As you know in my day to day work I am constantly working with businesses to help them to become more successful.

Much of that work has a strategic marketing focus and revolves around answering what seem to be three simple questions:

1. What am I selling and what problem does it solve?
2. Who do I think will buy it and what do I know about them and their lives?
3. What is it that will make them choose my product over the other options that they have available?

If you really want to define some tight groups of people and then want to get some insight into what might be going on in their lives so you create really compelling propositions and marketing messages, it takes time and it takes effort. But the rewards CAN be substantial.

I say CAN be substantial on purpose. That’s because it depends what you do with that dynamite information and all that hard work.

Are you getting the rewards?

Would any of you consider asking a second rate designer or web developer to create a leaflet, presentation or website that doesn’t deliver these messages in an inspirational or compelling way?

This post isn’t about the pros and cons of different options for creating marketing materials, that’s for another day. However, this post is going to ask you whether you feel that you could personally be a shoddy brochure or a second-rate website?

Every day you are going out and promoting your business, telling the world about it, doing small and short elevator pitches and maybe even bigger sales presentations. Each one of those is an opportunity for you to sell and deliver your marketing messages, show what a great product or service you have and how it will benefit whoever you are speaking to.

Do you deliver it with passion, confidence and conviction? Do you inspire and enthuse your audience? Do you get them excited about what you are going to do for them?

If, hand on heart, you’re not convinced you do, then even with the best marketing in the world you are letting yourself and your business down.

So what are you going to do about it? Maybe I have a solution.

Why are you telling me this?

This blog post was inspired by three separate conversations.

The first was with a business owner who admitted that he felt that when he was talking to people, he was easily distracted, easily dragged off course and actually sold the concept of what hi s type of business did rather than actually selling his business as a provider of that service.

The second conversation took place when I ran a workshop for a company. As a warm up I wanted the team to get passionate about their business. I asked them to pair up and talk passionately in the first instance about something that they felt passionate about – no restrictions, anything they wanted. Well what a team of down-trodden and down-beat people they sounded. How would anyone get excited about their products if they couldn’t sound exciting?

The third conversation was with a friend who is running a presentation skills training workshop. When we met for lunch last week we were discussing presentation skills and the impact that great presentations need to have. It wasn’t until I was driving home that I put these three things together and came up with the post.

I wanted you to stop and think about whether you could do better in front of people. I didn’t write this post to advertise my friend’s course but it seems stupid of me not to ask the questions and not give you a potential solution when I have one at hand.

So if you feel like you would benefit from getting better at presenting and selling your business, if you think you might be part of the problem, then why not take a look at Jon’s course which he is running in November ’14 and see if it might be for you – it’s on very soon so take a look now and get in touch if with him if you are interested. Don’t hesitate to give him a call he’s a great guy and he’d be able to explain more about what the workshop entails. (Don’t forget to tell him I sent you!!!)

Similarly, if you feel like you don’t have a clear idea of your target markets, why people buy your type of product and have a clear idea of why you are different and better than your competitors, then we’d better talk as well. I offer everyone a free initial meeting where we explore how we might work together to build you a better business, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.

In writing this post, I’m not pointing the finger and saying you are the problem, just asking you the question and it’s up to you to answer!