John Jantsch interview and creativeLIVE workshop

With books like, Duct Tape Marketing and The Commitment Engine, John Jantsch has established himself as a marketing expert with great insight into growing a business. Maybe you've planted your great business idea, and now it's time to water it and watch it grow. But how? What plan of action or growth strategy have you put together to ensure that your little idea will prosper? Check out this Q&A with John for some good ideas, and then sign up for his FREE online workshop from our friends at creativeLIVE. How do you spot your ideal customer? Paint a picture. What do they do for a living? At home? Where would we locate them? What do they love? What problems do they have and what triggers them to fix those problems? If you struggle with answering this question, start with thinking about yourself and who you would want to work with — and move forward from there. Why do people buy from you instead of the other guy? I've seen business pros of all levels struggle with this question. If you don't know how to answer, ask your customers. Customers love to be heard and, when asked for their input, they all have important insights to your value proposition. There are cookie-cutter value propositions out there, but the key to your business is committing to something that makes you and your services unique. Where are your gaps in customer engagement? Customer engagement is not a one-step process, nor is it linear, so there can be many gaps. Growing a business-to-consumer company is all about moving customers through an engagement system within your business. You must first get them to know you and like you before you can move on to the closing five important stages - trust, try, buy, repeat and refer. I explain this strategy further in my Marketing Hourglass (LINK). What are your 2-3 highest priority objectives for growth? This is where you need to keep it simple. Break it down to the essentials. Commit to no more than three priorities at a time and then set out to find what you will need to do check off those priorities. How can we create more streams of revenue? When you boil it all down, there are only 3 concrete ways to grow your business: add more customers, increase the average transaction size, and increase your total amount of purchasers. Existing customers are low hanging fruit you can sell to easily, but you need to keep them interested. Ask yourself what services or products you could add that your customers would enjoy. However, you can't live off existing customers forever, so make sure to think about what about a new market? Who can help? Have you ever met someone who owns a successful business and doesn't have a decent professional network? I don't. You need to start thinking about marketing partners. Make a list of people that would be motivated to promote your business. Then, think about what ventures would help you grow and test them out. If you own a bicycle shop for example, coordinate with the local gym down the street to give people a free personal trainer for a day. In return, the gym could give people 10% off on a bike tune up from your business. If you are a wedding photographer, team up with caterers, wedding bands and whomever else you can think of. What metrics impact your growth the most? Don't just think about revenue. Think about what drives that revenue. What element of your business is your homerun hitter? The most profitable way to grow a business is to take what it does well and grow organically through the base of your success. After you identify the key to your success, then you can start to build out from there. If you can answer these 7 simple questions, you will find yourself with a promising future ahead for your business. You can find out more about John Jantsch and Duct Tape Marketing during his free creativeLIVE course June 26-28!