Marketing: Marketing or Selling -- Which is more important?

Marketing or Selling -- Which is more important?

Written by C.J. Hayden

A question I often get from clients and students goes something like this: "I've been collecting marketing ideas... and I have a drawer full! I also have a stack of promising leads I've accumulated. And I know it's important to stay visible, so I do a lot of networking, but then I just end up with more names in repparttar

stack. How do I prioritize all this?" If you've ever wondered something similar, you may have lost sight of a very important truth -- repparttar 119816

way to win repparttar 119817

marketing game is not to collect repparttar 119818

most leads; it's to make repparttar 119819

most sales. Marketing activities that increase your number of sales are good, and activities that don't are bad, even if they bring in plenty of leads. If you don't follow up on repparttar 119820

leads you gather, you are throwing away your time and money. The main purpose of marketing strategies like public speaking, writing articles, getting publicity, networking, promotional events, and advertising is to gain visibility. (A secondary purpose of repparttar 119821

first three strategies can be to gain credibility.) Why do you want to be visible? It's not just so people will know who you are and what you do, it's so they will do business with you. If someone has already expressed interest in doing business, call them. Do it now. Memorize this rule -- following up on hot, or even warm, client leads is always more important than marketing for more visibility. There is a simple diagnostic test you can take to see where you need to focus your marketing vs. selling efforts, which I call repparttar 119822

Universal Marketing Cycle. Think of repparttar 119823

marketing and sales process as a water system that begins by filling your pipeline with leads. The pipeline empties into your follow-up pool, which you are continually dipping into. Your intent is to move repparttar 119824

leads further along in repparttar 119825

system, to making a presentation of some kind (by phone or in person), and finally closing repparttar 119826

sale.

The ONE Thing YOU Should Focus On Right Now

Written by LynnTerry

Let me just start out by saying that I cant tell you what that "one thing" is. It is for you to choose, and for you to do.

There's a lot of talk out there among repparttar 'experts' - about how to get rich, how to become successful, how to do this or how to do that. It's very easy to get distracted, and even easier to become overwhelmed. "Information Overload", they call it.

The truth is, there are A LOT of viable business ideas out there. There are MANY ways to become successful - or wealthy. There is TONS of potential in online marketing. And there's still PLENTY of room for you to step in and claim your fortune.

The question is: What are you going to do?

You could:

- write a book or an ebook - promote affiliate programs via PPC - sell products on eBay - create & optimize content-rich sites in niche markets - build an empire of mini-sites - become a public speaker - be a web designer, copywriter or VA

That list could go on and on... and on. What I see all too often is that many people try to do 'the whole list'. Or at least several at once. And that can be okay if your focus is one and repparttar 119815 same in all things that you are doing. Or it can be disastrous. A recipe for failure.

Maybe you can relate to this scenario: You set out to do something, and it takes longer to earn repparttar 119816 amount you had hoped for... and then you see another option. You try it out, it does pretty well, so you put some time and energy into it. Something happens - rules change, markets fluctuate, algorithms change - and you're moved two steps back. You're introduced with something new, more stable, and you focus on that instead.

This is a familiar story. If you haven't experienced it yourself - you've certainly heard about someone who has. And they'll tell you that repparttar 119817 business idea they started out with originally was a failure, or that there was 'no m0ney in it' or 'too much competition'.

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