Look at Your Company in a New Way

When business owners or managers come to us about outsourcing their marketing, we usually begin with our discovery process of about 18 questions which helps us quickly learn about their company, challenges, and goals and enables us to develop an accurate proposal.

The discovery also has a huge benefit for them, though.  Without exception, we are told by our potential clients that the discovery questions helped them look at their company (or products) in a new way.

The Short Version of Our Discovery

It has taken years to develop the full questionnaire so you don’t get to see it all unless you contact us for a proposal — simple as that. The questions below provide a short, but thought-provoking, sample. Of course, some of the benefit comes through the discovery discussion with me or one of our other marketing managers.

3.  Is there a specific group of clients you want more of (demographically, geographically, by profession, income, etc.)?

5. Why do clients choose you and your company instead of your competitors?

6. What is the overall look and feel you want your messages and marketing materials to convey? That is, by simply glancing at your brochure/sales letter/website/etc what do you want a potential client to think about you and/or your company?

NOTE:  The answer given to #6 is ALWAYS (100% of the time) “professional”. However, I would like to claim that answer is almost always wrong. For most companies, the answer should be something related to your overall value proposition. “Professional” is probably a safe 2nd response 100% of the time.

8.  What are the top 5 concerns of your clients? That is, what concerns or problems do you usually need to alleviate before they will consider choosing you (or consider using a service like yours at all)? Please rate them from 1-5 where 1 is the smallest (least important) concern and 5 the largest (most important).

NOTE: For some reason, most owners and managers initially can only think of three.  However, they always have the other two by the end of the discovery.

14.  Where do you currently spend most of your marketing budget? How do most of your NEW clients find you?

15.  List any new marketing methods you would like to try in the future. Why?

NOTE:  The “why?” is the important part of #15.

Market Like a Salesperson Sells

The overall discovery usually prods the business owner or manager to think of their marketing a little like how a good salesperson approaches sales. Marketing often gets over-thought but, at the end of the day, you have to apply many of the same concepts to marketing as you do to sales.

This is the absolutely the purpose of question #8, albeit delivered in a subtle way. Go through the questions above and then try to think about your marketing from the standpoint of a salesperson. In fact, do this…

Imagine your business’ phone rings: 

1. Who do you hope it is? (the ideal client)
2. What do you hope they want to buy?
3. If you could literally only tell them ONE thing about your company or product before they hung up, what would you say? Let’s say you get one sentence. I bet you wouldn’t say, ” we are professional.”
4. What concerns will you have to address before they give you the order?

If you are interested in outsourced marketing and going through this full discovery, contact us online or call 832-628-0987.