CFD 123 – Marketing: Another Necessary Skill Every Entrepreneur Needs to Develop!
In the last episode of the Cash Flow Diary podcast the focus was on learning to fail forward and fail frequently because it happens to be necessary to your success as an entrepreneur. In this episode the focus is on another necessary skill you must develop to be a successful entrepreneur and investor. It’s marketing! With the New Year fast approaching, marketing is a subject you need to put your mind to and get ready to follow through with your marketing plan in a big way. It’s a sure bet that if you don’t pay much attention to your marketing strategies… or if you don’t have any strategies in place… you could be doing a whole lot better in your business. This is especially true in Real Estate Investing. Marketing is far more than the definitions you find in any dictionary online or off. What marketing really means is getting out into the world to let people know you exist and that you can solve their problems! In Real Estate, investors often think because they have a deal or two that’s all they need. Not so! You have to build, maintain and grow your database of sellers, buyers and other investors. You have to get out there and actually talk to people. You have to share with others your vision in a few short sentences. You need to develop a clearly stated elevator pitch and use it with the right targets. You have to use the online tools that are available to you right now to help you spread your message. Many are free! You have to attend networking meetings and talk to more people in everyday life. If you fall short in your marketing and promotions efforts, you’re not alone. It is one of the top failings that entrepreneurs and business owners share in common. Marketing is a process and it’s something you must learn to do well in your business. It is something you will always have to do. You’ll come to understand that perfection probably won’t ever be achieved. Imperfect action .is better than perfect inaction! Learn some of the things you can do to promote what you do better and market your business now and into the future. LISTEN NOW.
Show Notes
Summary:
On this episode of Cash Flow Diary, J talks about the number one problem of most, if not all entrepreneurs, Marketing. J outlines the skill of marketing, why it is necessary, how it can be learned, and lets you in on his personal formula. If you want to have all the strategies at your disposal to attract people to your business, then this is the podcast for you.
Episode Rundown:
03:46 Definitions of marketing
05:45 Why marketing is necessary
08:47 The forgotten skillset
11:41 All skillsets can be learned
13:08 Everything works and nothing doesn’t
15:40 ‘You’tility
21:15 What you can do
23:24 J’s formula
26:07 ‘Really, why’?
27:17 Educate people
Key Lessons Learned:
- You have to learn and develop the muscle of ‘failure;’ accept it, pursue it, recover from it, and learn from it.
Marketing:
- To the average business person, marketing equals promotion.
- Marketing is what you say, how you say it, when you want to explain to someone how awesome your product is, and why people should buy it.
- The main difference between most employees and the other three quadrants is the level of which they master marketing and sales.
- You have never been in sales if you haven’t taken a customer from cold, all the way through the end of a relationship to referral.
- Marketing is about finding that audience, person, or avatar that is interested in what you do.
- The money can’t find you if you’ve never paved a way for the money to get to your door. This means you must have marketing.
Growing your Database:
- A forgotten skillset is to build, maintain, manage, curate, and grow a database or Rolladex. This is where your business lies (inside the potential customers).
- You will not grow your cash flow unless you grow your database.
- ‘Who’ you know helps you to execute ‘what’ you know.
- You can know a ton about real estate, however, if you don’t have anyone to practice it with, then it doesn’t matter.
- It’s not that your product isn’t great, it’s that you have not yet developed the skillset to attract the individual most likely to do business with you.
Skill Sets Can Be Learned:
- You want to have all the strategies at your disposal to attract people to your business.
- It doesn’t matter ‘what’ you do, it matters ‘that’ you do (and that you do a lot of it and consistently),
- Marketing is a process. Ask yourself “who do I want to attract, and how do I want them to know me?”
Youtility:
- Youtility is the term coined by Jay Baer. It means have your marketing so good that people want to use it.
- Educate to dominate. If you can create something inside your business that is marketing but also education based that your customer can use, you will become their go-to resource.
- Social media is a tool and way of execution, not the replacement.
- If you want content to be shared, make it useful.
- You can have an expert tool, but that doesn’t mean you know how to use it expertly yet.
What You Can Do:
- You always start before you are ready, so decide to start and begin to tell people.
- Quit trying to make the product perfect, and see if anybody wants it.
- Most businesses can be summed up in a 15-20 second elevator pitch.
- J’s formula: “I [action verb] [target market] [benefit] so they can [benefit].”
- J’s favorite question to start a conversation: “Have you ever considered getting involved in real estate investing?”
- Always respond with: “Really, why?”
- From this position, you are able and capable of finding out what ails them so you can position yourself as a solution to help them.
- If you can’t solve the problem, you can still point them in the direction which is still value.
- You can start marketing by verbally telling people one at a time.
- Another of J’s favorite question; “What type of investing are you looking to do?”
Ways to Begin:
- Educate people in such a way that makes them want to do business with you.
- Find more techniques to get your message in front of the correct market, and have a market to message match.
- You don’t have to make your marketing strategies and systems complicated
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