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Grow Your Business By Developing Your Marketing Skills

Believe it or not, marketing is one of the most essential parts of any business. If you’re not good in marketing, then you have to bring on board other people who are good in marketing to fill up your weakness.

However, business owners and managers must learn how to market and sell. Sales and marketing is the lifeline of any business. If you stop sales and marketing today, your business might stop in the next three to six months.

This tells you the important of sales and marketing. The more you market, the more your business grows. This means it is very important to develop your marketing skills and abilities. You entire business system and team must be designed to market and sell.

Remember, marketing is the process of attracting people to your offer. It involves attracting people’s attention and converting them into potential customers—leads. The end of marketing is leads and the end of sales is customers.

Well, if you’re serious about marketing and developing your marketing skills; here are the top 10 ways you can do it.

Are you in business or starting a business? Use our business plan template to research, analyze and develop a strategic business plan for your business.

#1: Smile at People

Smiling is one of the greatest marketing tools of all time. The more you smile, the more you create a cheerful and enthusiastic mood in your customers. Customers are more willing to hear from you when you look cheerful.

Smile at work and to your customers

Appearance counts a lot in marketing. A good appearance coupled by a smiling face will always make you inviting and welcoming—which will make people hear and listen to you.  Marilyn Monroe noted,   “A smile is the prettiest thing to wear.”

The more you smile, the more appealing you become to your customers and the more they become willing to do business with you. That means you have to learn to smile even if things aren’t going on well in your business! Remember that a smile can turn your business around!

#2: Be Polite to People

Apart from smiling, you have to learn to be polite to people. Being polite and courteous is a significant sign which shows that you value and respect your current and potential customers. You have to learn to use kind gestures like, “Hi” and many others in your speech.

Image: Linkedin

When you treat your customers like a king, they’ll treat your business as their queen. You will develop a strong bond of fellowship and communion between you and your customers. As long as the relationship exits, business will flourish on it.

Business is built on relationships. As you build the relationship by being polite with your customers, you will strengthen the bond between you and your customers and that will make the business to grow and flourish beyond your wildest imagination!

Are you in business or starting a business? Use our business plan template to research, analyze and develop a strategic business plan for your business.

#3: Learn to Listen

One of the greatest weapons in marketing is listening. The more you listen to your customers and potential customers, the more you know their problems and the more you can restructure your offering to solve their problems.

Image: Vimeo

But the problem is that most business people don’t listen to understand their customers but rather listen to reply. Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People said, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply.”

That is the major reason the sale is not made! If you’re going to be a good marketer, you have to learn to listen to understand your customers.

#4: Give, Give and Give

Everybody wants something for nothing. Naturally people are drawn to generous people. The more generous you are in business, the more you will draw your customers to you. So you have to find a way of giving more than your customers are paying you for.

Give Something Special To Your Customers

The more you give to your customers, the more they value and appreciate you. The more they value and appreciate your offers, the more they will look up to you to provide them your services and the more your business will grow.

Give assistance, time, knowledge and help your customers solve their problems; and they’ll be drawn to you. One of the best ways to continually give to your customers is by blogging. Blogging helps you to show your generosity to your customers.

#5: Keep in Touch

One of the most essential parts of life is keeping in touch with your family, friends and love ones. The more you keep in touch with people, the more they remember and keep you at heart. Customers will keep you at heart if you willingly, honestly and genuinely keep in touch with them.

Keep in Touch With Your Customers

We live in a digital age. You can keep in touch with all your customers—even if they are one million. You can do that through mobile messaging, social media and email. If you gather the emails of all your customers, then you can keep in touch with them by sending them emails from time to time.

If you don’t keep in touch with your customers, they’ll lose touch with you and someone else will steal their heart away from you. This is the more reason to learn to use digital platforms like email, social media and mobile messaging to keep in touch with them—not just for promoting your offers to them—but engaging them through value addition.

#6: Show Respect

Everybody wants to feel respected. And the best way to do this is to genuinely, sincerely and honestly show respect to people. The more you show people respect, the more you boost their self esteem. Showing respect to people develops your marketing skills and draws people to you.

