Article

Do You Really Want To Be Number One?

Topic: Business ConsultingBy Diane ConklinPublished Recently added

Legacy signals

Legacy popularity: 573 legacy views

We all strive to be number one, meaning we want to be the best, we want to finish first and we want to be ahead of the pack. The number one is the worst possible number there is in business and marketing.

Why?

A lot of business owners use one marketing message, only one media to get their message out, have only one stream of income in their business, are only doing one thing or have only one product or service they offer. This strategy is really scary if you take some time to look at it.

Let’s look at a marketer who only uses the internet to do business, take orders, sell products and sell people into live events. This person is going along on top of the world, making money hand-over-fist. Life is good. What if your servers crash in the middle of a big launch? What if your online marketing strategies stop working? What if the rules change and all of a sudden you have to pay to market online just like you do offline?

You have nothing to fall back on – no other avenues to market to, no other way to produce revenue from your business and that is a major problem.

I recently spoke to a business owner who was frustrated because he was having trouble filling seminars and workshops. I immediately saw his problem. He only had about 1,000 people on his list. The only way he was obtaining new clients was by getting on other promoters stages and speaking. He was sitting on a one-legged stool and that one leg was pretty wobbly.

We very quickly developed three additional lead generating strategies for his business (both online and offline), set up two joint venture relationships and did a variety of other things to add legs to his stool. His one wobbly legged stool quickly became a four legged stool – now his business has stability and is growing every day.

Look at your business, and your life, and see where you are surviving on the number one and see what you can do to add at least one more of whatever it is you are surviving on one of. Even if you just added one new thing a month you would quickly be on much more solid ground.

When you only have one of anything in your business you are solely dependent on that one thing and if that one thing stops working, or there is a problem of some kind with it, you and your business may find yourself in deep trouble.

Never let one be your number again.

Article author

About the Author

Diane Conklin is an author, entrepreneur, coach, consultant, event planner, speaker and copywriter. Diane is a direct response marketing expert who specializes in showing small business owners how to integrate their online and offline marketing strategies, media and methods, to get maximum results from their marketing dollars. Diane also shows entrepreneurs and small business owners how to outperform their competition by measuring their marketing, and strategically use multi-media campaigns to stand alone in their marketplace as the go-to provider for their products and services.

She is the co-founder of Complete Marketing Systems and for more than 15 years has been showing small business owners how to start, build and grow Information Marketing businesses where they take knowledge they already possess and turn it into passive, ongoing, leveraged profits.

Through her company, Complete Marketing Systems, Diane helps event promoters market, plan and manage their live events, workshops and seminars, using cost effective, multi-step marketing strategies that put butts in seats, without the promoters losing theirs.

As an Event Marketing & Planning expert, Diane has planned and produced multiple events grossing over $1,000,000.00.

As a business and marketing strategist, Diane has been involved in numerous campaigns grossing over $1,000,000.00 in sales several times in her career.
Diane has proprietary home study systems, coaching programs, and provides done-for-you services in the areas of Social Media, Information Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Direct Mail and Event Marketing, Planning and Management.
As a speaker, Diane has shared the stage with the likes of Joan Rivers, George Foreman, Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, Lee Milteer, Harry Dent, Lee Phillips, Fabienne Fredrickson, James Malinchak, Dov Baron, Peggy McColl, Marshall Sylver, Alex Mandossian, Marie Forleo, Barbara Corcoran and many others.

Diane was voted Information Marketer of the Year for her innovative marketing strategies and campaigns.

Further reading

Further Reading

4 total

Article

Old habits die hard, as the saying goes. And one habit that most of us share—and find difficult to both notice and shake—is our tendency to run “on automatic.” Unconscious patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving are often the silent saboteurs of self mastery in our ...

Related piece

Article

For most owners of a privately held company, when the time is right they want to sell their business for the highest price possible in the quickest time possible and live happily ever after. There is nothing too complicated in that and at a basic level, that’s perfectly fine. However, a question to ask is whether the business owner wants to sell the business or is their preference to transition the business?

Related piece

Article

A transition plan that allows the business owner to sell the business for the highest price possible in the shortest amount of time to the most qualified buyer is generally the top of the wish list for most business owners. Because the business owner lives and breathes their business they become emotionally attached to their customers, employees, suppliers and other business partners as the business is a reflection of who they are.

Related piece

Article

In the initial stages of listing a business for sale, all the attention is placed on getting the business in shape so it presents as strongly as possible, sometimes doing a business valuation to arrive at the most appropriate listing price for the business and discussing the tax implications to the seller of the business. Tom West is the owner of Business Brokerage Press and he has a great saying that most sellers and buyers don’t understand until they get into the negotiations of the transaction and it is – You name the price and I’ll name the terms.

Related piece