I often find it interesting when talking to many small business partners about their business.  These people are often very credible and capable technically, but struggle when it comes to "running a business" especially on some aspects of "marketing".  I have been wondering how to offer credible assistance to partners that see themselves in this space, as often described by the book E-Myth Revisited - Why most small businesses don't work and what to do about it - people go in to business for a multitude of reasons, often to make money out of their skills (technical in the case of small businesses) - not to run a business.

While on my hunt for information around this area I came across another of Susanne's wonderful blog entries on marketing.  She once again articulated that everything you do leaves your customer with an impression of you - so best ensure that every employee (from you down) knows what impression you want to leave. 

The next thing is to understand some basic tools of being a technical person and how to sell.  I have three rules here - which may well be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, but always worth checking out:

1. What is the business need? The key here for me is to always ask why someone wants something, not what they want.  By understanding what it will enable them to do, or what problem will it solve enables you to make sure this is correct and fits the purpose, rather than it being something they have mis-understood from the sunday papers.  Find the business reason and costs are often justifiable at this point in terms of savings to the business
2. Tell stories of yours or others success & benefits through the use of technology.  If you are not using it yourself - it is hard to relate to the benefits.  If you can tell how another customer "spent more time at home" or "made more cash available" or "became more profitable" or "found customer quotes in 5 mins instead or 2 hours" etc - this is very powerful stuff.
3. Shut up.  As technical people we are often really proud in how we do things, however many people simply want to know that it can be done.  say "Yes, I can do that without a real problem, I;ve done that for several people already".  If they want to know how you will do it, tell them, otherwise get down to how much it will cost and why this is good value.

Susanne has some great links on her site to more information here, so I will not repeat them, but there will be more on this coming!

Bearing in mind the fact that the bCentral IT Consultant finding tool points people to your web site - use the marketing plans and simple sales rules to look at your site and ask yourself if it would make someone call you to solve their business problems.

ttfn

David