Offering value is not enough. If no one knows (or cares) about what you have to offer, it doesn’t matter how much value you create. Without Marketing, no business can survive – people who don’t know you exist can’t purchase what you have to offer, and people who aren’t interested in what you have to offer won’t become paying customers.

Every successful business finds a way to attract the attention of the right people and make them interested in what’s being offered. Without prospects, you won’t sell anything, and without completing profitable transactions, your business will fail.

Marketing is the art and science of finding “prospects” – people who are actively interested in what you have to offer. The best businesses in the world find ways to attract the attention of qualified prospects quickly and inexpensively. The more prospects you entice, the better off your business will be.

Marketing is not the same thing as selling. While “direct marketing” strategies often try to minimize the time between attracting attention and asking for the sale, Marketing and selling are two different things.

Marketing is about getting noticed; Sales is about closing the deal.

Rule #1 of Marketing is that your potential customer’s available attention is limited. Keeping up with everything in your world would require way more attention than you actually have to work with. To compensate, you filter: you ration your attention, allocating more to things you care about and less to things you don’t. So does everyone else, including your potential prospects. To get someone’s attention, you have to find a way around their filters.

High-quality attention must be earned. When you’re seeking someone’s attention, it’s useful to take a moment to remember that you’re competing against everything else in their world. In order to be noticed, you need to find a way to earn that attention by being more interesting or useful than the competing alternatives.

Attention doesn’t matter if people don’t care about what you’re doing. If all you’re looking for is attention, don’t bother with all of this business stuff: doing something crazy will get you all the attention you’ll ever want. When it comes to business, however, some kinds of attention aren’t worth having. You want the attention of prospects that will ultimately purchase from you – otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

It’s nice to be the center of attention, but business is about making profitable sales, not winning a popularity contest. Being featured on national television or on a huge web site is a wonderful thing, but very often this kind of broad publicity fails to deliver actual sales. Spend time and energy earning the attention of the people who are likely to buy from you, and you’ll inevitably build your business.

So……how do you get someone’s attention? Join us Wednesday for Marketing – It’s All About Getting Noticed. Feel free to bring your lunch.