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Marketing Secret #99 The Ten Characteristics of Top Producing Businesses!

This particular secret isn’t necessarily an individual secret. It’s more of a compilation of a bunch of secrets. The secrets of the real top producing businesses.

Now, over the years, I’ve trained over 13,000 business owners and professionals. And I’ve seen things that have left me to believe that there are characteristics that the top businesses share that the bottom businesses don’t. You've learned from this program dozens and dozens of ways to get customers/clients/patients. With all of that said however, the things the top 1% of the businesses do fall into very similar patterns. 

For me, they prove that even with all the knowledge and technical skills that we help people attain, that without these other characteristics, they won’t get to the success they truly deserve or feel they deserve.

So let’s go through these characteristics and discuss why they’re important so that you can start building a road map for yourself to model and implement these characteristics even if you don’t possess them already.

I would like to point out that all of these characteristics are learned behaviours. They are not innate.

1. Change your marketing method.

The top businesses have learned to ignore all the sales training, closing pressure, cold calling, and traditional marketing/prospecting talk. See, the people who are really making the money have learned that all that stuff leads to nothing but rejection, embarrassment, frustration, anxiety, wasted money, and time, having to beg clients for referrals or recommendations.

It will always shows little results for all that effort.

2. Don't go to them, make them come to you!

They always get people to come to them. They don’t make cold calls. They don’t pressure people. They don’t push. They don’t do anything except communicate things to people that they are interested in instead of what they or the industry tells them that their prospects are supposed to be interested in.

They know that marketing is the most important knowledge they will ever attain. And they spend continuous never-ending amounts of their time studying and becoming an experts at marketing.

3. It's not about you, it's about them.

The top businesses don’t mention stress or push the fact that they’re with a big company or that they’re the biggest and the best, and they’ve been in business for a million years. They all realise that none of that means anything to a prospect. Dan Kennedy says, when people make statements like that, you have to ask yourself “so what?”. So what if that company is big, has all of these experts and so forth. What does that mean to a prospect? Absolutely nothing. Now, the top businesses realise that what they mention and talk about is what customers/clients/patients want and what the customers/clients/patients feel close to. They talk about them. Not about themselves.

4. Establish trust.

The top businesses have all repositioned themselves either consciously or subconsciously to be consultants, not salespeople. Bigger businesses know that people want them to be their advisor, their friend and their confidant. The top businesses don’t just serve as the person who shows people a product or just suggests a good service to them. No, they go far beyond that. They become a true family consultant and advisor and take it very seriously. They know that people want to do business with people who are a trusted advisor and not just a salesperson.

5. Use technology to your advantage!

They all use high-tech, state of the art, modern techniques for marketing. For example, most top businesses take complete advantage of tools that simplfy and assist their marketing process. Setting up tools that alert them when somebody contacts them or using recorded messages sets them a part from everyone else. They take advantage of computers and software that can track their leads and their sales. Yes, the top businesses all know that these days, if you don’t follow the high-tech path, you’re going to follow the path out the door.

6. Compel others to refer you.

They get continuous unsolicited referrals from outside professionals. They also get referrals and recommendations from their own customers/clients/patients. See, the big businesses don’t ask for the referrals, they get the referrals. And the reason they get referrals or recommendation is because they are perceived as being different and special that they are compelled to refer people to you. You will be the consultant who has something to offer other than the ability to service and/or sell products. The one who goes far beyond the extra mile, far beyond advising someone to do business with, and beyond getting your picture in the paper.

7. Use of innovative marketing techniques.

Any marketing or mailing that top businesses do is designed to get responses. They know that if they send out marketing pieces to a farm or if they send out newsletters each month (which most of them do), that their direct response pieces give somebody a reason to call back. Somebody to ask for a report. A quiz. They offer customer/client/patient functions in their newsletter such as recognition dinners or special promotion days. Yes, the top businesses all use innovative and clever marketing. These are just many of the techniques that you’ve learned in the system and take advantage of through their direct mail and their continuous repetitive follow-ups. 

8. Delegate! Delegate! Delegate!

Top businesses all delegate. They realise that they can’t be making money if they’re talking to the newspaper or stopping by the print shop to pick up their postcards. They understand they have to delegate all the grunt work and pay people a few dollars an hour so that they can spend their time talking to customers/clients/patients and prospects. How else do you get paid? You don’t make a cent unless you’re talking to people who can buy your product or service. All the other stuff must be delegated out. And it must be delegated out as soon as possible even before you think you’re possibly ready. Anytime that you do work that’s menial you’re costing yourself $100 to $300 per hour that should be spent selling to live customers/clients/patients and prospects.

I can’t stress this point enough! I know one business associate who has a personal assistant who does nothing but take care of all her personal things, such as paying her bills, getting her groceries, dropping the dog off at the vet, picking up the kids after school and so forth. This person realises that all those things don’t produce a cent in revenue and it’s worth it for her to have this personal assistant do all that work.

A lot of people say “Well, I can’t afford to hire somebody right now.”. I don’t buy that! You cannot afford not to hire somebody to help you with doing the work that doesn’t make you any money.

9. An organised structure.

All top people have a system to their business. The definition of a system is “a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole.” A system is a procedure, and every top business has one. They generate the prospects, they delegate their work, they FOLLOW UP continuously. If they are in sales, they set appointments, they go to the appointments, they close deals, and get referrals. The best book I’ve ever read of systematising your business is the E Myth by Michael Gerber.

10. Make money, not excuses.

See, we hear from so many people over and over again, “Well, this doesn’t work for me, or this isn’t suited for my area, or the market’s bad, or it’s a weak economy, or interest rates up", or whatever. Any one of eight million excuses.

Listen, the top businesses know that you can’t pay bills with excuses, you can only pay bills with money. And the only way you can get money is by selling products and services! 

They know that if they test things slowly and cheaply, they’ll find which things work the best. They don’t get upset when they run a test that doesn’t work because they know it’s one more thing that they won’t be doing again. They look at every test that doesn’t work as a positive experience. And 99% of the people who don’t make big money look at a negative test as a negative experience.

It’s all a matter of how you look at it.

The top businesses are willing to invest small amounts of money and know that they won’t do anything big until they’ve tested it. But they also know that sometimes they’ll do something that will work and then it will stop working. Do they get upset? No. They just go out and try other things. They diversify their marketing so they don’t get stuck with just one thing.

See, making money in any business is a matter of taking action, diversifying, testing, and never accepting excuses. It's about always looking for new things, new ideas, and new ways to improve. You have to have an open mind to accept and implement new ideas. Just because something isn’t traditional doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. Just because other people in your industry aren’t doing something, doesn’t mean that it’s bad or illegal.

What it means is that breaking new ground, testing new ideas, and continuing to develop your business is the only way to be successful. I’ve never known any other way to do it myself.
You can work very smart, make a lot of money and enjoy what you’re doing.

Life is a constantly changing and the only thing we can be certain of is that we can’t be certain of anything.

Now, there may be other things that the top businesses do that I didn’t mention here. I just wanted to highlight the ones that I think are the most important and the most common.

As I said earlier, any one of these things can be implemented, studied, and learned. All it takes is the willingness to make the switch and to quit making excuses and start making money. Then you yourself will be in the top 1% as well.

If you are needing your marketing strategies reviewed,  reach out to us at admin@yourmarketingmachines.com.au or book a 15 minute no-obligation call with one of our team

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