Show Respect To Your Customers

Every worker must learn to show respect to the customer as well as their boss. Remember it is the customer that pays the wages—not the boss. Henry Ford, the legendary industrialist and founder of Ford Motor Company said, “It is the not the employer who pays the wages. The employer only handles the wages… It is the customer who pays the wages.”

The more you respect your employees, the more they’ll show respect to the customers. Remember employees are a reflection and the extension of the company to the customers and the public. Once you earn the trust of your employees, customers, partners and directors, you have established your business!

Are you in business or starting a business? Use our business plan template to research, analyze and develop a strategic business plan for your business.

#7: Dress Well

The way you dress is the way people will address you. So if you know how you want people to be addressed, then all you have to do is to dress in that manner. It all boils down to you, a company with a well dressed staff means that the company is professional, serious and dedicated to success.

Always Dress Well in Business

That means you will have to dress for success in business. Dress to exude confidence, trust and respect from your customers. Your dressing must be inviting and draw people to you rather than scare and drive people away from you.

Establish a dress code for your business. Ensure that each person in your company abides and dress in accordance with that dress code. The dress code must also lay standards on haircuts, grooming, types of attire for work and many others.

#8: Show Gratitude

Believe it or not, whatever you appreciate appreciates. The more you appreciate people for what they do, the more they will like you, respect you and believe you want the best for them. Customers are not different!

Show Gratitude to Your Customers Always

When you show gratitude to your customers, you prove that you appreciate the effort and contribution towards the development of your business. Someone said, “If you’re not thankful, you’ll not be tank-full.”

If you want your business tank to be full with contracts, deals and orders, the way to do that is to show gratitude to your customers. Send them “Thank You” messages and find ways and means to appreciate them for their business associations and transactions!

#9: Show Remorse

It is always easy to offend people in business. That means one of the marketing skills you have to develop to always keep your customers is to learn to show remorse. Learn to say “Sorry” when you realize that you have offended the customer.

Learn To Show Remorse to Your Customers

The customer is always right!” That’s the normal business jargon. Truly, the customer is not always right, but your job is to make the customer always feel he or she is right—so he or she can always be happy. After all, without your customers, you have no business!

Well, so you have to develop the marketing skill of showing remorse. Learn to say sorry and show regret for anything done wrong to your customer. Then find a way to make up for the wrong. Remember that marketing is not selling—but building a relationship that you can sell something on it! So build a strong relationship with your customers!

#10: Read Books

Information is the key driver of progress and development in every company. Companies that are continually learning and upgrading their knowledge always stay ahead in their field. If you’re going to develop your marketing skills, then you have to read more books and attend more seminars on marketing.

Upgrade Your Knowledge Through Books & Seminars

Commit yourself to reading something on sales and marketing every month. After all, if you stop sales and marketing today, your business is going to be off the scene in three to six months. If you truly believe in sales and marketing as the lifeline of your business, then invest in it!

The more you read, review and apply what you learn in marketing to your business, the more your sales will skyrocket. So you must always be hungry for books, seminars and events on marketing, sales and customer service.

The more you improve and develop your marketing skills, the stronger the relationship you will build with your customers. Always remember that marketing is not selling—but building a relationship that you can always do business with it.

If you build a strong and vibrant relationship with your customers, you will attract more customers to your business and grow the business. This can be done through the following:

  1. smiling at your customers,
  2. being polite to your customers,
  3. listening to your customers,
  4. being generous to your customers,
  5. keeping in touch with your customers,
  6. showing respect to your customers,
  7. dressing well in front of your customers,
  8. showing gratitude to your customers,
  9. showing remorse to you customers, and
  10. reading books and attending seminars,

Hope you have learned how to practically develop your marketing skills. If you want to be the best in sales and marketing as an employee, simply practice these 10 steps over and over again until it becomes a habit. The same thing applies if you own or manage a business.

Anyway, if you need assistance to develop a digital marketing strategy for your business, kindly reach us. We can help you create your website, blog and social media platforms. If need contents for your business blog or social media pages. Don’t forget our address:

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