As a small business owner, one of the number one factors you’ll encounter is how you’ll get your products or services out to the masses. You want to make sure you have your marketing plan down, so that business will come to you. If you don’t know much about how marketing works, you’re always able to learn more about it yourself, or learn from the experts.
That’s why Katrina Sawa, a marketing coach in Sacramento, is successful today. She’s helped small businesses achieve success achieve success through teaching them the importance of marketing and how to effectively implement it in order to build their business. In this interview, she explains how you should be in the business of marketing yourself, why every small business owner should be using social media, how to generate profits no matter the economic situation, and more.
Sheldon Alexander: In your words define what marketing is and how it’s beneficial for a business to implement it.
Katrina Sawa: Marketing is the most crucial part of your business. You should be in the business of marketing, not in the business of selling your products or services. I don’t care whether you like marketing or sale or not. If you are in business for yourself, you’re in business for marketing.
SA: It’s not about the product or service it’s about how you market it right?
KS: It is yeah. You want to learn everything you can to market it the right way. Things change. Markets change. Things that work will change. Things that worked two years ago aren’t working today.
SA: How do you think small business owners can prepare for the ever-changing market?
KS: They got to keep up with what’s going on right now. If you’re not keeping up with the Internet or the social media right now, then you have to do something about that. Whether you do it yourself, you delegate someone in your company to do it or hire a expert to do the work for you, it still has to get done. Don’t ignore it. Most people tend to ignore it, thinking they don’t need social media for their business. Their products or services or client are different. That’s not true. Everybody is on social media. If you don’t maximize on using this profit generating method, then you’re missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars every single year.
SA: That’s true. Social media is evolving big time. Even giant corporations are using social media, and are generating profits on that marketing method alone, aside from all the advertising they do.
KS: Small businesses don’t even need to spend money on advertising that much anymore. Times have changed. There are still things you may need to do if you have a brick and mortar location. But if you’re using advertising, you better be taking prospects to your website from those ads now instead of just having a phone number in the ad. That’s not going to work.
SA: You’re right about that. Social media is here now, and businesses can market with little to no cost now. With millions of potential customers on social media, small business owners can jump in and take a small portion of the market share.
KS: The problem is though that people will latch on the free things often and only focus on the free things, when you still need to do some of the paid things too. Even with the free things, you have to have a strategy in place to market and sell your products. You can’t expect to just jump online and talk to your friends and expect to get business that way. Like I just got a couple of clients recently on Facebook. The reason was because I was interacting in a positive, win-win, and a sales and marketing oriented way.
SA: Throughout your experience in helping clients build their businesses, what are some of the things that they struggle with in growing their business?
KS: They don’t know where to spend their time. They don’t know what to invest their hard earned dollars on. Or they don’t invest in anything at all that they need to be investing in like upgrading their website, or hiring an assistant to to handle some work for you, or purchasing the right software automation, purchasing a shopping cart program for their website. Whatever it is, there are certain things that you need to be investing in. That way, you can further achieve your business and personal goals. But unfortunately, people base their decisions on what;s on their check books than where they want to go in life. If you want to be a $100,000 business, but you’re only making $20,000 currently, you must make decisions based on if you were already that $100,000 business.
SA: That’s true. People want $1 million dollars but don’t want $1 million dollar problems. The more money you want to make, the more problems you’ll face, and the more wise you must be in solving problems. And I would say an assistant is definitely key in building your business. Wouldn’t you agree?
KS: Most definitely. It’s crucial in order for you to build your business. If you want to make $80,000+ monthly as a entrepreneur, or even if you are a current small business owner with a group of employees, and you’re making a few hundred grand already, how much of that are you taking home? If you look at that, and don’t have the right people in place to help build your business from the start, in order to help you implement the marketing campaigns, to help you with the follow ups, to help you with social media or to upgrade your website, or anything else that needs to be done to build your business, you’ll never make the kind of money you really want to make.
SA: I totally agree with you on that. You gotta make the adjustments where adjustments are needed.
KS: Yeah, and it’s hard to figure those things out on your own. At times, you may not see what’s right in front of you. That’s why people hire me or other people as their business or marketing coaches. I hire my own coaches because I can’t see all the holes of my business myself sometimes, and may not see every opportunity that’s right in front of me.
SA: Some small business owners may see marketing as an expense, but in reality it’s an investment. In your view, how much percentage wise should small business owners take out of their total revenue to put into marketing and why?
