***Master Your Marketing, Claim Your Success

It takes more than salespeople to assure your long-term success.nnYou have started a new company. Now how are you going to get customers to open their wallets and spend their money on what you have to sell?nnIf your answer to that question was, "I'll hire a sales staff" or, "I'll start advertising," you are thinking like most entrepreneurs. Those are good ideas, because you need to start triggering buying behavior among your target consumers.nnHowever, you need something else too. You need strategic marketing, because selling or advertising alone will not assure your success in the long run.nnOnly yesterday, I was reading an excellent article, "Assessing the sales/marketing divide: Delivering the right collateral, controlling the process and measuring the sales impact" by Christopher Hosfordon B2B.nnHosford's article makes it clear that a marketing strategy is not just a long-term plan. It provides benefits that have an immediate impact on cash flow:n

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• A unified marketing effort frees salespeople to do what they do best - sell. They won't need to spend up to 40 percent of their time creating their own materials and presentations, because marketing will get that job done for them.n
• When an overriding marketing message shapes your sales and advertising efforts, you differentiate yourself from your competitors and generate revenues faster. n

nSodon't think "marketing" only when your sales start to slump after your initial market penetration has taken place. Develop a marketing plan right from the beginning.nnWhere is your revenue going to come from not next week, or next month - but in two or three years? Marketing is the tool that answers those questions. To make sure your skills are state-of-the-art, enroll in our course, The Marketing Mastery Program.nnMichael Sexton is President of Trump University.