The marketplace today celebrates disruptive forces and innovative concepts, products, services or leaders. Names and companies such as Jobs, Zuckerberg, Uber and Airbnb come to mind. But even such industry heavyweights can’t create or influence the market without those who will buy what is offered.
The market is guided and shaped every day by the cumulative interactions and decisions of individuals and companies as they seek and select goods or services to meet their wants and needs.
They are the market and this market rules.
This is where the going gets tough for you, the business owner.
One of your key jobs is to decipher what the market wants, and offer a framework of products or services shaped by valued content, solutions and desired results that will attract a segment of that market – your community of followers and prospects.
You believe you have a great product or service. You know you are incredibly experienced and skilled. Time and resources have been spent on message and brand development. And while you don’t have a marketing plan per se, you attend lots of networking meetings, are active on social media, publish some blog articles and have even begun to think about making promotional videos.
These activities have yielded clients, just not the number or type you expected to have. It’s become clear that either your offerings or your marketing efforts are not reaching the hearts and minds of those with whom you most want to do business.