge or supplies needed to complete your task then your business will fail.
Once you have these two items in place and functioning like a well oiled machine, then you can market your business. A good marketing program is like the walls and landscaping of your house. The walls and landscape need to be attractive, welcoming and enticing so that people will want to visit.
As an example of a poorly built house is a business we know of first hand which wants to grow and get more business. They are a small business in the residential service industry providing homeowners with plumbing, heating and cooling services. They have good suppliers but are lacking in focus of the owner and lacking in staff. The lack of staff results in longer wait times than competitors offer. This lack of staff forces the owner, who is very knowledgable in the industry and has quality service, to work on calls that a staff member should handle. Since the owner is working on calls they are unable to have the time to properly plan and execute a good growth strategy. This business continually pours money into marketing the business through mailer programs, local store cart advertising as well as ads in publications. They get very little return on their investment as it is using these methods alone and with the foundation and framework not being stable they are getting a reputation as unreliable and are missing out on one large FREE marketing program.......RECOMMENDATIONS!
