Small Business Marketing - Clarify Success

By Kevin P. Dervin
Posted Friday, January 21, 2005

When you hear the word “success” does it bring on visions of fame and fortune for your business? Have you clarified and articulated what that success will look like for your business and how you’ll know when you’ve achieved it?

What’s the definition of success for your business? Most small businesses are selling their time and expertise to deliver a service to their clients. So the question I want you to reflect upon is this… “What does success look like?”

Now before you start answering with responses like, “I’ll do $X Million in sales this year.” – STOP! That’s not what I meant. The question is… “What does success look like for your client(s)?” Remember, your clients? Isn’t it generally fair to say you’re in business to provide a service to your clients? When you do it right, what does it actually look like for the client?

Don’t get me wrong. I understand that we’re in business to make money – to make a living for ourselves. But that’s rarely enough in life. Most of the service providers I know love working with and servicing their clients. If you focus on taking care of that, the rest will almost certainly take care of itself. So what does success look like for the client when you do it right?

Spend some time and clarify success for your service business. What are you passionate about? What is it that you’re trying to do for your clients? What difference do you want to make? What do you “love” doing for them? What is it that they will have or be able to do because they bought your service from you?

This definition covers a broad range of issues for you and your business. All aspects of your business must be working well together to achieve this success. Be as specific as you can.

Now, if you really want to make this a valuable exercise for your business, then I challenge you to take the results of your own brainstorming and sit down with a few of your best client(s) to see what they think and get their input.

I think you can see that this type of reflection goes beyond listing your services or the results of your services. This is not, “I’m providing marketing and business growth services to help my clients’ realize greater return on their marketing investments.” Instead, let’s get down to, “Clients won’t have to struggle with their marketing efforts, wondering how they’re going to get more clients. They will be able to easily generate a consistent supply of high-quality leads and convert them into more business so they can focus on what they love doing – servicing their clients.” See the difference?

For most small business owners I’ve known and worked with, owning their own business is a “dream.” Unfortunately, if they’re constantly stressed about how and where to find more business, then their “dream” may become their “worst nightmare.”

Success then for my clients means helping them put a more systematic approach in place to ensure they’re constantly generating leads and converting them into more business so they can realize their “dream.”

When you clarify success in this way, you’ll be able to devote your attention to continuously improve what you do and how you deliver your services to your clients. You’ll be motivated to ensure you’re delivering that value to your clients and not just doing what you always do so the clients will pay their bills. With success clarified, you’ll be able to ask yourself, “How is what I’m doing today contributing to delivering success for my client?” And here’s the real kicker – because of your focus on your clients’ success, expect to see more success for your own business!

About the Author:
Kevin Dervin is the owner of KPD Marketing and creator of the ABCD Growth System. If you find this article useful, you’d probably enjoy Kevin’s FREE monthly eZine called ABCD Grow. To subscribe, just go to (http://www.ABCDgrowth.com) and follow one of the links to the FREE Stuff page!