Sales and Marketing strategy – Why it’s not wise to look for instant success

I recently read an article entitled: ‘The Truth About Overnight Success’ by Maru Labichela who explained how having started her business looking for overnight success, she then found herself in debt as a result of paying top dollar to coaches and consultants to help her find the magic bullet to instant success.

I strongly recommend that you read the article, especially if are looking for an overnight success in your business.  Personally, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with overnight success or dreaming as long as it helps you shape your sales and marketing strategy and motivates you to carry on. I do however agree with Maru’s recommendation that you concentrate on doing one meaningful thing towards marketing a new product or improving your sales skills every day, as opposed to looking for the magic bullet.

Being in business development, I do come across many people who think it must be the magic bullet for their business. In many ways it is because they feel that it is more tangible perhaps than other strategies they have looked at before.  Business development is a good strategy of course, but just like sales skills training, SEO, e-mail marketing and advertising it is influenced by two main factors:

• It does not work in isolation and must be a part of an overall strategy
• It needs time and investment to make a difference

A prime example of this is telemarketing and campaign follow up. To this day, regardless of digital development, many business owners regard the telephone as a spiritual tool steeped with magic. Perhaps it is because so many people dislike cold calling and following up….  In any case, when people employ us to do telephone work for them they very often expect instant results.

However, Telemarketing, like all other sales and marketing strategies does not work in isolation and requires time. In fact, in my experience telemarketing works best in the following context:

• As a tool to clean up your database and identify broad opportunities and dead ends
• As a way to speed up your understanding of your target markets and how they perceive you
• As a relationship building tool
• If you are prepared to then follow up on these broad opportunities and turn them into appointments and sales further down the line

So next time you find yourself looking for the magic bullet to instant success, remember that the only rules that apply to the silver bullets of your sales and marketing strategy are:

• Have a good strategy
• Review it often
• Give it a realistic amount of time to work before you move on

If you are not prepared to do this, then do yourself a favour and don’t waste your marketing budget….

As always, please let me know what you think and share the Blog if you found it useful.

Of course, if you need help considering your sales and marketing strategy, get in touch.