This overview article is written with B2B businesses in mind, for those who are in business services and professional services sectors who have high value services, or some level of complexity such as traditional technology companies or business services like lawyers and accounting firms.

If I am talking to a marketing professional they are generally already aware of the importance of digital presence and marketing strategies to drive more brand awareness. For a business owner or director or partner, the way you need to market your value and specific services should be focused first on your prospective client who is looking to solve a particular challenge and how to help them.

Commonly many websites have a standard menu and content flow along the lines of: 

• About us:
• What we can do:
• Our capabilities:
• Why us:

This is what we call a brand or product centric approach which proves very challenging to differentiate your digital identity and presence from your competitors to attract interest and relevance from prospective clients.

Your competitors are also sounding and writing the same way within their website and content, so how can you present, be relevant and differentiate your services?

Times have changed with how buyers choose to buy and deal with suppliers. A brand and product centric approach that lacks the implementation of inbound marketing and the buyer's journey may not be working for you as well as a sales approach and you'll find it tougher to develop new business opportunities in a competitive, price-driven market.

If you want to drive a competitive advantage or find a way to differentiate, just take a look at your competitors and how they may be approaching their digital marketing with a customer problem centric approach.

Here is one example of a website content page which focuses on the customer first and their challenges:

Reference: www.maxsum.com/your-potential

There is a clear distinction in the flow of your webpage content to focus on your prospective client and their challenges.

Why the buyer’s journey is so important 

It is evident that buyers are much more informed and smarter when they are progressing through the sales cycle and have already completed their research before wanting to engage in a sales conversation.

If you think about the car buying experience and the use of the internet to research and collect all the data you need first before picking up the phone to talk to, or emailing, a sales person to negotiate the best price.

Before you buy a car you may well already know what model and type of car you want, what features and specifications you want, your budget range and the ideal price you would like to pay. All you need to do before you speak to a sales representative at a dealership is to know if it is in stock and can you potentially negotiate the right deal. Only then you will reach out to your preferred dealership when you are ready to buy.

If you look at the Tesla model, they don’t have any traditional dealerships or showrooms as you can do all your research online and virtual tours to be able to make an informed decision whether or not to buy. 

Hence the role of the marketing function and sales function has shifted significantly in the way you interact with your prospective buyer.

Traditional approach -
Brand and product centric approach

 
Many people are aware they need to market their business online and have a digital presence with an 'About Us' focus on themselves with self praise and noting award wins and recognitions. Also when you look at their website, many still take a 'Features and Benefits' approach with their branding or product to try to attract and eventually sell to their prospect with a demo, and aggressively following up when the sales person is actually intruding on their prospect.

This is what we describe as a brand centric or product centric approach.

All about the customer -
Problem and solution centric approach

 
With a progressive approach, it should be about the prospective customers' solution to their problems and how you can add value and help - being customer centric. 

This is a fundamental shift towards how you can serve your customer not what you can gain from them. The same applies to referring or being helpful to someone you can’t help but recognising that someone in your network could help solve their problem or address their challenge.

What end problem is the buyer trying to solve with your product/services?

If you can reflect this in your sales efforts and even start in the way you market your business ability to help solve the kinds of problems your prospective clients are challenged with, then you will resonate with your target audience, whether that be a CIO/CTO/CFO or another key stakeholder.

It could be a technical, operational or financial problem you can solve. Once you identify it, then only you can progress to build the relationship in person and or online to provide them with possible solutions.

How the right technology and telecommunications
service provider strategy can help increase your marketing and sales ROI and lower operational costs...

In order to drive top line growth, business owners still need to manage overhead costs and the cost of technology is an increasing expense with people, process and systems. Time is short for planning with everyone and you are starting your last quarter already for the financial year. How can you drive more customer sales growth and increase marketing performance using effective technology and telecom services other than price driven decisions?

How did you develop your personal financial habits and do they correlate with your business habits as a business owner? Perhaps it only takes a short trip down memory lane to understand how your attitudes came about, from an early age. 

This post was prompted recently during reflection about how personal success and habits are formed in running your own business when I was cleaning out some achieved possessions stored away for many years..

Personal discipline and habits

I found one of my old bank savings passbooks from when I was a teenager (for those that remember what a passbook is!). For those that grew up in Melbourne and remember, it was a National Mutual Royal Bank (which became Bank of Melbourne) passbook.

When I opened it showed my savings details over about a period of about five years while I was working my first part-time job, a casual role at Coles supermarket. I remember aim to save at least 90% of each weekly pay packet – and somehow, surprisingly, I managed to achieve this.

This sparked my thinking about the fundamentals of developing discipline, resilience and successful habits in business, and how many of these habits develop as a child and as a teenager with your money values.  Many are formed and shaped by your parents’ attitudes and values. Without turning this post into a personal development article,  I do believe that while your influences can draw you into or away from those values, be it positively or negatively, you do have a choice in where you would like to be.

I wonder how many kids these days (with some entrepreneurial aptitude or potential) could have a digital savings account like this. Are the days of the piggy bank or forced savings still strong or is the digital world or cashless society going to further change spending habits? Do parents today still encourage the values of savings for goals or do they give in and provide more for their kids?

I remember the only splurges I made as a teenager was to afford to buy myself my original Atari game console for $90 and also saving to buy my first car for $5,000 when I passed my probationary drivers licence test. This was all without my parents assisting me or gifting me any money for these purchases. If the goal is strong enough you will stay focussed and on track.

In basic terms, having only credits and minimal debits must be an ideal situation. For any financial planning or wealth planning exercise these are fundamentals of building wealth. Not spending more than what you earn to be able to save consistently and reinvesting this for compound growth or leverage is a simple ‘how-to’.

It was instilled into me early as part of my financial values to always set goals and stretch to achieve even greater goals. Having strong cashflow has already enabled personal or business decisions and options to be considered. In small business often too much focus is based on driving revenue growth but the importance of cashflow and profitability shouldn't be made secondary priorities in your financial plan.

In my professional life these values have always applied and the need to have the discipline to not lose sight of this. If you reinvest your profits regularly and utilise the impact of compounding and leverage, the returns will help you increase the value of your investment. The value of passive income streams versus earned income has been emphasised, having seen many businesses put all their eggs in one basket.

From my cultural background, both of my parents traditionally valued the effort of earning a dollar, so every dollar saved was worth something significant to come in the future. Some might call this a very frugal approach but this habit (and discipline) provides the skills in running and managing a business also. I have always believed in delayed gratification also as opposed to "instant gratification" for the purpose of short term spend, but to maintain positive cashflow and sufficient reserves for the "just in case" factor.