Ten Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

“Each relationship you have with another person reflects the relationship you have with yourself.” – Alice Deville.
You have a lot of personal and professional relationships in your life. Some relationships are loving, satisfying, uplifting, supportive and enrich your life experience. You love spending time with these people. They motivate and inspire you. Other relationships are tense, adversarial, problematic, strained, and exhausting. You don’t like, or avoid, spending time with the people who drain the life energy right out of you. The funny thing is that all of your relationships, good and bad, are a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.
How can that be?
It’s very simple, really. You love the good relationships that you have because these people reflect what you like about yourself. They’re kind, giving, nice, loyal, fun to be with, and all of the other attributes that you enjoy when you’re involved in a good relationship. You dislike the people you have difficulty with because they reflect the parts of you that you don’t like. In these people you see something in them, however tiny or large, that you don’t like about yourself. If they’re needy, they remind you of the times when you have been needy. If they’re rude, they’re a reminder of the pain you caused others by your own rudeness. If they’re annoying they bring out the annoyer in you. If they are liars, they remind you of the time you lied, how that felt and the damage that lie may have caused you or others.
Pay particular attention to the people who bother you, get under your skin, for no apparent reason. These people reflect something within you that you have been unwilling to see.
I’ll give you an example.
Several years ago I had a business associate, Naomi, who irritated the heck out of me. Naomi was a nice enough person, never hurt me, but every time I saw her my skin crawled. If she said, “Hi. How are you?” I wanted to run in the other direction. Any time she called with a business related question or invitation I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. Naomi frequently invited me to networking events and I always found some excuse to decline. For some unexplained reason I just didn’t want to be around this woman.
Yes, I Found Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) not to like her. To me, Naomi was a pushy, needy, wishy-washy person who just wanted to cling onto me to advance her career. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had been a pushy, needy, wishy-washy person who clung onto other people to advance my early career. I’d grown up a lot since then and was no longer that person, yet I definitely once was that girl. And now Naomi was reflecting that behavior back to me. And it bothered me to even think of her. I did not want to be reminded that I, too, was once at that very same place in my personal journey of self-awareness and development.
You love what is reflected back to you that you love within you. You dislike what is reflected back to you that you dislike within you. You are neutral to what is presented to you that is not a reflection of you.
Examine your relationships with the people in your life. Identify the attributes you love and like in the people you have a good relationship with. You hold these attributes too. Acknowledge and own them. Love that part of you. Identify the attributes you don’t like in the people you have a bad, or troubled, relationship with. You hold these attributes too. Acknowledge and own them. Have compassion and forgiveness for that part of yourself and of the other person for each of you are only doing the best you can given the light you have to see. Granted, some people have fewer batteries in their flashlight than others! Yet they are still doing the best they can. No one deliberately decides to exhibit unwanted behavior. Learn the lesson to add a few more volts to that flashlight of yours. Every relationship, good and bad, brings gifts in the lessons and the light they offer to you. Cherish the gift. It will empower you as you continue to move forward in the direction of living your rich delicious life.
“Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
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1. Not Testing All Your Marketing Ideas
Do a small test/pilot study for every marketing idea you want to implement. Track the results before you roll it out in a big way. Don’t be impatient and skip this step.

2. Running Institutional Advertising
Institutional advertising is expensive without any call to action. It’s only a billboard of who you are with no benefit statement. It does not answer the question: So what?
Instead, run only direct response advertising print or online with a clear call to action of what you want the reader to do.

3. Not Articulating And Differentiating Your Business
You must have a powerful USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and you must use it in all your marketing. You can not follow in anyone’s shadow or look like a me too’ brand and succeed, especially in this new economy. Your authenticity and unique style must stand out.

4. Not Having Back-End Products Or Services To Offer
You need a reason to keep your clients tied to you after the initial sale. Create a profitable and systematic backend to continue the relationship and tie them to you.

5. Not Understanding Your Client, Their Needs, And Their Desires
There’s a difference between marketing to their needs .vs. marketing what you are good at or what you want to sell them. Always determine and address the real needs your clients and prospects experience.

6. You Must Educate Your Way Out Of Business ProblemsYou Cannot Just Cut The Price
That means you must make the commitment to educate your client as a part of the marketing and sales process. They need to become acutely aware of the pain or problem they face before they can appreciate that you offer them the perfect solution. Until they feel the pain and want to get rid of it, they can’t hear what you offer. You dilute your value and your competitiveness if you just try to compete on price.

7. Not Making Doing Business With Your Company Easy, Appealing And Fun
The solution is simple. Indisputably, you must make doing business with your company easy, appealing and fun in person, on the phone, in the mail, online.

8. Not Telling Your Clients The Reason Why
Just like your children, clients’ favorite question is Why’? Always give them the reason why. When you answer their questions before they even think of them, you eliminate their objections to doing business with you.

9. Terminating Marketing Campaigns That Are Still Working
Don’t stop marketing campaigns that are still working just because you are tired of them or they are not as profitable as they were in the beginning. Keep them going until they stop working.

10. Not Specifically Targeting Your Market
It may look like a shortcut, but it is always costly and can be disastrous. When you are preparing a marketing campaign, clearly identify your target audience; focus on your ideal intended prospect and no one else. The more specific you are the more of your ideal prospects will come forward to buy.

This is a tall order for any solo business owner. Make a list of what you need to do to avoid these mistakes. Make a plan of when and how to address each one. Your business and your bottom-line will thank you.