Don't "Drop and Hop", or A Shotgun is Not a Strategy

Have you ever heard about a marketing idea or concept, and then tried it and found that it didn't produce the results you had hoped for? If you are in business then chances are you have.

Eileen, a small business owner, shared her frustration with us a while back.

'I'm ready to give up. No matter what I try, nothing seems to work.

'A friend said I should try sending out postcards. So I did. And I didn't get one single sale. Nothing.

'Then another business associate said I should place small ads in our local newspaper, so I tried that. I got a few calls, but no sales.

'Since I started my business I must have tried a hundred different ways to grow my business, and nothing has worked.

'It's so frustrating. I never thought it would be this difficult to get customers. After I went through my list of friends and relatives it has been a real struggle to find more customers.'

Eileen's frustration is understandable. After all, she is working hard to grow her business, and she is not seeing much results for all of her hard work.

Her frustration is also shared by thousands of small business owners as well as people in the sales profession.

Perhaps you too are frustrated by the failure to make many of the new marketing ideas you discover work for you and your business.

After being burned too many times, you may begin to feel cynical and unwilling to try new ideas, even though they may be the perfect solution to your sales problems.

Why do so many business owners fail with each marketing idea they try?

Some people may come to believe that marketing just doesn't work for them or their business. But that isn't true.

Behind every successful business is the power of effective marketing. You can't attract customers or close sales without effective marketing.

Marketing is the key to creating wealth through your own business.

So if marketing isn't the problem, what is?

The #1 obstacle that prevents business owners from succeeding with their marketing is the habit of -

Drop and Hop.

Drop and Hop is a success killer

There are two kinds of habits in business -- habits that make you money, and habits that lose you money.

Drop and Hop is one of the biggest money-losing habits you can have. And this habit is widespread.

During my long consulting career almost every one of my clients practiced the Drop and Hop habit. And believe me, they were very good at it.

They would try this and then immediately drop it and then hop to try that. Of course, they would then drop that and hop to try something else. And on, and on, and on.

Drop and hop. Drop and hop.

Is it any wonder that nothing worked for them?

Here is a sampling of the kinds of comments I would continually hear from my clients.

'We tried direct mail once. It didn't work so we stopped using it.'

'I tried placing ads in the our local newspaper. They didn't produce any results, so we don't do them anymore.'

'Over the years, we've tried everything at least once. Nothing really worked very well.'

Can you spot the huge error in those comments?

Let's try rephrasing those comments to make our point.

'I tried learning piano once. It didn't work so I stopped.'

'I tried playing golf once. The score wasn't very good, so I don't do it anymore.'

'Over the years, I tried chess once, skiing once, skeet shooting once, painting once, etc. I guess you could say that I've tried just about everything at least once. But nothing really worked very well, so I never stuck with any of them.'

Did you spot the error?

You can't learn how to do anything correctly by trying it once. Skills are only acquired through repeated practice and improvement.

The other error in those statements is that none of those business owners learned the correct steps to creating effective marketing pieces. Not one of them had ever learned an effective marketing strategy that would have ensured their success.

They just blindly created their post card, their ad, and their other marketing pieces 'without having a clue' about how to do it in a way that would work.

It's amazing how many people think you don't have to know anything to create effective marketing pieces.

They mistakenly believe that all you have to do is tell people about your product and then give them your business name, address and phone number, and the calls and sales will come pouring in. Of course, they don't -- because that's one of the most ineffective ways to marketing a business. It's costly and it produces little or no results.

Make no mistake about it, 'marketing is a skill' that must be learned and mastered. The first time, or even the second or third time you try something you are not going to be very good at it. That's just reality.

Now, that doesn't mean that learning how to market your business has to be frustrating or difficult.

In fact, it's just the opposite.

When you learn the right way to do it--the exact steps to take--it can actually be a lot of fun, and very rewarding.

It's amazingly easy to grow your business when you learn and practice the right steps.

The SECRET to marketing success is in learning the exact steps to take to ensure your success

If you want to learn how to play piano, you need to learn the basic steps first and only then can you move on to the next level of steps.

If you are committed to practicing, your success is guaranteed. You get better and better and better.

It's the same with marketing. And as you get better, your sales go up and up and up.

Doesn't this make sense?

Some of you may say it sounds obvious. But my 30+ years of experience in the marketing profession says it isn't to most of the business owners in the world.

For instance;

Do you know the exact steps to take to write a headline for your ad, or flyer, or sales letter, that grabs the attention of your very best prospects? Did you know that most ads, fliers, post cards, etc. go unread because they have ineffective headlines?

Do you know how to hold your prospects' attention and interest so that they will actually read your ad?

Do you know the steps to take to overcome their built-in skepticism that prevents them from believing a word you say?

Do you know how to overcome your prospects' resistance to taking immediate action after reading, hearing or seeing your marketing piece?

Do you know exactly what to do to guarantee that you convert a good percentage of your prospects into customers, and what to do to keep those customers coming back again and again and again?

If you do know exactly what all of these specific steps are, and you have practiced them until you have mastered them, then you have acquired the marketing skills that you need. You are already well on your way to financial success.

If you don't know what they are, then how can you practice them?

If you can't practice them how can you master them?

If you can't master them, then how will you ever grow your sales?

If you want to dramatically boost your sales then you must stop doing the Drop and Hop. That bad habit will only lose you money and keep you going in circles. It's a wasteful habit.

I've said many times that 'Marketing is all about helping people get what they want.'

But marketing is also about two things;

1) Getting traffic (Lots and lots of prospects)

and

2) Converting that traffic (Turning those prospects into paying customers)

The very first thing you need to do is learn the exact steps needed to successfully accomplish those two things. Once you know them you will discover that they aren't really that difficult to do.

In fact, they are a lot easier to do then doing the Drop and Hop.

You can't grow your business without mastering those two skills. So you need to make a commitment to do that if you want to guarantee your success.

We've been teaching small business owners how to do exactly that for over 14 years. Now you can learn exactly what you need to do to attract all the prospects and customers you want in our Give to Get Solution course. Everything you need is included.

If you're ready to stop throwing your money away on the Drop and Hop habit and start growing your business today, then just click on the following URL to get all the details.

https://www.givetogetmarketing.com/ezine-gtg02bh.html

Copyright (c) 2004, Joe Gracia - Give to Get Marketing
https://www.givetogetmarketing.com
The Give to Get Marketing Web site contains a huge resource of marketing articles, tips and case studies. A free Marketing Idea-Kit is available.


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