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Dan Klaus, the Millionaire Mentor to Successful Business, discusses his recent experience at a NOVA GKIC Chapter meeting

Matt Cockerham of RE/MAX 100 Real Estate on NOVA GKIC!

Ben Glass has proven himself a smart, savvy, adept practitioner of Glazer Kennedy style marketing and business improvement strategies - in his own practice, in assisting others in his field, and as inspiration and mentor to many of our Members in a broad variety of other businesses.

Folks in the Northern Virginia area with access to Ben through the local GKIC Chapter Meetings, Kennedy Study Groups and Mastermind programs led by Ben will find a wealth of opportunity and direction for growing, expanding, and if need be, reinventing and better marketing and promoting their businesses.

Dan Kennedy

When I first met Ben Glass I was very frustrated with my printing and graphic design business. I had no vision or direction.

Ben invited me to his office and explained what he has learned from Glazer-Kennedy style marketing and how it has worked for him and tribe. He actually gave me some of Dan’s books to read.

Wow. It changed my whole way of thinking. Since then, instead of closing down we moved our printing shop to a better location and now I’m hiring people!

Kia A. Arian
Zine Graphics

Big Mistakes Most Northern Virginia Businesses Make With Marketing

Marketing your small business here in Northern Virginia can be expensive and seemingly unrewarding. The competition (yes, even in a recession) is huge. Moreover, there are all sorts of "marketing vultures" out to take your money. Most don't know a thing about good marketing.

Here are some tips for Northern Virginia businesses:

1. Give yourself permission to make a decision as to what your perfect business and perfect customer will look like. You can't develop a marketing plan (or purchase advertising media such as Yellow Page ads, TV commercials or websites) without understanding where you are going. What does your perfect client look like? What do you want your business to look like? The correct answer to the question "why do you want to spend any money on marketing?" should not be, "more business." Not drawing at least a mental picture of what it is you are after with your business is like getting on an airplane and saying "take me anywhere."

2. Accept that marketing and business building is the most important thing you can do in your business- look around. Get over it if you thought being the best hairdresser in town is a marketing advantage. Is it only the best lawyers, real estate agents, doctors in your town who get the best business? Just being good at what you do doesn't cut it anymore. Look around in your business niche. Don't you see others who aren't as good as you getting good better customers than you do? By understanding marketing better you put yourself into a position to see more cases from which you can choose the ones that match your "perfect customer" profile.

3. Don't just copy what others do and think you'll get a better result. Matter of fact - just do the opposite!!! Earl Nightingale, one of the world's foremost experts on what makes people successful, had some good advice for lawyers and other business owners who want to market their practices. He said, (and yes, I am paraphrasing) that if you wanted to learn a new skill in business, and you had no mentor or guide you could trust, that the best thing you could do was figure out what everyone else was doing and then do the opposite. The majority is, at best, average. So it is with marketing.

4. Mine your old customer lists for prospects now.. It costs at least ten times a much to obtain new customers as to keep in contact with old clients and indeed, everyone who contacts you. Your files are filled with names of folks who know you. Those folks generally have at least 50 other friends in their "circle of influence." (Read How to Close Every Sale, by Joe Girard.) Business owners are happy to spend thousands on Yellow Page and TV marketing while ignoring completely those who they already have some relationship with.

5. Capture the name and contact information of everyone who expresses interest in your business. Now. Not just email addresses. Get real addresses. Entrepreneurs again spend thousands on generating new leads (potential client inquiries) yet never market back to the cases they don't accept. In most offices that's MOST of the new inquiries. Yet this is a goldmine of people that you can directly market to in the future. You can't rely on the fact that if they or someone they know needs your services or products that they will remember you tomorrow because they called you once in the past.

6. Get the conversation going with your customer before they need you. How many business owners spend any time trying to start a relationship with a consumer BEFORE that consumer has a problem? In my industry, most personal injury lawyers view marketing as reactionary. That is, the relationship starts once a person is injured and they start trying to find a lawyer. How about if you offered some good consumer information that prompted people to call you BEFORE they get hurt (good quality information on how to buy car insurance comes to immediate mind), BEFORE they need you. Once they raise their hand they are inviting a relationship and giving you permission to directly market to them as frequently as you can afford to. If you can develop a "herd" of people that listen to you before they have need you, they won't be looking in the Yellow Pages after they have an accident or need your product. (Hint: Read Seth Godin's Tribes)

7. Think about marketing BEFORE the sales reps visits to sell you more-most business owners think about their advertising and marketing plan the 30 minutes or so before the Yellow Page rep comes walking through the door. They don't do any independent research or study. They follow the crowd because "it must be working or else everyone else wouldn't be doing it." If it doesn't work they then take the Yellow Page rep's advice to "buy more, and use color." A real sign that you are an "advertising victim" is that you allow the Yellow Page rep to design your ad.

8. Measure everything. Know your advertising numbers. Ask anyone who spends a lot money on advertising exactly how much revenue is returned (ROI-return on investment) they get from a particular TV spot. Better yet, ask the folks running double truck (huge, 2 page) ads inside the Yellow Pages how much revenue those pages generate vs. the outside back cover they are also buying. They won't be able to answer that question. Would you buy mutual fund without demanding a specific accounting of actual results?

9. Nurture, grow and cultivate "mavens" who will refer others to you--the best clients come to you with good cases and they are pre-sold on you. Strange as it may seem, clients don't always know how to refer. The entrepreneurs who really understand marketing have figured out ways to have current friends and customers refer new consumers to them BEFORE they need an attorney. Developing good consumer information products and backing it up with an interesting firm newsletter that it consistently mailed is a terrific way to greatly expand your referral base without using high priced TV marketing.

10. Diversify Your Marketing-"one" is a very dangerous number. Don't forget to see what other industries are doing. There are lots of media out there, for example, media not traditionally used by lawyers. While most lawyers think in terms of Yellow Pages, TV and websites, sophisticated lawyer marketers understand and also use low cost coupon media, postcards and free standing inserts. The key is to choose media that is relatively easy to test and then to measure results.

11. Give up the "Shouting Louder" game-Most business owners try to differentiate themselves in print and TV media by simply spending more money to "shout louder." This accomplished by buying more color, more space, or more TV as spots. The two fold problem of this approach is that (1) it's an expensive way to run a business and (2) there will always be someone who can spend more than you can. Entrepreneurs need to learn to "make a different kind of noise" with their marketing.

About Benjamin Glass
Ben Glass (www.BenGlassLaw.com) is a Northern Virginia Small Business Owner and Entrepreneur. He is a nationally recognized marketing and business building expert. Catch his blog for Northern Virginia Business Owners here.

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SKEPTICAL?...5 Simple Reasons Why We Are Doing This