Why You Must Avoid Marketing an Unstable Business

Marketing Mistakes: This one you should Avoid

Marketing a business that's unstable is worse than not marketing at all. The more successful you are at marketing an unstable business, the more chaos you will create for yourself.

Most businesspeople focus on getting more and more sales. Sometimes we are so preoccupied with getting sales that we don't take into account that the business may not be ready for that step.

For example, you have a relationship with the world's greatest marketer, who is willing to provide you with the key to making your sales skyrocket!

Many Orders And No Way To Process

You take that idea and immediately use it. Sales start coming in by the thousands! Now what? You can't keep up with the orders, you'll need to hire more people. Oh no! Not enough stock! It'll take two weeks to get new stock, but you promised overnight delivery. The phone rings and it's a customer. There seems to be something wrong with the product! Problems, problems, problems, and they keep multiplying because of the good job you did marketing your product.

As you can see from this example, Your business has to be ready to handle incoming business before you conduct intense marketing campaigns. Failing to do so could be your downfall. Doing a good job marketing a bad product could put you out of business. We all want a continuous stream of revenue, but we must first prepare our business operations for it.

Here are steps to ensure that your business will be ready for any revenue surges.

• Create a test order and record the time and steps required to complete the order. If your orders require shipping, be sure you can fill those orders in a timely manner.
  
• Estimate the maximum number of sales that could be generated from any one marketing campaign. With that in mind, ask yourself, "Can my business handle it?"
  
• Start marketing slowly, so you can receive customer feedback and get an idea of how your business will operate and handle streams of new business. You can also contact your customers and offer them a bonus in return for their feedback.
  
• Offer your product to a select group of people, free of charge, in exchange for their feedback.
  
• Be sure that you can supply enough of your product or service if you receive many orders at once.
  
• Check out your competition and make sure your product/service and offer are reflective of the market place.
  
• Take into account returns and support issues. How will you handle them? And in what time fame?

Marketing is very important for business survival. It is the backbone of your revenue. However, it's more important to make sure that your business is ready for any successful marketing campaign before you conduct it.

That's the way I see it.
Acey Gaspard
A Touch of Business.com

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