Knowing exactly what business you are in may be the single most important factor in jump starting your marketing efforts. So often, companies see themselves as selling specific products or providing specific services. These specificities, in effect, become blinders on their vision and greatly limit the potential growth of their businesses.

Smarketing is all about creative marketing and leveraging organizational resources. In order to maximize every marketing dollar you invest, it is critical to fully understand what you do and for whom you do it. Marketing then becomes the process of transferring that knowledge to the market place and converting this knowledge, along with customers needs, into profitable business.

The knowledge of your core business activity can best be summarized in a market perspective statement. This statement is comprised of two pieces of information:

What do you do.
For whom do you do it.

The market perspective statement does not deal with how. The how can change over time as new opportunities present themselves. You don't sell cosmetics. You help people enhance their appearance. You don't sell software. You work with companies that want to increase operating efficiencies. You don't book speakers. You work with organizations that want greater education opportunities for their employees and with companies that need assistance creating the best convention ever!
Most companies get trapped into the mistake of only dealing with the how. In analyzing your business, you should determine where your potential customer's greatest pain is and then determine what you do to deal with or ease that pain. Removal of that pain, filling a need, is what people and companies invest in.

There are three critical reasons for developing your own market perspective statement.

1. A market perspective statement enables you to maximize your marketing dollars. -- By thoroughly understanding what you do and for whom you do it, you are best able to get maximum impact for every dollar invested in marketing. Knowing your specific target enables you to advertise directly to people and organizations that can buy! Your direct mail pieces, TV ads, newspaper ads and other advertising vehicles are all focused on your specific what and who. This marketing focus or power will greatly enhance your bottom line results.

2. A market perspective statement enables you to maximize networking opportunities. -- Most people want help eliminating their pain and will be interested in hearing how you go about doing that. Let's examine the printing industry. What would be your response when someone asks you, "What do you do?" Do you say, "I am a printer" or "I work with business people looking to increase their marketing exposure and earn more dollars from their marketing investment?" Which phrase is more limiting? Stay away from limits. All business people want greater market exposure and increased profits. Now you can tell this prospect the how. Your printing services enable you to deliver on this promise.

3. A market perspective statement enables you to maximize possible revenue opportunities. -- Take, for example, the railroad industry earlier this century. What business were they in? If you asked them, they would tell you that they were in the railroad business. They should have said the transportation business. Because railroad business was their mind set, when airplanes came along, the railroad companies ignored an opportunity. Airplanes have become the market dominate force in transporting people and are also incremental in mail and express delivery.

I would say that the railroads worked with businesses that needed to transport products to and from the market place and they worked with people who needed to travel. With this market perspective, the what they did would drive their marketing and planning instead of the how they did it. The railroad companies are still a factor in today's transportation business, but not to the extent they used to be or could be.

In our printing business example earlier, you can see that by not being tied into a specific how, you would recognize that printing is not all that you can do to increase your clients' exposure. Maybe you sell web sites, either produced through your company or through a joint venture. The internet can increase market exposure and boost the bottom line. You see, now your creativity is freed to develop many hows to take to market.

By understanding what you do and for whom you do it, you create a powerful base on which to build your entire marketing program. Smarketing necessitates efficiency. Your market perspective statement will help you create an efficient, yet powerful marketing attack as you begin to implement other Smarketing techniques.
I am Sam Silverstein. I work with business people who want to grow their business and individuals who are looking to accomplish more in their lives.

© Sam Silverstein Enterprises, Inc.

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