By Adam Urbanski
The Marketing Mentor

Could your business use a little mid-year marketing makeover? Hey, we all fall into complacency at times, thinking our business performs at the highest level possible (yes, that includes me too!) when in fact, with little tweaks we could be generating a lot more sales and profits. So today’s article is a bit of a hybrid between a checklist, nag and an idea generator. Print it out and read it a couple of times – I know it will be worth your time and effort.

It’s beginning of June and here, in California, summer is in full swing. While most professionals are preoccupied with planning their vacation I’m busy giving my business a marketing makeover.

If you haven’t quite hit all your business goals for the year I suggest you do the same – evaluate what needs tweaking to change your results in the next few months.

If you are already doing great and are right on target meeting all your projections – ironically, you can gain even more from giving your well-oiled business machine a profit-boosting check-up!

So here are five key areas to focus on in your marketing makeover.

Clarify Your Objectives (some prefer to call it goals)

Are you clear on where want to end up? If you are thinking this has nothing to do with marketing – think again! You cannot design and implement effective strategies unless you know exactly what you want to accomplish.

Paint a clear picture of what you want your solo-practice or service business to look like at the end of the year. Be specific – how many clients you want, how much money you want to make, how many hours you want to work every week.

If you are looking for a magic formula to give your business a boost here is a tip for you: I strongly believe that there is nothing more powerful than writing down your objectives. Your ability to language and clearly articulate what you want to achieve exponentially increases your chances of actually getting it!

Makeover Your Business Model:

Many of my clients “paint themselves into a limited-income corner” by structuring their business in a wrong way to begin with. The harder they work the more frustrated they are but they can’t seem to be able to make more money.

Take Debra for example. She is a successful small business consultant. Her well developed lead generating process attracts enough clients to actually make them wait a few weeks before she can start working with them. But she still makes only half the money she wants to make…

You see, Debra’s business model is to deliver her coaching and consulting services using one on one engagements and can only handle about 15 clients at a time. With her average monthly client value approaching $1,500 she’s right on target to make just over $250,000.00 this year. But she wants to make $500,000.00 – can you see the problem?

Chances are in some way, you might have a similar challenge – your current business model is incapable of producing the results you want.

What’s the solution? Here are a few ideas:

Diversify your product/service offering. Analyze the needs of your clients and find ways to serve them better. (Hint: you do not have to deliver all the solutions yourself – instead form strategic alliances).

Find new ways to work with clients. If you work with people one on one start offering group programs. Develop tele-seminars or live workshops. You’ll actually be able to attract more clients and exponentially increase your earnings.

Multiply yourself. Chances are if you have a successful service business – you are following a proven process. Bring in others who can be trained in facilitating the delivery of your process to some clients who are not willing to pay your rate – but will settle for working with your associate at a discounted rate.

Develop info products. There is no better way to leverage your knowledge than turning it into passive streams of revenue. If you are not regularly putting out new products – you are missing out on a huge opportunity to boost your income.

Makeover Your Lead Generating Systems:

How many ways are you generating new leads? Do you have at least three to five lead generating vehicles that are consistent and automated?

Too many businesses don’t understand the lead generating process and depend on vague methods of getting new clients – like “word of mouth” and “networking”. No having any structured and easy to duplicate system to attract attention and turn it into sales is a sure pathway to a total disaster.

If you need clients fast – consider direct mail, fax broadcasting, narrowly focused direct-response advertising, strategic alliances, ask your current clients for referrals and – don’t forget the big one – reactivate your past clients!

To ensure long term positioning and visibility in your market place focus on publicity, getting speaking engagements, and writing and publishing articles.

On a more passive side – give your marketing materials (like business cards, websites and brochures) a quick look-over. Are they consistently communicating the right marketing message? Are they written in a lively, persuasive and client-relevant language or are you still insisting on telling your prospects your company’s history, vision and mission statement thinking they actually care?

Makeover Your Follow-Up:

Are you keeping in touch with your clients and prospects? Do you have a way to automatically connect with them at least monthly? If not – you are only getting about 20% of the money you could be making!

Most people give up following up after just three attempts. Most prospects don’t make a buying decision until they’ve been exposed to your marketing message at least five times? See a problem here?

If you are not doing it yet, start an online or offline newsletter. Create a monthly postcard program. Regularly send out information you come across that your audience would benefit from.

Use technology to automate your follow-up. Online use sequential autoresponders that can be put on total auto-pilot. Offline use fax and voice broadcasting technology to leverage your time and connect with people quickly, meaningfully and affordably.

Makeover Your Marketing Assets:

We all have a limited amount of time, and if you are spending it all working with clients you are not creating long-term leverage. Schedule time every week to create marketing assets that work for you.

- Invest in your own knowledge: read more books, attend high-end training programs, purchase home-study courses, hire mentors to help you gain greater proficiency. Become a perpetual learner and always look for ways to transfer or implement your knowledge quickly.

- Continually build your credibility and positioning: ask all clients for testimonials, develop new talks on your subject of expertise, create information products.

- Develop tools and systems: create checklists to make routine tasks easier to delegate, implement an extra follow-up step that can be automated or outsourced, record your talks and teleseminars and turn them into Attraction Tools.

© 2006 Marketing Mentors. All Rights Reserved.

The author, Adam Urbanski, teaches service professionals and business owners how to develop marketing strategies that increase sales and profits. His website offers more how-to articles and free tips to create a winning marketing action plan at http://www.themarketingmentors.com