This Issue: Master Your Marketing, Claim Your Success

It takes more than salespeople to assure your long-term success.

You have started a new company. Now how are you going write a business plan to get customers to open their wallets and spend their money on what you have to sell?

If your answer to that question was, "I'll hire a sales staff" or, "I'll start advertising," you are thinking like most entrepreneurs. Those are good ideas, because you need to start triggering buying behavior among your target consumers.

However, you need something else too. You need strategic marketing, because selling or advertising alone will not assure your success in the long run.

Only yesterday, I was reading an excellent article, "Assessing the sales/marketing divide: Delivering the right collateral, controlling the process and measuring the sales impact" by Christopher Hosfordon B2B.

Hosford's article makes it clear that a marketing strategy is not just a long-term plan. It provides benefits that have an immediate impact on cash flow:

• A unified marketing effort frees salespeople to do what they do best - sell. They won't need to spend up to 40 percent of their time creating their own materials and presentations, because marketing will get that job done for them.
• When an overriding marketing message shapes your sales and advertising efforts, you differentiate yourself from your competitors and generate revenues faster.

Sodon't think "marketing" only when your sales start to slump after your initial market penetration has taken place. Develop a marketing plan right from the beginning.

Where is your revenue going to come from not next week, or next month - but in two or three years? Marketing is the tool that answers those questions. To make sure your skills are state-of-the-art, enroll in our course, The Marketing Mastery Program.

When it comes to kids' parties, parents are clueless about the amount of alcohol and drugs that are available.

Half of teenagers say that alcohol, drugs or both are available at nearly every party they attend. However, according to a new survey, 80 percent of parents believe their teens are attending substance-free parties. Obviously, someone is getting some bad information . . . and it's the parents

Parents are living in a dream world if they think their kids aren't being exposed to alcohol and drugs. Right now, eight out of 10 kids are going to drink before they get out of high school and half of them will have tried marijuana. Those are some sobering and scary statistics.

And although 99 percent of parents say they wouldn't be willing to serve alcohol at their teenager's parties, more than one-fourth of kids say they've gone to parties where parents have been there and yet alcohol has still been readily available for the kids to drink.

Wake up, parents. Be aware of what your kids are doing. Talk to them before it's too late and someone gets hurt.

Donald J. Trump is Chairman of Trump University. He shares his insights in many courses, including The Marketing Mastery Program.

Even though the term Benefit Advantage may not sound too exciting, it is what you absolutely need to have to beat your competitors in the marketplace. It is the heart of your marketing strategy.

Your benefit advantage is . . .

The reason your customers should buy from you instead of from your competitors

To work for you, your benefit advantage needs three key elements:

• Clarity - Pin down a few of your key benefits that are easy to understand and communicate. Jiffy-Lube, for example, became successful by offering fast oil changes without the need for an appointment.
• Relevance to your customers - Your benefits have to "speak" to the needs of your target customers. If you operate a child-care center, for example, you might want to tell harried parents that you offer flexible drop-off times. That will put you ahead of other centers that say, "Drop off is 8:00 AM."
• Uniqueness - You need to offer products, features or capabilities that your competitors genuinely lack. For example, special equipment or courses at your health club. Without those features, your customers will do business with your competitors instead of with you, especially if there are other key advantages (such as price or location) for doing so.

Your benefit advantage must be sustainable too, meaning that you expect to be able to offer it for months or years, not just until your competition catches up. I'll be writing about sustainability in future blogs, but I'd encourage you to start building robust marketing skills today by enrolling in one of the many excellent marketing coursesat Trump University.

Donald Sexton, PhD, is Trump University's professor of marketing and sales. He is also Professor of Business at Columbia University and President of The Arrow Group, Ltd., a leading marketing consulting group. Dr. Sexton's is author of the new book, Trump University Marketing 101, available at bookstores nationwide and through online booksellers. Contact Dr. Sexton at marketing101@thearrowgroup.com.

To perfect your marketing skills, be sure to enroll in Trump University's new course,The Marketing Mastery Program. Classes now forming.

SPECIAL NOTICE TO OUR READERS

Be sure to visit the Trump blog tomorrow (Saturday, October 7th) when we will post an essay directly from the desk of Donald J. Trump. It's called "The Harder I Work, The Luckier I Get," and it is packed with insights that will get your life and your career off to agreat new start.Don't miss it.