Marketing with confidence?

Would you spend money with a business, if you thought they were going broke and you wouldn’t get what you paid for?

That might seem like an odd question, yet since starting my business in the mid 1990′s, I have seen countless small business owners create nervousness within their marketplace, by the often illogical things they do, when times get tough.  They see sales drop or lose a big customer and BOOM – their thinking goes into scramble mode and they put panic measures into place.  These measures often serve to give the impression that the business in question is acting out of desperation.

Here’s why this is a problem: People do not spend money with, or recommend, businesses that they think are likely to go broke!

Now let’s compare that approach, to what we see when a business is inspiring confidence within the marketplace rather than creating nervousness and doubt.

Marketing with confidence

Ask anyone who has been in business for a while and they will confirm that it’s far easier to attract great new clients or generate more sales, when times are good.  One of the reasons for this is that when times are good, we feel confident and that feeling of confidence comes across, not only in our decision making but in our conversations and everything we do.

I was speaking with the owner of a web design business recently, who told me that he had just landed a massive new contract.  He believes that the primary reason he won that contract, was that he was able to quote for it from a position of strength.  He explained that because business was good, he conducted the meeting with this new client feeling confident and relaxed.  Then, he quoted a fee for the project that truly reflected the high quality of his services – Rather than a bargain basement fee, which he had been doing last year as he scrambled for new business unsuccessfully.

Now, I’m not saying that when times are hard, we should just smile and quote higher fees – Far from it!  What I am saying, is that we can either inspire confidence in our business, which will help our situation – Or we can generate doubt and make people feel nervous about our commercial future, which will only make things worse.

We can focus on answers or we can focus on problems.

We can focus on what we want or we can focus on what we fear.

If you control your focus, seek advice from people who have the answers you need and work REALLY hard, there are very, very few business challenges that you can’t kick the crap out of!