Steve Clarke’s Top Ten Tips for Business Success

(and yes… even if your customers are spending less these days and irrespective of your product or industry.)

  1. Genuine Passion - To succeed in business you must have an infinite supply of genuine passion and tons of enthusiasm. Some days are tougher than others to whip up enthusiasm. Remind yourself why you got into business in the first place. Has your vision faded along with your passion? If you’re feeling battle weary, relight the fire… Establish a good positive support network that helps you fuel your passion for your business.
  2. Niche Market - When you focus effectively on “niche markets” rather than trying to offer all things to all men you will see a massive shift in enquiries. You can deliver a targeted message to a targeted audience that want what you have on offer. More good news… you can operate in lot’s of niches! Your message needs to be tailored to the niche to get on their radar and open a dialog.
  3. Create a Product or Service People Want. Here’s a bit of a twist. I always remember being told, “find a customers need and fill it”. I’d challenge that now. I’d argue that if you find a customers want and fill that you’ll have far greater success. Think about it for a moment. Who gets more pleasure from buying something you need and who’d rather buy something you want? You can buy a perfectly reliable, run around car for £3000. So why do so many people spend over £30,000 - because it’s what they want…
  4. Deliver a Quality Product. Too many businesses spend inordinate amounts of time and money trying to perfect things rather than getting out there and generating sales. You need to offer a quality product or service that delivers value for money and continually work on perfecting things along the way. Don’t wait until everything is perfect, it never will be. In the words of Nike, just do it!
  5. Become a Multi-Faceted Marketing Machine. Around 80% of UK businesses rely upon just one or two marketing methods to generate sales leads, this is a very dangerous strategy. Relying principally on referrals and word of mouth is very dangerous in todays market. We are living in the information age and your competitors are only a mouse click away from your prospects at all times. You must be proactive in on-line and off-line direct response marketing. Develop an arsenal of simple marketing methodologies.
  6. Listen To Your Customers. At every opportunity you should be listening to your customers and your prospects. Invite feedback, good and bad. Too many businesses turn their back on problems or try to seep the problems under the carpet. Yet, when you successfully turn a negative into a positive, you don’t only fix the problem, you can often open up the floodgate of referrals.
  7. Regular Repeat Action. Marketing is like taking a shower or a bath. It’s not something you do once and it’s done. It’s something that I’d recommend you do on a regular basis for it to be effective. People miss your first email, they glance at your direct mail piece and then because of your headline or your message they actually respond to your 4th 5th or 10th direct marketing message.
  8. Test and Measure. If you can’t measure the response of your marketing you could just be throwing money away. Build in simple mechanisms to allow you to test and measure all of your marketing activity. Have people call a dedicated phone number that is only used for a specific advert, direct people to a specific landing page on your web site where you can capture their details. There are so many simple ways to test and measure that you can eliminate any guess work and increase your marketing efforts in the most effective areas.
  9. Pipeline of Sales Leads. All of your marketing efforts should be thought of as a means of continually topping up your pipeline or sales funnel with fresh leads. Do not let the pipe run dry! Once prospective clients enter the pipeline ensure you are providing valuable information and assistance along the way. Build a strong relationship and remember - people are only ready to buy when they’re ready to buy - not when you’re ready to sell. Build on the relationship so that you are the company or person they naturally go to when they are ready.
  10. Follow Up. Whatever else you do… follow up. It amazes me that 49% of businesses get a lead, send a letter, brochure or quote and never follow up. They don’t want to appear pushy, they don’t want to hassle people. Don’t be pushy. Develop a follow up strategy where you provide more valuable and relevant information to help the client. Only 2% of people buy on first contact. That means if you aren’t following up you are leaving 98% of your potential business on the table. Remember - your competitors are only a mouse click away at all times.


In business I come across three types of people

Those that make things happen

Those that watch things happen

and those that wonder what happened.


Which one will you be?

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