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

 

Golf: How Can I Help?

As a non-professional golfer (meaning I don’t play or teach golf as my profession) I do find that I have a lot to offer golfers that probably the professional golfers may not be able to see through the eyes of a hacker like me.  You ask, what are some of these things I can offer?  Well, I don’t think you will find too many people who would take to the time to investigate or ask the questions on subjects like; why are the sprinkler heads on a golf course placed where they are placed?  Or ask, if the golf facility is a soft-spike only facility why are the Professional still allowed to wear steel spikes?  Things like this are what I have to offer those of you who want to know.

Now, there are a lot of ‘Why Guys’ out there in the golf arena and many staff writers who are pumping out their 1000 word or less articles onto different sites, but not many of them are like me and those who are like me, trying to make a difference.  I take the game of golf very seriously and there is nobody more dedicated to doing whatever it will take to keep this game I love going on for my grand children to enjoy and their grand children to enjoy.  Oh, well, maybe Mr. Palmer has his arms around making this happen better than me, but I join him and others in keeping golf alive.  And there is nobody more dedicated than me to weeding out those who get into the golf business who do not share in keeping the game of golf going and only want to make a quick buck and then they are gone.

This game is too grand of a game and offers so much more values than an outdoor activity where you slap a little white ball with a stick around a well manicure park until it disappears in a hole.  And I am not stupid to think that I am the only one who has a point of view and is going to write about it.  There are many more people out there who can, and have, written better articles and stories about golf and its impact on society and business.  But nobody has experience what I have experienced in golf, in business and in life nor has the imagination that I possess. 

My hero is David Feherty and I share with him the keen warped perception of things around golf.  My favorite golfer is Fred Couples who, to me, stands out amongst his contemporaries with the image golf needs and oozes with the golf skills and positive image and style every junior golfer should strive to be more like.  I will be writing more about both of these guys and some gals I find who show how golf can be fun and serious at the same time.

So, I start off the first tee of this tournament of articles with a question to all who have gotten this far to learning what my mission is and that question is…How Can I Help?

 

(Scot Duke is the author of How To Play Business Golf, is President of Innovative Business Golf Solutions, LLC., and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Screen Door Open Charity Golf, Inc.   Mr. Duke brings to his readers 31 years of business experience and 15 years of being involved in all levels of promoting the game of golf.  Being a fifth generation Texan, Duke (as he is know to his friends) incorporates his Texas Humor with his unique prospective on all kinds of issues ranging from Golf to Business.  His mission is exemplified in his trademarked salutation ‘How Can I Help?’)