I help entrepreneurs leapfrog over the typical potholes that derail most small businesses with inspiration, motivation, education, and support across a wide range of business topics drawn from over a decade of running my own business, teaching entrepreneurship for the City of New York, and coaching and consulting privately with dozens of women and minority small business owners. Honestly, why go it alone when help is an email away?
Do you want to hear something crazy? When I interviewed 25+ entrepreneurs of varying years in business and across diverse industries, every single one of them felt that if their customers truly understood the real value they deliver, they could charge more. Even if they'd recently raised their prices and felt pretty good about what they were charging. Can you relate? “Why,” I asked, “don’t your customers understand your true value?”
The common response: “I don’t know.” Well, I do. It’s because you’re not doing a good enough job educating them on it. All marketing is education. I know I've said that before, but it bears repeating, because I'm still seeing messaging that doesn't add anything new to my understanding of why I absolutely, positively must learn more. The purpose of all that education is to keep deepening prospects' value perception. And, you know what? All customer experience is essentially designed to deepen your value with your clients or customers. That’s a lot of educating you’re doing all of the time. And it’s where a communications roadmap can really come in handy, guiding your messaging and value education from awareness-building through the end of your customer lifecycle, ensuring it all ties together, makes sense, and keeps your audience hungry for more until they don't need you any more. Here's how to get started designing your own roadmap.
Can you do it on your own. You absolutely can. Is it easy to do on your own? Honestly, not really. Each of these steps involves many other steps, and it can quickly become overwhelming. Don't feel bad though, even big corporations with robust marketing teams often outsource this stuff to consultants like me because it's a lot easier for someone on the outside to identify the gaps and opportunities across the whole universe of prospect and customer interactions. If you're comfortable going it alone, be patient and keep going. If, however, you'd like the benefit of objectivity and deep experience, let's get to work. Until next time, PS - If you missed it, last week I shared some Expert Expert Advice to ensure you don't waste your money or time. Your success is our strategy! No longer want to receive my newsletter but don't want to miss my special offers and announcements? Click here. |
Why grow your business alone?
I help entrepreneurs leapfrog over the typical potholes that derail most small businesses with inspiration, motivation, education, and support across a wide range of business topics drawn from over a decade of running my own business, teaching entrepreneurship for the City of New York, and coaching and consulting privately with dozens of women and minority small business owners. Honestly, why go it alone when help is an email away?
Hi Reader, I want to admit right upfront that I am a novice when it comes to the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Yet, it's a topic that comes up often enough in classes I teach and even coaching conversations I have with prospects and clients. To be honest, I'm old enough to remember when the internet was new and shiny and populated almost exclusively by glorified brochures. I've been creating websites and web content for well over 20 years—since before the turn of the millennium...
Hi Reader, Have you heard about this study conducted over 40 years ago that actually showed living like you're younger actually makes you physiologically younger? It's pretty wild. Here's how psychology professor Ellen Langer set up her experiment. She moved eight men aged 70+ and exhibiting various signs of aging into a time machine-like living space reminiscent of 1959 for 5 days. Langer didn't just want participants to talk about their youth but to actively live as they did twenty or so...
In honor of Financial Literacy Month I thought I'd share some helpful info from one of my favorite finance people, Tricia Taitt. Tricia is the CEO of FinCore as well as the author of Dancing With Numbers, a great book for those of us who don't consider ourselves 'numbers people.' What I see over and over again in the courses I teach and coaching I do is that far too many entrepreneurs avoid the financial side of their business until they can't afford to anymore. For some, it works out all...