Don’t Start Marketing When You Need Clients

March 30, 2010 on 9:00 am | In Internet Marketing | 43 Comments

Don’t start marketing when you need clients. By then, it’s too late.

You need to start marketing before you need new clients.

I know that sounds self-evident. Yet so many business owners I speak to continue to do it the wrong way.

E.g.

[In January] “Our high season doesn’t really kick off until April so we we’ll probably look at improving our website around then.”
(Way to miss out on the best time of year)

“We’re quite busy at the moment so we’ve turned off some of our advertising”
(What will your sales pipeline look like when you’re not so busy?)

The Pain of Stop-Start Marketing

Because we specialise in online lead generation and I tend to talk with business owners from many industries where there is both a “sales” and “production” function, I come across many people plagued by Stop-Start Marketing.

Stop-Start marketing occurs when you get very focused on prospecting and land a few deals….

…then go into “production mode” to deliver what you’ve just sold…

…while neglecting your marketing and sales function…

…then once the work is delivered, you find yourself staring at an empty sales pipeline, so it’s…

…back to going nuts on prospecting while your cashflow starves…

The Solution To Stop-Start Marketing

The solution is to introduce more consistency and automation in your lead generation in order to keep sales opportunities flowing (almost worse than too few leads is lumpy or unpredictable lead flow.)

Ideally, lead generation, lead management and actual “selling” should be kept separate (i.e. the same person should NEVER perform both functions). That ensures your salespeople are focused on SELLING rather than administration and maximises total sales throughput (thanks to Justin Roff-Marsh at Ballistix for articulating this idea so well – grab this free Sales Process Engineering Report if you’re interested in learning more).

There is no doubt that the best way to institute an effective, low-friction lead generation system is using the Internet in concert with marketing automation tools such as autoresponders, prospect filters and CRM systems…underpinned by the right marketing strategy, of course!

Particularly where prospecting activity is labour-intensive and/or passive (think: cold calling, networking and word-of-mouth), Stop-Start Marketing is never far away.

By removing that highly labour-intensive prospecting activity from the process, you’re freed up to spend more time on high-value activities such as sales appointments.

I go into more detail as to what this automated lead generation pipeline looks like in my free course, “7 Steps To Doubling Your Website Leads”

Do you have any feedback on this article? Why not leave a comment?

43 Comments »

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Too many people rush from one activity to another spending all of their time on one thing. The best way to market, as you’ve mentioned here, is to be consistent in your effort. Consistent effort gets consistent results.

Comment by Jared Detroit — March 30, 2010 #
You are right. There are many companies that use this type of defective sales management (psst don’t say it out loud, but the company I work for does exactly the same thing).

Comment by Ralph — March 30, 2010 #
Binge marketing. Guilty as charged. Inspired by Jay Conrad Levison, I’m trying to take a leaf out of the stonecutter’s book now: consistent marketing.

Comment by Charles Cuninghame — March 30, 2010 #
It’s always best to anticipate the need and work on meeting that need and to be consistent in the process as Jared mentioned.

Comment by Andrew@BloggingGuide — March 31, 2010 #
Simplifying each step of the marketing process is just a good idea. After all, it’s how McDonald’s got started right?

Comment by Allergy Free Shop — April 1, 2010 #
This post made me chuckle, because I’m all too familiar with it. Actually, I have a client who I wish would even “stop-start” – he is stuck on “stop-stop”, believing the customers will come to him without any advertising.

You hit the nail on the head though, consistent, steady marketing is key.

Comment by Bill — April 2, 2010 #
I believe the biggest problem with internet marketing failures is giving up too soon when you dont get the results you want. The dividing line between success and failure is often very blurred, so stick to your plan and be persistent… there are no easy short cuts!

Comment by quick resume help — April 5, 2010 #
You are absolutely right. This is especially true with smaller businesses. It seems that when you have one person that wears the production and prospecting hats for the business, they can’t seem to keep the ball rolling.

Most businesses are trying to save money by cutting labor, which leaves fewer people to either market or do production for the business. What they need to remember is that if they concentrate on building the sales, they can hire the people they need to do both prospecting and production.

No company has ever been successful by cutting costs. Success is in the profits.

Comment by John Toledomarketing — April 6, 2010 #
“Don’t start marketing when you need clients. By then, it’s too late.”
This is soooo true.
I’ve also noticed when business are desperate for clients they tend to spend enormous amounts on marketing and in a way that will never bring any kind of ROI.

Comment by NY Glass — April 6, 2010 #
Sounds very nice to assign lead generation and sales to different persons. But what to do if your MK department has only a few people?

