Px6: Self-Assessment for Aspiring (and Established!) Entrepreneurs
Read Introduction
Read Part 1: Promises
Read Part 2: Possession
Read Part 3: Perceptions
Read Part 4: Progress
5/11 Axis: Promotion
They say marketing is a numbers game: The more people you contact, the more sales you’ll get. While this is partially true, the message is obviously important, too: It’s the flint that lights a spark in a potential customer. Without the right message, you lose the numbers game.
But the right message isn’t just one with broad, bald appeal to whomever. We need to do marketing in a way that’s true to ourselves while also appealing to others. “True to ourselves” means not only truth in advertising in the legal sense, but also that our marketing reflects the true character of our business — which, in turn, reflects our personal ideals and values. We get a check on those by associating with like-minded people: our narrow net (more commonly referred to as our network).
By making sure the messages we cast to our wide net are supported and affirmed by our small network, we stay aligned with our values, and true to our ideals, while also doing the legwork that’s necessary for sales success.
5th House: The Wide Net
1) To whom am I marketing? Whether or not they buy, who receives my marketing messages? Who are they, demographically? How did I decide on this audience?
2) What is my typical approach to selling myself? What tactics do I employ to try and draw people in? (For example, aggressive cold calling? Organic networking? Something else?) How do I describe myself, my business and my products/services? What words and images do I use? What attitudes or emotions do I convey, purposely or unwittingly (seriousness? urgency? humor? self-deprecation)? (It’s a good idea to ask a couple objective people for feedback on this question.)
3) Does my approach generate chemistry between myself and my audience? Do people respond to my marketing messages with interest or excitement? Or do they listen to my pitch and leave, or change the subject? Does anyone argue or resist? What do these responses say about my approach and my message? About my audience? (Be careful not to project your own faults onto your audience here!)
4) Does my audience buy from me? In very plain terms, does my wide-net marketing work? Do I generate sufficient sales income from my mass marketing efforts? Or do they need to be changed to generate more interest? (Note this may not be that the message needs to change but, instead, the audience or the vehicle of communication. Think about all possible parts of the puzzle before you change the message, especially if you believe the message is the best one for you and the audience. For example, maybe there is another audience segment that would be more responsive to your message.)
11th House: The Narrow Net (i.e., the Network)
1) With whom do I choose to associate? In contrast to the 4th House question of family or tribe, this question refers to your chosen affinities: people with whom you network, share resources and build relationships where ideals are shared and value is exchanged. Who is on my team, or who am I trying to get there, because they share my goals and ideals and/or add value to my business? List the names of specific individuals.
2) What specific ideals, values and goals do we share? Do those ideals, values and goals support my business success? If so, how? If not, do they block my success at all? How? Are those ideals, values and goals reflected in the marketing messages I send out widely? If not, what is the discrepancy? Does it need to be changed? How?
3) How might each relationship be further leveraged for business success? What help are my associates willing and able to give? What can I give back in return? How can we support each other’s growth? What creative solutions, approaches or products can we develop that neither of us could do alone?
4) Is there synergy between this narrow net and the wider net? Does anyone in my narrow net hold the key to a wide net I’m not yet connected with — contacts, insight, information or other resources? Can they help me strengthen my wide-net message to be more appealing? Can they give me other feedback that would help with my marketing and sales?
Stay Tuned!
Check back next week for the next phase of the Px6 rollout — the 6/12 Axis, where you’ll explore the impacts of your internal beliefs and spiritual journey on your daily practice building a business.
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Photo credits: Casting a net, Ring around the rosy
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