The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Don't

Chapter 7

Fact 5: If You Don’t Market Your Business, You Won’t Have One

We have all heard marketing experts tell us not to think of marketing as an expense, but rather, as an investment. And what they say is certainly true. But instead of proclaiming the obvious, these so-called experts should be explaining to owners the two most important—and frequently forgotten—macro concepts regarding marketing. First, marketing is not a department. Marketing, in all its many aspects, is about capturing customers and doing all you can to keep them coming back, and achieving that is not just the responsibility of one department. It must be, either directly or indirectly, the responsibility of every employee in the organization. Second, marketing is ultimately about making more money—gross profit, to be precise. And that won’t happen if the overall gross profit is not sufficient to cover costs and expenses. This might seem like a very elementary idea, but business failures occur far more often than business successes, and lack of gross profit is one of the main causes of those failures. One thing you can be sure of is that successful owners understand the importance of gross profits, and they battle hard, through pricing and product offering, to preserve them.

There is nothing pretty about marketing—it can be a blood sport. And its function is fairly straightforward—attract them, sell them, and keep them. That’s the simple reality of marketing. Unfortunately, that definition is the only simple ...