7 killer facts you ignore at your peril if you want to stay in business

by Drayton Bird

1. If you don’t deliver a good product or service you won’t succeed for long. No matter how good your marketing or advertising, you can’t sell rubbish indefinitely. Think of any business that’s gone down the drain – like AOL or the entire British car industry.
2. The customer you already have will always make about 3 – 5 times more money for you than an identical prospect – so pay more attention to them than anyone else
3. Advertising is not the only, and often by no means the best, way to build a brand. In fact it can cost you a fortune without achieving anything if you don’t have more money than God.
4. Most mergers and acquisitions end in chaos, misery and unemployment for the poor employees – and don’t create value. That is, the two firms together end up worth less than they were separate.  A good example is a cable business called NTL, known to its customers as NT Hell – the useless product of endless mergers.
5. All available research suggests that recommendation from others – word of mouth – is the chief reason why people buy. So if you don’t have a customer-get-a-customer or viral marketing programme, you’re mad.
6. Instead of worrying about talking to your prospects and customers too often, you’re better off thinking of reasons and interesting ways to talk to them more. One of my clients e-mails prospects as often as twice a week successfully. We mail our own list even more frequently. Very few unsubscribe.
7. Never assume because someone doesn’t buy they’re not interested. They have many things on their mind besides you. Keep communicating till it doesn’t pay