Let me get right to the point. The single most powerful small business marketing tool on the planet is a marketing system.

But … when I talk about a marketing system I am not referring to those academic exercises found in college marketing books.

A marketing system by my way of thinking is a simple (in many cases one page) document that specifically answers who you are, what you do, who needs it, how you plan to grab them by the throat, when you plan to do it and how you plan to pay for it…in a way that everyone in your organization, network, and client base can clearly understand.

So, let’s break it down into some simple steps.

1) Narrow Your Focus – create a description of your ideal client. Describe them as though they are sitting across the desk from your at this moment. Define only the market that you know needs what you offer and values what you have to offer. It is just as important to understand who you don’t want as a client.

2) Find and Communicate Your Core Difference – Even if you're making it up, you’ve got to find something that makes your business stand out from the pack. Once you do, you’ve got to build your entire marketing program around this difference. Is it red trucks, is it an unheard of guarantee, is it a very specific market niche. You can’t stand out trying to be all things to all people.

3) Package Your Business – Look for ways to build your unique difference into the experience your client or prospect has with your firm. Everything about your firm should communicate and deliver your unique promise. Package your services as products, communicate your unique process, name your service offerings.

4) Educate – Throw away the sales brochures and create marketing materials and web site content that clearly speaks to your ideal client and gives proof that your indeed uniquely qualified to solve their problems. Create case studies, testimonial sheets, client lists, process
description, service descriptions, the story of why you started your business.

5) Install the Lead Generation Trio – Advertising that generates permission, public relations that provide proof and referral systems that guarantee trust. Each of these three lead generating tactics works hand in hand to create a non stop flow of highly qualified leads.

6) Automate and Dominate – Once you start to create a flow of leads let technology do the heavy qualifying and selling for you. Ezines, email, blogs, web sites, white paper delivery, subscription lists – all must be automated in order to most effectively communicate as consistently as is necessary in today’s advertising message onslaught.

7) Live by a Calendar – Create the system and then work the system. Do whatever you must to make sure that you do at least one marketing activity every single day. Create a monthly calendar and give each month a marketing system theme. Get everyone in your organization involved – put the calendar in a very public place.