“The secret is the system.” –Michael E. Gerber
In 2011, I had the pleasure of helping Tom Ziglar, son of Zig Ziglar, create a powerful business assessment for Zig Ziglar’s last book Born To Win, which Tom co-authored. Tom and I had our own lists of the core systems a business should have, and they were a little different. As we began to flesh out the parts that every phenomenally successful business needs to have, we finally settled on five specific areas of the business.
Secret #1: A Phenomenal Marketing System
Marketing is everything you do to attract prospects to your business. Notice that I said a phenomenal marketing system. The marketing of most small business owners is poor.
Marketing is the key to business growth. Without customers you have nothing. You can do a wonderful job, but if you don’t have enough customers, nothing else matters. So, you want to have not just good marketing, but phenomenal marketing. What is phenomenal marketing? Marketing that is remarkable. Extraordinary. Outstanding. Phenomenal marketing creates experiences that engage, educate, and build a sense of belonging.
And you want to have a marketing system. Once you determine what phenomenal marketing looks like in your business, you want to figure out how to duplicate it without you having to be involved in every detail.
Here’s an example: Let’s say that you determine that mailing a newsletter to your database helps you bring in more business. You write a procedure on how to compile the newsletter and get someone else to do the mechanics of it. You might still write it, but let someone else lay it out, print it, mail it, get the database together, etc. Then put the task on a calendar so it happens without your direct supervision.