True Brand Toolkit: How to Bring in Big Money For Your Small Business

‘Developing a great brand can make you a fortune. This powerful book tells you exactly how to do it. Follow Michael's wise advice and grow the business of your dreams.’

—Simon Reynolds, Mentor to Entrepreneurs

‘Michael Neaylon has created an accessible, comprehensive and practical guide to the marketing 'must-do's' that every ambitious business person needs to understand.’

—Simon Sharwood, Editor, My Business

‘True Brand Toolkit cuts through the marketing theory and dives straight into decisive action. A clear and simple guide to the essentials of small business marketing. Read it with a pen in hand.’

—Peter Crocker, Director-Marketing, Flying Solo

‘Michael Neaylon understands the power of story-telling in the world of business. His no-nonsense approach to creating an effective brand is a must for small businesses who want an edge over their competitors. Highly recommended.’

—Valerie Khoo, small business commentator and founder of the multi-award-winning Sydney Writers' Centre.

‘Michael's book is a refreshing perspective on modern marketing. It combines marketing principles and theory with practical processes any business can use immediately. It's written in a highly engaging style that kept me interested all the way through on the first reading, and I'm looking forward to going through it again in more detail so I can apply it to my own business.’

—Gihan Perera, Internet coach for professional business owners

True Brand Toolkit:

How To Bring In Big Money For Your Small Business

By Michael Neaylon

Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2011 by Michael Neaylon

Published by: MCME on Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's hard work.

This book is dedicated to all small business owners who think big.

‘And this above all, to thine own self be true.’

—From the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

How to use this book

Case studies

Chapter 1: Make Your Marketing Matter

Marketing demotivators

Chapter 2: Taking Action

Take the brand stand

Give before you get

Know your value

Demonstrate your value

Magnetise your marketing plan

Dive your plan

Action stations

What to do when it all goes belly-up

Review to renew

Case Study 1: Zizzi Designs

Chapter 3: On Brand: Stories T at Sell

Brand values

Brand relevance

Brand integrity

Brand commitment

Brand solutions

Crafting a cut-through brand

Brand persona

Brand essence

Brand message

Your brand story

Brand authenticity

Chapter 4: Know Your Market

Locate your target market

Research your target market

Package your offering

Case Study 2: Corban & Blair

Chapter 5: Be Seen In Style

Features and benefits

The power of symbols

Style file

Creating killer copy

Sales letters

Briefing your creatives

People create meaning

Case Study 3: ZM Partners

Chapter 6: Taking It To The Streets

Trade fairs

Creating your own event

Clearance sales events

Seminars

Webinars

Chapter 7: Choose Your Channels

Newsletters

Blogs

A website you can update yourself

Case Study 4: The Red Room Company

Chapter 8: Social Media Sentinels

Twitter

YouTube

LinkedIn

Facebook

Online forums

Social media made simple

Case Study 5: Search Academy

Chapter 9: You’re In Sales Now

What being a salesperson means

Cultivate the mindset: rituals

Chapter 10: Sales Relationships

Build rapport

Create a relationship

Treat prospects as your ideal client

Choose your roles

The A to Z of clients

Create connections

Chapter 11: Sales Strategies

Sales and marketing goals

Sales cycles

Sales reports

The power of presentation

Cold-calling made warmer

You make the rules

Sales support

After-sales service

Sales training

Sales in action

Case Study 6: Financial Services Partners

Chapter 12: Your Sales and Marketing Plan

Create your plans

The Sales and Marketing Week

The Sales and Marketing Day

Use Your Plans

About the Author

Further reading and resources

True Brand Your Business

Acknowledgements

Creating True Brand Toolkit has been far from a solitary experience, as this book has been a team project right from the start.

First, to the valued clients and colleagues who generously gave their time and shared their experience with the case studies. Thank you all for your honesty, business acumen, and for your faith in seeing this project through to print. It’s been inspiring and educational to learn from your experiences, and gain your perspectives.

Thanks to Megan Kerr for superb editing and excellent observations. You’ve challenged me to give more content with greater clarity for more people’s benefit.

Thanks too, to Adina Cucicov for your patience, persistence and keen design eye.

Thanks too, to my mentors and coaches both formal and informal who’ve guided me along the way. John Eggen and Lorna Macleod from Mission Publishing for keeping me gently accountable, Gihan Perera from First Step Communications for your consistent insight, optimism and integrity. Thank you too to Catherine DeVrye for your generosity and being true to your word of customer service, even though I’m not a customer.

