Revisiting the subject of new business development.
If you have all the business you can handle, need or want, then you don’t need marketing. You just need to buy more houses or cars or whatever.
If you are ambitious, struggling (or sinking), then you need to do something about it. Kind of obvious, but maybe not so obvious is WHAT to do about it.
Improving the quality, speed and efficiency of your product or service delivery, and of your customer service, is always a good idea.
Promoting to your existing clients / customers / patients for more work or for referrals is usually the cheapest way to get more business.
But if those aren’t sufficient, now you are into marketing. And for many small businesses, that is a whole new territory.
Huge numbers of small businesses have NEVER had a working new business development model. One that is scalable (can be increased at will) and viable (doesn’t cost too much to generate a new customer).
This is especially a situation in the current economy, where lots of people, out of work, are starting their own home-based businesses. And where many companies can no longer rely on their usual methods to get enough new business.
People often are surprised at what it takes to develop one and keep it going. It’s frequently a lot of work, time and trials to get there. We’re really good at it, but it still doesn’t mean our first efforts always work well. Or maybe they are singles and not home runs.
The main point is to recognize when you really need to confront getting your marketing going, and then to work at it and keep working at it until you DO get it working.
I mean, it’s not like there’s a lot of alternatives. In many cases it’s that, or hunker down and hope to ride out the economic downturn, or shut your business and (hopefully) go to work for someone else.