North San Diego Business@Large

The Vista Chamber’s fourth annual Business and Technology Expo / Taste of Vista, presented by Staples, will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 7, from 3 to 7 p.m. Located at 995 Joshua Way in the Vista Business Park. Get your free Express Access Ticket ($5 value) and I’ll see you at the Expo. Here’s a map for you!

Here are some highlights of the Expo:

• Kaiser & Associates IT Consulting is bringing the Microsoft Across America Mobile Event Experience to town in a state-of-the-art truck loaded with exciting technical products.
• VIP networking with more than1,000 business people and more than 100 exhibitors.
• Taste of Vista with a free taste from 12 great restaurants and caterers.
• Drawings and giveaways throughout the event.

This was a great business event last year and I’m really looking forward to the Expo this year. Why don’t you join me?  If you do come, make sure to find me to say hello!

Join me when the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce holds their First Friday Breakfast this Friday, November 2nd at the Hilton Garden Inn. Chamber President Ted Owen will present "Market To A New Economy, Is There A Market For Your Business or Product In Carlsbad?" This is a great networking breakfast that attracts between 100 and 130 business owners each month. Make sure to bring business cards for the networking table, and of course, the networking at your breakfast table.

The Palomar Airport Chapter of Ali Lassen’s Leads Club will meet Wednesday, October 31st for breakfast at Marie Calendars on Avenida Encinas. This is a strong, structured referral group designed to provide an effective means to gaining new business. Check us out!

RBN Networking will hold it’s monthly networking luncheon on Thursday, November 1st at the Hilton Garden Inn. Colle Davis will present, "The Behaviors of Success."

I’ll be at each of these events, so if you attend, please make sure to look for me and say hello!!

The first thing, we as small business owners have to do to grow is to really understand our target market.  I mean REALLY understand our market, not just demographically, geographically, or psychographically, but know who they are, their lifestyle, their likes, dislikes, etc.

Look at your current target customer. What does he/she look like. I am guessing you answered something like

Male
Caucasian
34-45
$45,000-$65,000 Annual Income
Owns a Home
Living in San Diego

If this is similar to your answer, you might be missing on a huge part of your potential client base. The key to effective marketing is to narrow your target as much as you can. The description above is a pretty narrow target, but what if we go narrower.

What if we start to market to individuals? What if we get in touch with our customers and ask them what they like about our service/product? What if instead of marketing to:

Male
Caucasian
34-45
$45,000-$65,000 Annual Income
Owns a Home
Living in San Diego

we market to Bob Reynolds, or Suzie Powers, or Billy Frank. Imagine the power of our brand. Imagine the loyalty and customer service we could provide. Imagine the viral marketing that it would produce.

By simply narrowing down our target to the individual, we can focus on complete customer satisfaction and building a program that would integrate our company into the lifestyle of the customer. If we can understand what our clients are doing at every time during the day, we can better serve them and become their go-to company for our product/service. Instead of providing a choice, we produce a habit. And as we all know, it takes a lot to change a habit.

This is even more important to us as small business owners.  If we lose even one client, we might have to close our doors.  Getting up-close and personal with our customers like this builds brand loyalty and trust like no other form of marketing.  With and handful of loyal customers comes a bigger handful of referrals, and so on.

Bottom line:  Get to know your customers as intimately as possible and your business will grow. 

Paul Miser is the President of Miser Advertising and Marketing, a small business marketing company in Carlsbad, CA.  He can be contacted by emailing pmiser@miserad.com

Sheryl Roush, Sparkle Presentations, just released her tenth book, Heart of the Holidays, just in time for the holidays.

Sheryl has been a long time Toastmaster and is a story of inspiration all on her own. She’ s been bringing her message of hope, inspiration, and motivation to entrepreneurial women in San Diego County and to women, in general, all over the world.

To me, personally, Sheryl’s been an inspiration. I’ve seen how to take a message and create it in several different formats for delivery in a variety of methods. I’ve benefited, personally and professionally, by attending Sheryl’s many seminars on product creation and marketing. I’m even one of the many contributors to The Heart of the Woman and The Heart of a Mother books.

Sheryl’s new Heart of the Holidays makes an excellent business gift.  I’m sure if you ordered a few, you might be able to get Sheryl to personalize them for you.  Also, visit her new Heart Book Series site for more information and to leave your thoughts on what she’s doing on her blog.

E-World Recyclers will hold a free e-waste recycling event from 8am to 2pm on Saturday, November 3rd at 2480 Ash Street in Vista. All electronic waste, including monitors, televisions and computer parts will be accepted. No appliances or hazardous waste will be accepted. Call 760.599.0888 for visit E-World Recyclers website for more information.

The Problem:

Entrepreneur.com has named Poor Marketing as the #3 Reason for Small Business Failure; right behind lack of funding and bad management. 

The Solution:

Marketing is defined by Theodore Levitt, the marketing guru, as the ability to create, keep and enhance a customer.  I have defined three strategies to get your company closer to creating, keeping, and enhancing your customer.  They are:

1. Know your Customer - I know you’ve heard this more than you would like, but it’s true, especially for the small business.  Segmenting and Demographics are for the Larger Corporations with a large marketing budget, but for you it’s actually knowing your customer.  Know who they are, what they do, where they buy, why they buy, what else do they enjoy, what are their day-to-day activities, etc.  This information is easy to get…just ask.  Build a relationship that is so strong that you can ask anything from your customers and you will get this valuable information needed to grow your business and beat failure.
2. Create a Plan and Execute Daily - Understanding your customer is only the beginning, now we need to put that information to work.  By fully understanding everything about your customer, you will know where they research your product, how they buy your product, what are the key factors for the purchase decision, etc.  With this information, you can strategically create a structured step-by-step marketing plan that will reach your customer at key focal points during the purchase decision.  You can find marketing plan templates online if you search for "Marketing Plan Template" on Google or Yahoo!.  With the plan ready, you need to Execute the Plan daily.  I’ve seen too many small business owners make a marketing plan and then letting it collect dust and then complain about their marketing.  YOUR PLAN WON’T WORK IF YOU DON’T USE IT!  It’s that simple.
3. Evaluate as if Your Business Success Depends on it - One of the main components of successful companies is the evaluation of their marketing efforts.  The business environment changes constantly and if we don’t change with it we will fail.  We have to learn from all of our marketing strategies in order to adapt and grow.  To have an effective evaluation strategy, you need to create a list of goals and metrics (ROI, % of new customer inquires, etc) that you can compare and contrast at the end of your marketing campaign to identify successes and failures and what needs to be changed for the next campaign.

Well, this might sound like a lot of work, that will just take away from your core focus of you business.  But, if you don’t get it taken care of, there will be no business to focus on. 

Each week, I will be posting tips, tricks and strategies that I have found to be highly successful over the past 10 years for small businesses much like your own.  Please feel free to create a discussion based on my postings and don’t ever hesitate to contact me with any questions or ideas you may have about your marketing.

Paul Miser is the President of Miser Advertising and Marketing, a small business marketing company in Carlsbad, CA.  He can be contacted by emailing pmiser@miserad.com