Endless thanks to my parents, Lawrie and Eileen, for unerring support, conviction and sideline barracking, even when I spent holidays together with my head buried in notes and a laptop. Your support, hunour and integrity are constant examples of how to remain true.

And last, but by no means least, a big thank you to my clients for challenging me to challenge you, the opportunity to collaborate on your business, share in your passions and support your goals.

Introduction

I’m writing this book to help two important people value your worth: you and your client. Why is this so important to me that I’d give up weekends and nights to do it? Because there have been times this year when I haven’t valued my worth, to myself or my clients. I’ve undermined my own offerings by underpricing my services and myself. I haven’t done this intentionally, of course. I don’t think anyone ever does. But obstacles, both internal and external, have cost me opportunities. These are what I call the hidden costs and they’re the most vital costs for you to face – not only for yourself, but also to provide the best possible product or service to your client.

My biggest obstacle was confidence. Despite having been National Sales Manager for one of Australia’s leading suppliers to the beauty industry, despite having trained nearly one hundred reps, sales agents, and assistants in the US, UK, and Australia, despite having been the sales and marketing half of one of Australia’s premier corporate entertainment agencies, and despite having sold for a living in one way or another for over 25 years, when it came to selling myself by myself, I lacked confidence.

Sure, I was starting a business in the midst of an economic downturn and the economic outlook was grim. Yes, I was expanding into new areas of coaching and training. But I thought I was well armed and, like many entrepreneurs, I was intensely optimistic. I had a coach and a mentor, an internet guru, a smart lawyer, and a trusted accountant. I was building my dream team. But your team can only be as good as you are, so you need to be in the driver’s seat. They can only give you good answers if you’re asking smart questions. And you can only pay them if you’re making substantial sales. Which I was, at times – very substantial sales. I just wasn’t making enough of them. And the weeks when I wasn’t, I became impatient and stressed, feeling overworked and underpaid by the most demanding and critical employer I’d ever had: myself.

I’d thrown myself into new territory with gusto. I’d learnt many new skills, but I couldn’t lean back on them. When it came to pricing my services, pricing my time, and letting people know my value, I was seriously challenged. So was my bank account. I thought I was going to lose my apartment and had no savings to draw on, as I’d invested all those in the business. I’d maxed my credit card and was in no position to take a business loan. I was going to meetings hoping no one would notice the holes in the bottom of my shoes or hear the rumbling in my stomach. I felt a sham – but I also felt confused, because I really was helping people win in their businesses. Just like the plumber who fixes everyone’s pipes but his own, I was creating successful marketing strategies for other people and helping other people increase their sales. Meanwhile, I wasn’t generating my volume of sales, delivering them, or costing them in a way that valued my time, experience, expertise, and ability to generate ideas quickly and effectively. That might sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet. But knowing what you bring to your clients and valuing what you have to offer are both essential for others to value your skills, products, and services. It’s confident playing. And once you know what you have to offer – and appreciate its full value in the marketplace – then you can market and sell what you’ve got to give.

What sort of results was I achieving for others? I helped Gill from Zizzi Designs with the start-up of her business. After creating a brand story, web copy, and a sales letter, helping her get agents in other states, and coaching her on her sales calls and appointments, we achieved over $5,000 worth of sales on her first day on the road. (Not bad for a product that wholesales at $27!) As an MC, I helped promote South African tourist destinations and sell their luxury tours to travel agents around Australia – their most successful road show to date. I helped small businesses create videos to upload on their websites that enabled them to qualify clients before they wasted precious time travelling to unfruitful meetings. I created promotions to back up the thousands of dollars one business owner paid for her PR so that it would in fact bring in business. I held seminars and webinars, created videos and blogs, and published a fortnightly newsletter without missing one edition. (This continues to bring in good feedback and, equally importantly, good business.) I created event performances for American Express and Commonwealth Bank. I assisted Steensen Varming engineers, Financial Services Partners, the RTA, RSPCA, and many individuals with their presentation skills, but I still wasn’t making ends meet. Not consistently. Not yet.

