I’ve written quite a bit on marketing this year, which I hope has got some of you thinking about how you market yourselves and your business. Some of you may be thinking that some suggestions seem daft, but companies do not spend millions of pounds a year in developing their own brand without reason.
I’m not an expert, just someone who is passionate about his profession and even more passionate about imparting information to others. I’m also a person that spends time looking at advertisements and especially reading marketing and PR blogs if they come across my desk and look to see what works and what does not.
People don’t like to be told ‘NO’ too often and if you make 10 telephone calls promoting your business and 9 of those people you called say no, it will be disheartening to even the hardest person.
Due to unexpected circumstances we have had to cancel a two-day course and reschedule for later in the year. But this has given us a great opportunity to bring forward a new series of courses which were planned for September and beyond.
On the 16 and 17 July we are offering two specialist courses, which are part of a series and will help you build your business. The first day is a practical seminar on giving powerful presentations and following is a second day on building lead generation processes that work.
There are always the showmen and women, but many ordinary people, even in business, have a dislike of giving a presentation to a group of strangers about themselves, whether it’s telling people how good they are, their business and why the audience should take their product or service over the next person.
Paula Finch has teamed up with the Society to bring a series of one day courses over the coming months to Members on business development. Paula describes herself as an ‘award winning entrepreneurial businesswomen who likes to ‘buck the trend’ and do things differently is ways that create results.
The Society has never offered training on these topics before and I firmly believe that regardless of what you believe you know, you cannot stop learning. The media and marketing markets are moving so fast that keeping up will become more difficult in the future if you fall behind.
Courses such of these will open your eyes and help you see your business and the opportunities that are available to you from a new angle.
Sometimes we become too close to our businesses to see the real picture and believe that whilst it works, all is well, but I have just finished working with a company where on my advice they doubled the prices whilst retaining the same amount of business and therefore increased profits. It is a proven fact that you can be too cheap – consumers perceive cheap or free as having little of no value.
We are all aware of the Poo Emoji, a couple of years ago I asked Anthony to launch a short advertising campaign using it. The basis was if you die without a Will you leave a mess behind for others to clear up. That advert received more comments than anything we had ever tried in the last 25 years – there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Brian W McMillan
Director General
The Society of Will Writers and Estate Planning Practitioners
