Marketing — The Foundation of Entrepreneurship

Do you want to unleash the most potent weapon to reach all the goals you dreamed of?

Do you want to develop the world’s best product?

Do you want to reach out to your clients globally from the comfort of your home?

Do you want to be your own master leading a blissful and satisfying life?

Do you want to achieve all of the above with minimum financial investment?

If you answer yes to any or all of the above then let us embark on this journey — the journey towards freedom, fulfillment and an amazing life.

The only way to create an extraordinary life is through MARKETING.

The Product we need to market is ourselves. Yes, you and I are the most versatile and amazing product ever created.

Now immediately you will ask me why marketing is so powerful or what makes it so strong a weapon and how to utilize its immense power in this age of digital propagation?

My aim in this article is to focus on us as individuals and how we can develop ourselves to take up the challenges of life and become financially independent by leveraging the power of the digital medium to promote our services.

Mark these words, dear friends — we are only as successful in our ventures, any venture, to the extent to which we successfully Market ourselves. Whether we are in direct sales or in any job and position, we have to get our ideas, thoughts, feelings and desires across to the other person or persons — in short we have to “market” ourselves, sell our ideas in return for some desirable service — financial or otherwise. Unless we let people know our demands and wishes, nobody will mind read our thoughts and help us achieve them.

Quoting Digital Deepak Kanakaraju “The best known always beats the best”, the way we present ourselves, the more people know about our professional expertise the larger will be our impact in our chosen field. We may not be the very best but when more people know us we will have a greater chance of success.

This is the reason why companies spend crores in ads, enlist Brand Ambassadors, sponsor events, games, tournaments. The idea is to push across a product or a service and remain in the customer’s radar at all times.

Marketing is dynamic and the market with our target audience is forever evolving. A big mistake is to assume that our customers will remain the same forever. A simple example is how we choose a garment at the shop. At the same price and quality we are offered multiple varieties and yet we choose the one that we feel matches with the inner picture we hold in our mind. This is why market research and understanding the mindset of our target customers is of prime importance. More so because as the CEO of our own venture we are the Captain, the sailor, the oarsman and the navigator of our ships.

Below is one of my favourite motivation to keep me in the hunt comes from “ Who Moved My Cheese” by Dr. Spencer Johnson which can uplift a sagging spirit. Success mindset is keeping a Positive Mental Attitude in spite of all the challenges faced.

Let’s proceed.

So we can describe marketing as a combination of five basic skills that forms the instrument to project ourselves to the world. Any small change can disrupt the whole approach of how a customer feels, sees or wants a service to be. If we as service providers are willing to create and fill in these gaps we will succeed in creating our niche.

These are Communication, Personal Branding, Sales, Economics and Integrated Digital Marketing.

Let us explore each of the above pillars and lay the foundation of our goals.

Communication: “Ask and it shall be given to you”.

Communication is undeniably one of the most important skills we need to develop. Without being able to effectively get across our message to anybody, we cannot expect any results. If we do not ask, the result is always NO. Now just like an ad on the roadside, we must not try to attract everyone and instead focus on our target clientele. Forced attention scratches the surface and does not go deep. As individuals, our Content must add value to others, it must sync with the conversation going on in the mind of our customer — say an issue or problem is nagging you and my article addresses it and offers to solve it, you will be drawn to it, read it, check out the services I offer and can become my customer. Same way I can approach you to solve my problems in which you are a subject matter expert. So our Content must prick at a problem, analyse it and offer a solution. Communication unleashes the leader in us.

In this digital age it is easy to fall into the trap of a self declared expert without having in-depth knowledge and experience. The best way to become one is by putting the shoulder to the wheel. Every article we write, every solution we propose must be an extension of ourselves. If we do not believe in our proposals, then we can never deliver an impact and lasting solution. With so many fly-by-night operators, people are spoiled for choice and mostly confused by the huge amount of excess data that hits them. You and I also face this every day — a barrage of ads, emails, phone calls, flashy promotions, all of it. The lure of the Shiny Object Syndrome is addictive so as we guard ourselves against this SOS, we also have to nurture our customers with 10X or 100X value or else face the danger of losing them.

Let me share an example. Suppose I want to earn 1 crore or 100,00,000. What options do I have?

I can try to earn based on my reach, time and resources in some of the following ways.

Re.1 from 1 crore people, or

Rs.1000 from 10,000 people, or

Rs.10000 from 1000 people, or

Rs.100000 from 100 people.

So we see the more our services increase in value the lesser customers we need to reach.

Quality gains importance over quantity. Rolls Royce do not reach out to everyone wanting to buy a car, they target the few super elite, setting extremely high quality barriers.

Now that we have created great content and got an idea of our target clients, let’s explore how we can have the undivided attention of our customers.

Personal Branding — Why does a film starring Amitabh Bachhan or Sharukh Khan or an offering by Steven Speilberg draw us to the movies? Why do we stop to listen, read articles, buy brands promoted by them? What draws us to Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and all of the tribe is this charisma that makes us listen to them, follow them. They become role models, sometimes bigger than the company they created. We as human beings love this personal touch. The closer I can get to your mind the better I can understand you and the better I can communicate. And we must be vulnerable. As people like and get drawn to people, people who have made the mistakes, learnt from them, used them as steps to get higher. This is the power of Personal Branding. It is this Attention magnet that draws potential clients to us, convincing them that our offering or service adds value to their lives by solving their problems. Companies pay huge amounts for a known face to promote their product or services. It does take time, a long time, sometimes years together of relentless perseverance to build this reputation. Failures are proudly displayed like medals, each one signifying a victory over a challenge.