Looking back, there were countless reasons why. Lack of clarity in my offerings, lack of knowledge of the marketplace, giving away too much for free too soon, buying advertising that didn’t work, challenges in finding lucrative target markets, selling the wrong products and services to the wrong customers, allowing time to be wasted where it could’ve been saved, becoming isolated and disconnected, being unclear on whose advice to take (ultimately it’s always up to you), playing bigger than I was to the point of positioning myself out of deals, going for the big gigs and devaluing the small, going for the small at the expense of the big. Not allowing the long lead time it takes for big sales to come through and diving into small sales too fast, not having multiple streams of income and discounting the talents that could have made me more money, not leaving a buffer to cover the slow months, and not making more sales when the tide was high. And that’s why I’m qualified to write this book. I’m not just an expert at sorting other people out. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to make mistakes. But I also know the rewards you can reap if you learn from them, adjust, and persist. I dare say you’ve encountered many obstacles, challenges, and traps yourself. Perhaps you’ve had some wins. I hope you have. But if I can help you overcome challenges to win more business more regularly, with less angst and greater cash flow, then I’ll have done my job.

That’s another reason I’m writing this book, and hopefully why you’re reading it. There’s not one big secret to marketing your own business successfully. There’s no big brand solution. Brand and marketing are both important. But they’re nothing without sales. For without sales, you don’t have a business. Sales enable you to build on your brand. They give you the income to create the marketing and pay your suppliers, employees, and yourself. Sales allow you to create the work that matters, the legacy you want to leave behind, the fortune you want to make. None of these goals can happen if you’re not making sales. I’m not saying it’s always easy to position your brand, sell your services, or market your products. But these elements can be learnt, practiced, applied, and measured. And you might just discover how to market the most important aspect of your business: yourself.

How to use this book

This book is interactive. It doesn’t play a tune. It does, however, ask you to fill in the blanks for the results you want. It gives you templates, checklists, and action plans that I encourage you to fill out. Completing these will give you your best return on investment – for this book and your business. You’ll be guided and supported with plans, strategies, and resources for you to succeed your way. You’ll get ground rules and tips, hints to help, and pitfalls to avoid. You’ll have your own brand advocate, cheering you on all the way to the bank. You’ll also receive formatting outlines, sales techniques, and motivation for when the going gets tough. But the doing – that’s up to you. So please fill out the sheets. They’re practical, they’re detailed, and they’ll spur you into action. By clearly establishing your marketing goals and taking action to make them a reality, you’re already well on the way to making even more big money for your small business.

Case studies

Throughout the book, businesses I’ve collaborated with or approached have generously agreed to share their experiences and their approach to branding, marketing, and sales. I’ve asked all these business owners the same twelve questions:

1. How long have you been in business?

2. What has been your most successful online marketing strategy?

3. Why?

4. What has been your most successful offline marketing strategy?

5. Why?

6. As a small business owner what is your greatest sales challenge?

7. What is your greatest marketing challenge?

8. How often do you review your sales?

9. Do you have a preferred sales environment?

10. Does sales come naturally to you or have you had to work at it?

11. What do you look for in a salesperson you employ or outsource to?

12. If there were one piece of advice you’d give someone in your position what might that be?

This means you can compare different approaches across industries, taking into consideration each company’s personal style and the time they’ve spent in their current business. You’ll also find contact details for all these companies at the back of the book.

For articles, updates and your free downloads of forms, templates and worksheets in True Brand Toolkit, please visit http://www.mcme.com.au/truebrand

Chapter 1: Make Your Marketing Matter

My first business coach gave me this acronym: WIN – What’s Important Now? It’s one of the few business acronyms I actually remember, not just because it’s short, but because it rings true. It’s all about focus. That’s how to make your marketing matter. Most businesses don’t need me to tell them to make more sales, they need me to tell them how to. That means pointing out one of a few things:

• what they know they should be doing, but aren’t

• what they could be doing more of, but aren’t

• what they don’t know

I know how easy it is to have blind spots in your business, and when it comes to sales and marketing, we can all make it far more complicated than it needs to be. I’ve seen clients get caught up in countless spreadsheets, reports, and forecasts. They lack planning or focus, or keep putting off the one thing that will help them move ahead, such as finishing their website, sending out a newsletter, or signing off on graphic design. They’ll sometimes do anything rather than pick up the phone and make crucial follow-up calls. Their sales processes can become unduly complicated. They lose sight of what a small business can offer that many big businesses can’t: ease, simplicity, and speedy delivery. We have fewer regulations and less red tape, resulting in products and services that often have immense integrity and inherent value. Why? They’re not diluted by committee, career posturing, or outdated policies. We simply can’t afford to delay shipping, get caught up in office politics, or skimp on quality.