KS: Well there used to be a formula to calculate that when I was in advertising class, and that was 10 years ago. It used to be about 3%-6%. But not that doesn’t matter. You need to put back as much money as you can for the right places to get you going further. It’s not a matter of budgeting a certain percentage of money anymore. It’s about budgeting a percentage, but also looking out for other opportunities that are ahead, and not limiting yourself from taking advantage of those. Like for example, if there’s a huge event that you must become a exhibitor, and it’s $5,000 but it’s out of your budget. But you have to be there because everyone in your target market is going to be there, you better buck up and find out how you’ll get that $5,000. Don’t make that an excuse that you don’t have $5,000 and that’s why you’ll not go there. You need to be flexible.
SA: A majority of small business owners use social media for the wrong reason. They primarily use it to promote their products or services, which can turn off prospects. Name a few ways social media should be properly used to obtain leads and sales.
KS: The number one thing is you need to interact, you got to get personal, and you got to create a win-win situation, and you got to give. You got to give of yourself. Give content, give answers, give solutions in your posts and responses. Put a call to action in your P.S. Line. You just have to interact. Don’t just sit there and add a bunch of friends and not talk to them. You need some type of system to where when you someone to your friends list, you send them a message thanking them for adding you, or you post on their wall. You become a fan on their fan page and post over there. And then when they respond back you need to continue the conversation. It’s about continuing the conversation and figuring out what their problems are. I don’t tell them anything what I do, or how I can help, or what my products are services are until I find out what they need, if they need anything that I can help them with. Like they may need a virtual assistant, and I’ll just refer them to one. From me just helping them, I usually them hey I also have a website with a lot of free resources that they can sign up for, and then they usually opt in onto my list.
SA: So basically you lead first with helping them with a referral or anything of value that will help them out. And then you propose to them that they should view your information as well.
KS: Yes. You just pull them into your funnel. You got to have ways for them to get into your funnel. So you got to have a website where they can opt into your funnel. Your website should have a opt in box where you can input their name and email address to get onto your list. You must offer something for free for them opting in. You should have valuable resources on your website. You also need to have simple ways for prospects to follow you. That means telling them they can follow you on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.
SA: We are at a time now where information marketing is the best way to market yourself and build credibility for prospects to learn more about you and your business. How can small business owners make their content unique that stands out and helps them generate sales?
KS: Well you gotta create your own signature system or your own unique branding system. Something that is unique to use. Something that will separate you from the rest. Like I have my own Jump Start Your Marketing System. It’s a very systematic approach to how to start, grow, and market your business. Other marketers may have their own systems. You can give a talk, and then turn it into a free report. Then you can slim it down to the basic components, then fluff it up into a home study program that you can teach, then you can have a whole tele-series on your system. You can even have a whole live event. You can do so much when having your own unique branded system. I teach people how to do that, and even pull it out of you. Because sometimes we are already doing it, it’s just we don’t know what it looks like.
SA: What can small business owners do during this tough economy to generate continuous sales from their existing customers?
KS: First of all you want to stop thinking that it’s a tough economy. 90% of people that I know had their best year last year. You got to not think in your head that it’s a tough economy. You’re just talking to the wrong people that don’t want to buy from you. You need to talk to different types of people. You don’t need to discount your rates. In fact, you can even charge more and there are people that would be willing to pay it. You just aren’t talking to the right people through the right mediums, and you’re not marketing in the right ways. Things have changed, which is why I have said that you got to keep up with the pace of what’s going on, otherwise you’re going in get lost in the shuffle. It’s about changing your whole mindset around. The economy does not determine your business success.
SA: Do you have any other comments you would like to say to inspire readers looking to grow their business?
KS: Yes you really want to learn more. You don’t want to learn too much to the point that you’re not implementing. You want to learn and implement, learn and implement. It’s about continuous learning, and continuously taking the right action. If you don’t know what to do, you need to reach out to someone that can tell you or show you what you need to do. Whether if it’s a coach or if it’s a program, or a local business center or networking group, you need to invest your time and money to make that happen. This is how I developed a six-figure business, and I wouldn’t have got to where I did if I didn’t hire the coaches and staff to help me along the way. There’s just no way. Because I didn’t know how to change my business the way that I did, and leverage my time and expertise to really make this the kind of business that it is.
For more information on how to JumpStart your small business with creative ideas and a clear Action Plan to reach your unique target market and goals and for an opportunity to talk with Katrina Sawa in a complimentary Strategy Session, go grab your 3 Free Gifts online now at http://www.JumpStartYourMarketing.com/gifts.