Comment by Bogdan — April 7, 2010 #
Good article. It’s important, in marketing, to always fire on all cylinders. We’re very guilty of that in that, in the hosting industry. Our sales double, we back off a bit to adjust, and then come back out swinging.

Comment by SingleHop — April 9, 2010 #
Great article and I definitely agree with your point. Where we struggle is that we are a small company with limited resources, so we do tend to focus on marketing for awhile, then back to sales, product improvements, etc. Any suggestions on how to manage this as a small company with 2-3 employees?

Comment by Pat — April 12, 2010 #
Hi Will,

Lumpy and unpredictable lead or customer flow seems to be the nature of all businesses.

And I mean that in spite of doing everything right as you would have it.

I’ve experienced that in a couple of off-line businesses where I worked and where I work now as well.

It even happens in small retail stores. It also happens with customer phone calls. There can be a big lull and then all of a sudden everybody seems to come or call virtually at the same time.

So I’d say that I agree with you that the peaks and valleys can be smoothed out but I think that there will always be slow and busy times in any business no matter what.

Of course what I think you really mean is that you don’t want your business to come to a complete halt before engaging any marketing efforts.

Marketing should never stop as long as the business stands.

I enjoyed reading your thought provoking post and commenting on it.

Vance

Comment by Vance Sova — April 12, 2010 #
Hi Vance

Thanks for your thoughts. You quite rightly point out the peaks and troughs in marketing activity and customer enquiries.

There are a few ways to deal with this. One is to apply a set of marketing approaches consistently. This will tend to reduce the “noise” in your lead flow.

Another approach is to schedule work in advance, so you have a buffer between incoming leads and start dates. If you know that new work is commencing in 3 weeks’ time (for example), you have that long before your pipeline of work starts becomes empty. This “buffering” approach can help you to smooth out the peaks and troughs.

Comment by Will Swayne — April 13, 2010 #
Hi Pat

This approach can work for a small company. In fact, it’s EVEN MORE important to maintain a throughput of deals and cashflow in a smaller organisation, because your small team size means stop-start marketing can be particularly intense.

Traffic-generation techniques that supply a steady flow of leads come in very handy in the scenario you describe, with Google AdWords (or other PPC) being just about the best option because you can turn the traffic volume up or down as needed.

Comment by Will Swayne — April 13, 2010 #
@Bogdan – you don’t need a bit sales / marketing department to execute this strategy. You can do it with as few as 2 people – one to do the selling and the other to act as “sales co-ordinator” and ensure the salesperson can SELL as much as possible.

Comment by Will Swayne — April 13, 2010 #
There is a sales cycle in everything. Rarely is an interest expressed and a purchase made instantly. You have to constantly feed the cycle or sales will dry up.

Comment by PowerPoint Templates — April 14, 2010 #
Excellent advice, thank you. I think keeping sales and lead generation separate is very important as you said. That way they can both be free to work on their own areas.

Comment by Watch the losers — April 14, 2010 #
You made some good points. If you will stop your marketing or you will start it too late when you will have to do more work in regards to increasing the quality of your leads.

Comment by Host1Free.com — April 14, 2010 #
Hey Will! First of all thanks for the great blog post and the wonderful insights into the world of marketing that you provide on your blog.

I work for an accountancy firm in the UK which provides leads generation services for accountants throughout the UK. How can i approach accountancy firms over the internet and convince them that they should use our services to generate new business for their practice?

I hope this is the relevent platform to ask you such a question.

Cheers mate!

Comment by Oxfordshire Accountants — April 14, 2010 #
@Oxfordshire – that’s a BIG question you’re asking there! Best advice I can give you is to read more of this blog and to sign up to my 7-step e-course. I share a bunch of strategies in the course that are highly relevant to your question.

Comment by Will Swayne — April 15, 2010 #
Great Article. You are right. There are many companies that use this type of defective sales management (psst don’t say it out loud, but the company I work for does exactly the same thing).

Comment by James Cage — April 15, 2010 #
great article and its so true about the marketing before new clients, so many businesses make this mistake, usually down to lasyness

Comment by Mike — April 16, 2010 #
good advice. ya really have to hustle, nothing is free. and that means ya can’t just sit back and hope the knock on the door comes without some pre-planned marketing. it’s amazing how many firms don’t get that.

Comment by Jacksonville SEO — April 19, 2010 #
“You need to start marketing before you need new clients.”