You need to clearly identify what matters and focus on the marketing that makes the most impact. You also want to clarify what’s not working, without getting caught up in that or bogged down by it.

In other words, ‘Face the brutal facts and move forward with faith.’ These are words I’ve borrowed from Jim Collins’s business classic, Good To Great. I’ve quoted these words (and their source) in seminars and workshops, one-on-one with clients, in the mirror in the morning, and I’ve even tweeted my own interpretation. In short, these words have become my mantra. As entrepreneurs we can be perennially optimistic: a blessing and a curse.

When I realised my income was falling way short of my goals, I saw that I needed to do one of two things: whip myself or give myself a reality check. I was sick of whipping myself, so I opted for the second.

I’ve now worked out how to make my own reality checks. These are your marketing demotivators. They’re any of the obstacles that get in the way of your reaching your own goals. I’m not talking about external market forces such as the global financial crisis, natural disasters, elections, or globalization, though these all play a part in affecting your sales cycles, marketing efforts, and brand identity. No, these demotivators usually come from somewhere closer to home: you. I enjoy helping clients win in their business. Unfortunately, I’ve seen some fall short of their expectations just as at times I’ve fallen short of mine. This book is a brand, sales, and marketing roadmap; the sooner we identify the roadblocks, the smoother and more profitable the ride.

Marketing demotivators

Imitation

The first way to avoid demotivation is to ask yourself if you’re imitating others. I often see clients imitate other businesses in their marketing, systems, and offerings. They don’t take the time to mine what is unique about their own. I’ve seen clients so desperate to make money quickly that they underestimate their distinctive difference. Their brand becomes bland, their marketing looks like everyone else’s and their sales technique ends up imitating the used-car salesman they’re trying not to sound like. Yes, knowing what the competition is up to is useful, though your time might be better spent understanding external market forces and global trends. I agree that there is much to learn from others’ marketing material. But why copy when you can create a blueprint? Doesn’t everyone’s marketing then look mass-produced? Why coast in a sea of blandness when instead you can fly your sail high and stand out? And as for sales, I suggest you keep your attention on being your most enthusiastic and authentic self, and training and encouraging your team to do the same

Unrealistic expectations

I’m highly optimistic by nature. I do, however, have trusted professionals and advisors (formal and informal) who remind me to keep my head out of the clouds and focus on what’s important now. That is, what’s in front of me. I see clients struggle with this. They set highly audacious goals (nothing wrong with that) but then expect them to be realised overnight and get sorely disappointed when it doesn’t happen. To use another acting analogy, it takes many years to be an overnight success. Nothing takes the place of focus and persistence. We often underestimate what can be achieved in a year and overestimate what can be done in a day.

Lack of planning

This is not just a marketing demotivator, but one that will hold any business back from achieving its potential. Business owners burn themselves out rushing into their sales and marketing efforts, perhaps making thirty sales calls one day and then being so discouraged that they don’t make any more for the week. It’s often better to mix up the calls and make fewer, higher quality calls each day consistently and regularly than it is to burn yourself out. I call this increasing your sales stamina. It’s similar to how you’d take on a new routine at the gym. Even if you only get there for 20 minutes a day, it’s better than doing a killer four-hour workout, then never returning because you’ve made yourself too sore and caused yourself severe injuries. Just like the gym, our sales intentions are often good. It’s just having the discipline to prioritise calls, increase stamina, and develop a solid routine with a little flexibility and some unrelenting commitment and focus.

Lack of belief

This is a major marketing demotivator. Some people give up too easily, often when they’re just about to hit the finish line. I’m not talking about course correction, adjusting the course to reach the goal. That’s a natural part of any strategy, including your sales and marketing. Many variables come into play. Every brand needs an update from time to time. It certainly didn’t hurt Apple. The giving up I’m talking about is not believing in what you have to offer, which in turn sabotages your follow-through: not seeing a difficult sale through to the end, not rolling out a potentially lucrative piece of e-marketing, or not ensuring your offerings are on-brand and relevant to today’s market.

One thing I don’t let myself off the hook for anymore is leaving a draft incomplete, whether it’s an email, newsletter, sales script, proposal, client marketing plan, contact list, sales call to make, book chapter to finish, brand values to rewrite,