Written by Benita Dreesen | 28 September 2010

All businesses are about marketing and innovation. In today’s society where things are so competitive, very often a business with a better product does not necessarily mean that the company has better revenues. Or the person that is the best in a job, is going to keep that job. We live in a society were downsizing is going on, where companies are going out of business and where doing the best job, does not guarantee a sense of certainty about the future. Many people feel that the things they were trained for are disappearing.

How you can market your business more effectively? How to optimize the assets you are sitting on? How to increase the efficiency of your sales, marketing and communication activities? By adapting new principles that require from you a new way of thinking. By paying attention to new distinctions. And by thinking pro-actively.

To turn one-shot sales into continuous streams of income, to gain distinction and advantage over other competitors in your industry: the main pillars are marketing and innovations.

Work on your branding, define your USP, change the headlines (in an ad it’s the opening statement, in a press release it’s the headline and the first paragraph, in a sales process it’s the first 3 minutes)… the first group of words are very powerful. Most people think people are buying a product; that’s not true. They are buying a result, a benefit, an outcome that is self-serving to the end-user. People couldn’t care if you have a good business, they couldn’t care if you have a big company… The only reason why they deal with you and they let you deal with them is, that to some extent, they see an advantage in it for themselves.

The clearer, the greater, the more powerful you are by expressing, articulating, demonstrating, illustrating, comparing how you render that advantage better than anyone else they deal with, the more business you get. Always think: what does that mean for me, the customer?