I completely agree with you. They start using advertising companies to increase their clients and result in losing their money. I found your blog in some directory and I am glad I found it. I will be subscribing to your feed. See you in Google Reader

Comment by Amit — April 20, 2010 #
This is very true. Most businesses tend to believe that blowing loads of money in ‘UA’ / new client acquisition just after product launch does the trick, but actually lead-gen is a constant process that happens day in and day out.

Comment by Frequency 2.0 — April 20, 2010 #
How many businessess fail simply because they only look at their marketing when it is too late? Surely it is better to be too busy than not busy enough and failing?

Comment by Matt — April 21, 2010 #
I completely agree with you, because it is a hundred percent true. I dont know why people start doing something, than they pracitaly should had done this. You always should think about future and prepare for it. Think about your prospects and everything will be ok

Comment by Jacob — April 22, 2010 #
Great article! it is right not to rush things up, need first to market. If you have market it well, clients will simply appear on the scene. By this approach, you wont be able to have zero clients. You just be creative and imaginative enough to market your products to the consumers.

Comment by sheldon — April 23, 2010 #
I completely agree, but I think this is something people are getting better at. Because of the web, people are more aware of marketing now and it doesn’t take a huge budget or much expertise to do it.

Comment by Pure 360 — April 23, 2010 #
I know this is true but I violate this principle every year. When I’m really busy I don’t think much about marketing until it’s too late and I’m scrambling trying to get things going again.

Comment by carpet cleaners bellevue — April 24, 2010 #
Great Article! You are right about not starting marketing when it’s too late. A plan should be put in place on have to drive clients to the business in the peak months and offpeak months.

Comment by Terry | Canada Pharmacy Online — May 4, 2010 #
I agree on the prospect of marketing. What you show best that only sells and marketing does the same. It simply create an awareness. Marketing also helps in creating the need of produced product or service. It is good post on taking concern for the same. After reading your post one can plan the right time for marketing. thanks.

Comment by friendship quotes — May 4, 2010 #
Great article and I definitely agree with your point. Where we struggle is that we are a small company with limited resources, so we do tend to focus on marketing for awhile, then back to sales, product improvements, etc. Any suggestions on how to manage this as a small company with 2-3 employees?

Comment by xamoeba — May 5, 2010 #
I wish one of my clients would have read this blog entry of yours. He wanted to update the website three weeks before an important trade show. Rest assured, the update didn’t get done in time.

Comment by Jesus Buenrostro — May 9, 2010 #
Great point. This is something anyone who’s ever been in sales has probably discovered. Any sales job I’ve ever started at, they usually give you 3-6 months to get your “pipeline” full of deals and they generally tell you to not really expect to close much before then.

If you keep that in mind when marketing, you’ll try to keep that pipeline full at all times with the understanding that a large portion of the leads you get today won’t close for 3-6 months.

Another thing is to remember not to give up on those leads that you don’t close right away. If you know that it’s totally normal to for a lead to take 3-6 months to convert to a sale, it’s easier to plan your sales/marketing strategy accordingly.

Comment by Cincinnati SEO — May 12, 2010 #
Good article. It’s important, in marketing, to always fire on all cylinders. We’re very guilty of that in that, in the hosting industry. Our sales double, we back off a bit to adjust, and then come back out swinging.

Comment by geld online verdienen — May 15, 2010 #
The flip side of the rising AdWords bids is that it’s getting better and better to use AdSense, so it has it’s upside

Comment by ads — May 19, 2010 #
Thanks, very nice & effective article. you are right, marketing should never be started when client requirement is high, it should go on smoothly with very small up & downs instead of stop & than start.
Internet marketing is tough and should be keep on going, never stop. As soon as you stop, you have to begin all over again.

Comment by Ella — May 20, 2010 #
I agree with you that consistency is pretty much important in marketing. If you remain consistent in your marketing efforts, I assume you will be getting fruit of your efforts soon. Of course, nobody would be interested in purchasing something from Ghosts who aren’t good in their marketing efforts.

Comment by Singapore Florist — May 21, 2010 #
I agree with Jared Detroit’s comment about consistency. Focusing too much only on one task especially one arising from need for clients becomes a desperate effort rather than a beneficial one.

Comment by Daniel — June 19, 2010 #
Great post. There are so many traditional service businesses that suffer from start – stop marketing…. I even use to work for one. But the ability to have separate “sellers” and “doers” is a hard one as clients often buy into the sellers and expect them to “do” the work.

Comment by Beer Club — August 19, 2010 #
And this leads to up and down, roller coaster income.

I also look to apply this to hiring. When I see a business with signs, “Now Hiring” its a bit too late. They should have been looking for talent the entire time.

Comment by Socialcruiting — May 16, 2011 #