Unleash Your Bigger Game: Learn the Winning "5" Combination to Achieve Ultimate Business Mastery

Copyright (c) 2006 UpLevel Strategies

Part three of this Winning "5" Combinations article covers
combinations four and five, along with "get to action"
advice.

Winning Combination #4

Know, Love, and Trust Your Customers

Why do so many new products and service companies fail?
Usually for many reasons, companies often are so enamored
of their new product ideas that they fail to do their
research on the most important entity in their entire
company…Their Customers! Even if they do get a nibble of
information, they often ignore what the research tells
them. It is important in product/service development to
develop products that your consumer's want, not simply what
you desire to produce.

With effective market research, you can determine the need
for your service, a product's likelihood to sell ,
target-market demographics , and desirable store locations.
There are numerous ways to uncover this information -- from
online research to focus groups. Here are a few simple and
free ways for entreprenuers to do market research:

Step 1: Go to www.google.com

Step 2: Identify key words that describe your target market
and service/product offering

Step 3: Run a search on each of those keywords

Step 4: Research the top 10 Sites that show up on Google
and the sponsored links on the right for the following 7
Key Market Research Questions:

Who is the company and principal of the company? What
products and services are they trying to sell? At what
price point are they offering these products and services?
Who are they targeting? What are the demographics of their
target audience? How are they delivering their product and
service? How are they positioning their product and
service? How are they promoting their product and service?
Step 5: Create a one page document for each company that
summarizes the key questions and then one final executive
summary of all 10 sites comparatively. Use this information
to create and position your own marketing strategy.

Other Ideas

Ask your existing customers - Conduct a survey of your
target market with Survey Monkey. Trust that they will tell
you what they want. Invite a group out for lunch and have
in informal focus group. Contact a local MBA program and
offer an internship to a grad student. Join online forums
that talk about your kind of business. Set up a chat room
where you conduct your own online focus groups. Renegade
entrepreneurs may find this task tedious, but I promise you
, it won't be as painful as regularly dusting the thousands
of dollars of unshipped products you could have laying
around your office or staring at an empty appointment book!

My business coach, Alan Weiss says there are three key
questions to answer prior to establishing any marketing
approach:

What is my unique value for buyers? Who specifically will
write a check for that value? How do I reach them? Take the
time to do the get to know your customer intimately up
front. Understand what pains them and what makes them
excited and then show them how much you adore them by
creating specific products and services to meet their needs.

Self Inquiry: How can I improve the lives of my customers
today?

Winning Combination #5

Create Consistent Marketing (Promotion) Engine

As entrepreneurs we often interchange the words marketing
and promotion to mean "activities' that are aimed at trying
to get customers. Marketing is the wide range of activities
involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the
needs of your customers and getting value in return. These
activities include market research to find out, for
example, what groups of potential customers exist, what
their needs are, which of those needs you can meet, how you
should meet them, etc.

Marketing also includes analyzing the competition,
positioning your new product or service (finding your
market niche) pricing your products and services and
promoting them through continued advertising, promotions,
public relations and sales.

Promotion keeps the product in the minds of the customer
and helps stimulate demand for the product. The ongoing
activities of advertising, sales, and public relations are
often considered aspects of promotions.

Your promotions are the communications strategy of your
plan. Here you'll plan not only the message you want to
use, but also the tools you'll use to spread it to the
world. But first, I need to share with you the 3 C's of
Marketing Success:

Consistency (communicate regularly with your customers and
prospects) Clarity (deliver clear benefit driven messages
to those customers) Collaboration (work with marketing
experts, a mastermind team, and form joint venture
partnerships to expedite growth) If you can master these
three items, you will be heads and shoulders above a
majority of your competition. Jay Conrad Levinson said to
me once, "It is unfortunate , but true that bad marketing
done consistently is better than good marketing done
inconsistently.' Create consistency in your marketing
program.

There are several ways to promote or market your company.
In fact, I have an entire home study course called
Promotion Mastery that details an entire plan from start to
finish on exactly how and when to promote your business and
products/services. Imagine what good marketing done
consistently can achieve! Here are some general suggestions
to consider when developing your marketing engine:

Never let a day pass without engaging in at least one
marketing activity. Set specific marketing goals every
year; review and adjust quarterly. Maintain a file of ideas
for later use. I have a board in my office that I call my
"parking lot' for ideas. Carry business cards with you (all
day, every day) in your car, in your purse or briefcase. I
even carry a brochure or two for that special occasion. No
piece of information (invoices, thank you cards, email,
mail etc) should ever go out without your company contact
information on it. Every communication outside your company
is an opportunity for you to promote yourself! Keep
Educating Yourself

Meet with your Mastermind Group at least once a month.
Attend a marketing seminar. Read a marketing book.
Subscribe to a marketing newsletter or other publication.
Join an association or organization related to your
profession. Hire a marketing consultant or coach to
brainstorm with. Create a Marketing Plan that Automates the
Marketing System

Target Completion Date:____________ Project
Completed:_____________

Get Into Action

The most important thing about creating success in your
business is to take massive action. Not a little action –
massive action. At a minimum, make yourself and your
potential success a commitment and do at least 1 action
item a day for each of the 5 winning combinations toward
creating business success. Schedule the time on your
calendar and just get it done.

If you are feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to
start, please call and take advantage of our complimentary
30 minute strategy session.

"It's not what happens, but what you do that matters." To
your success!

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For more information, visit
http://www.uplevelstrategies.com .