Best Way To Market Your Business?

Usually I am asked first about Golf and golf related issues, but this time I was asked about Business, which comes easier to me than Golf, since I spent 31 years in corporate America and only 15 years in Golf America.

The business question was, ‘what is the best way to market my business’

Now if you ask one of the many internet marketing consultants they are going to say you have to be on the internet…..no argument from me.  If you talk to one of the traditional market consultants, which I have run into a few good ones, they will tell you that you need to use both the internet and traditional means…again not argument from me.

What I will argue with is the lack of either one of these consultants mentioning personal networking as the first thing to do…

I was reading some blogs over on my favorite site, BizNik.com, from one of the New Contributor writers for the site and was amused with the method and approach the writer presented as how people need to market their business.  It was a well crafted article and very informational, but read like a resume for techies.  And was probably designed to internet the many introverted businesses that are out on the internet that have no face or personality.  

My experience shows that Not all goes around the internet which seems to be this writer’s view point.  There still have to be some sort of personal contact between customers and businesses people.

The Dilbert Comic strip this morning portrays what most techies must thing of this attitude with Dilbert and another using Blackberry’s to text message each other during a meeting where the ‘people person’ guy was going on about text messaging being so impersonal and taking time away from meeting people…with the bunch line reading from the text message screens on ‘what is that guy talking about?’ and the reply was ’Something old’…again, I am open and have no argument that text messaging can be a form of promoting a business.

But, is it really?  Somewhere, sometime, somehow there has to be a personal connection for every business.  In formulating my answer to my client I was trying to think of any single business that would not somehow, somewhere or sometime NOT have to have a person to put a face on the business.  I could not think of one…maybe you can.

Yep, I have bought stuff off the internet…it was quick, it was easy and I got my stuff and I was OK with it.  But I have also been amongst the millions who were not OK with what they got and had a very hard time getting with anyone at the online site to speak to about the problem I was having.  And, every one of them has since gone out of business because they did not have the ability to conduct the person to person contact every business has to have.

 

So, my answer to the person who ask me the best way to market their business was to start off getting use to doing person to person networking and then person to person networking online and then person to whoever with internet blogging, but to never forget to knowing how to do person-to-person networking…it is much more valuable than online internet marketing…

 

 

Scot Duke

President

Innovative Business Golf Solutions, LLC.

scot.duke@innovativebusinessgolf.com

www.innovativebusinessgolf.com