Mentoring Event Makes Real Impact
Something that I’ve been involved in for some time has been Mentor Magic.
I created it in November 2005 based upon my business experiences (which you can read earlier in my blog) and my idea to help other businesses avoid all the problems I encountered (or, more like, created for myself).
There is a big concept, and one that is beginning to unfold, as I create the team and resources to take it further. But, for the last 18 months I have been running, in conjunction with the Hampshire and IoW Branch of the Institute of Directors, Mentor Magic events.
We hire a theatre and invite four businesses to come along and present their pressing business problem to a panel of entrepreneurial experts. All in front of an audience of over 100 people.
On Wednesday, March 21, we held our latest event and it was just fantastic. None of the businesses were presenting the panel with some difficult cashflow situation; perhaps no-one is brave enough to expose themselves in this way. As in previous events, the four businesses all had a common issue, ‘How do I grow or how do I take my business to new markets?’
This is a common theme from previous events, and highlights one of the key factors which separates the highly successful businesses from the also rans. Marketing.
Good marketing, or rather the lack of it, is something I usually encounter when I come to write a sales proposal structure for a Proposal Genie client.
The first thing I do is look at the company’s website and ask myself two questions. Do I get it? Why would I buy from these people?
In most cases, is hard to ascertain what it is they actually do in moments. Secondly, the website rarely tells me the benefit that would come my way from dealing with them.
Now these are two fundamental aspects of good marketing i.e. what do you do and why it would benefit customers.
There’s more to marketing, of course. Such as who you are targeting, segmenting markets etc , but getting your message clear and stating the benefits would be a good start for most companies.
Each of the four businesses got great advice from the experts. It main seem obvious but it was missed by the candidates. Define your target market, work out why they would buy from you ie what’s in it for them and work on ways to reach them and add value to them and your business.
Tags: Mentoring, Business, Entrepeneur, Dragons Den, Marketing
