How do you win business in a competitive world?

I know for sure it is not  getting any easier, but the advice on how to do, and stories of how to be rich in 15 minutes a day seem to abound.

Perhaps I don’t take advice well?

It is pretty clear to me, after 40 years of working with this stuff that the more we complicate things, the more difficult seeing the wood for the trees becomes, so here is a really simple tool that you can use today.

To get business, any business, although the context and circumstances vary enormously, the potential customer needs to:

• Know you
• Like you
• Trust that you can solve their problem/add value to their lives.

Pretty simple really.

The other side of the equation of course is the challenge of creating the circumstances where a potential customer has the opportunity to get to know, like and trust you.

Marketers can spend huge amounts of money, much of it wasted, on chasing this outcome, often failing simply because they complicate the hell out of it and confuse themselves.

I like to think of it in human terms. The building of a marketing relationship is no different to any other type of human relationship, it evolves in stages that are pretty simple:

• You need to be where they are. This is so blindingly obvious it is often missed.
• You need to get their attention.
• You need to make a connection
• You need them to take action.

Break all the complicated cliché ridden & expensive recommendations  you get from those with a pig in the race into this simple matrix and reap the benefits.

Beware though, as Steve Jobs said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” so this stuff is deceptively hard, but now you have a tool to make it easier.