Sales — Many of us dread sales, avoid sales. Corporate sales symbolises endless phone calls, immediate offers, order rejections, mountainous targets, overbearing bosses right up to payment collection and make us feel like a school kid playing Shane Warne on a spinning track.

And yet it is the Transaction that runs the show. Pay in & pay out — Bills and Incentives. As salespersons we are the hunters who bring food to the table and ensure that our ventures remain successful.

To become a super salesperson, you and me, we must be ready to face Rejection. Rejection hurts our egos in general. More than a decade on the road, in daily sales I have tried to separate my ego from the effect, learn the lesson and let go. It was really tough in the beginning — it always is. Pareto’s principle of 80:20 applies in most cases — 8 out of 10 offers will not be converted to a Sales Order. So to close 6 deals we need to have a hot lead base of 30. Target set. So let’s Get, Set, Close. One of the most crucial actions for any salesperson is to close the deal.

A great way to increase our sales is to nurture our existing customers like valuable assets — it is where we have already built our trust and they will happily transact again and also recommend us to others they know. We as people tend to give high weight-age on the word of mouth promotion. Here we see a person who is satisfied with a service or product by actually using it — not a flashy TV commercial. The relationship begins with a sale, even if there is an equivalent competition offering, a delighted customer will always prefer a service provider one is satisfied with and has become comfortable with. Even dissatisfied customers can be turned around with proper nurturing and support.

Economics — The world’s economy flourishes on debt. I was shocked when I heard this. It was totally against what I had believed till then. The cycle of debt increases the value of money. Every time you and I take a loan, get credit, the interest we pay or promise to pay increases the value of the loaned amount. This virtual and future increase in value runs the show. So fits in all the terms like Cash Reserve, interest rates and of course inflation. The interest we earn on our savings deposits, fixed deposits or our investments in mutual funds and stock markets with the expectation of higher returns are all part of this cycle.

The market will always test us repeatedly by tripping us, pushing us, stalling our plans and rewarding us for our perseverance, tenacity, grit, determination and focus. Understanding this debt cycle provides us a window to understand the rolling of money and the creation of wealth.

The more we spend, the more our economy will grow. An average age of the country in the range of 20–40 years is a growing economy where people are building their life — career, family, luxuries. People in this age group will be spending for necessities and luxuries and money keeps rolling and gains in value.

Knowledge of economics is also very crucial to decide which market or clients we should focus on. All markets are dynamic and it is ever changing. It helps us gauge the market psychology and guides us to evolve and adapt and upgrade. Adaptability is essential for survival e.g. I may have a great design for a desk-phone but will I invest so much in such a product in this mobile world? Probably not; unless I want to focus on a small market segment. An example in this Nokia or Kodak. The digital revolution dethroned the market leaders as they failed to adapt to the changing market demand. Alternatively, we look at a company like ITC which grew as a cigarette manufacturing company. With growing health concerns against smoking, ITC has diversified to FMCG products in personal care products, staples, food-grains and has created a diversified portfolio and has thus created a solid foundation of customers, an in demand market and a healthy book of accounts.

Integrated Digital Marketing -

Labour is a Perishable Commodity — if we do not work, we lose our ability to work and our efficiency falls. Action is the Bridge that converts our Dreams to Achievement.

Integration of the Personal Branding, Communication and Transaction is bound by Trust.

You listen to me — that is my Communication. It is a two way path and listening is an integral part of effective communication. I get your Attention every time I post or state something — it is my Personal Branding and you pay for the service I provide you — the Transaction. You will part with your hard earned money only if you Trust me.

In this way we build our communication through our Content, Attention, Trust, Transaction or the CATT funnel. Thus we will become successful to the extent we build our MassTrust — the more people trust us the more our reach will increase. How we achieve the same, what instruments or platforms we use, how we get our message across forms the basis of the Integrated Digital Marketing system.

One single channel may not be sufficient to reach out to clients. We have to learn to use all the available channels to our advantage. Say, my focus is on Affiliate marketing — I will promote some products and pocket the commission. Do I need to bother about SEO, Social media, email marketing, advertising, content creation — of course I do. To get my message across I have to create content, reach out to potential customers through social media, email, web page, advertise them for greater reach and do SEO to rank high in the buyer’s radar. I may not be an expert in all the fields but I need to know the functions of all of them even if I outsource some activities to others. It is what my mentor Digital Deepak terms as “T” based knowledge — going Wide on the relevant subjects in our field of operation and going Deep in our niche.

As digital entrepreneurs we must embrace Digital Marketing as compared to Traditional Marketing. While traditional marketing like banners, ads on magazines, newspapers, TV commercials, radio ads, mobile posters and similar channels, our reach will be limited by the physical resources available and a huge expense with almost no returns.

However, with the spread and massive reach of the internet over multiple devices Digital Marketing will help us connect with our prospective clients on a much larger scale and we can approach any customer anywhere in the globe at a very affordable investment. Our customer can view our offerings or ads on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp,and Email, in short when we leverage the power of Social Media Marketing.

Now where do we go from here? Anywhere worth going and anything worth achieving takes intense focus, relentless perseverance and a never say die attitude. We have to work on each aspect and build the pieces together one piece at a time.

We tend to get demotivated by failures, rejections and events beyond our control. So we need to keep our enthusiasm high by focusing on why we started, take one step at a time. Read and listen to motivational works, books, audio books, music, podcasts, whatever keeps us going and get back on the field. I share below some of my greatest motivations that have kept me going in tough times. And relentless Action is the only key to success.

The Strangest Secret — by Earl Nightingale (this awesome audio is available on Youtube and is a storehouse of energy and a call to action).

DigitalDeepak.com — a wealth of information is available on all topics related to Digital Marketing — blogs, articles, videos in simple direct language.

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This article is a part of an assignment in the Digital Deepak Internship Program.