Marketing is relationship building. Deciding who to build relationships with, where they are, and how to create a system that will enable you to go forward. The impression people have of you (and your employees) IS your business. Forget all the glittering assets, the inventory of product or the fancy color flyers that you've had printed.  All that won't cause a single sale. Be careful with the assets, the product and the flyers, though. Each one has an impression building (or impression ruining) component. Before you can get to a point of understanding what strategies to take, you have to develop a clear definition and description of what impression IS your business. Then the strategies and resources of the business can be applied intelligently to the careful building up of that impression. The key to open-minded marketing is to understand that people you communicate with about your business will not necessarily get the impression that you planned for them to get. In fact, the market as a whole might develop a view of your business that was not really the focus of your marketing plan. How would you know what THE impression really is? Find ways to listen to the market (person by person) that can help you find "the impression that sells".

Create a system that serves two purposes. First, keep track of your efforts with each customer. Know all the details about your past communications and contacts. Know important information about the people in that customer's life and have that information at hand so you can refer to it instantly. This will show the customer that you are ready for a good relationship with them. Second, ASK your customers what they think THE impression is. Keep track of variances in your database and be able to pull out information about the TRUE impression that builds easy and sells well. There is a BEST impression for your business and you are setting out to discover it systematically.

When you go out there (mail, call, visit, etc.) you know that your energy has an intelligent strategy in mind. In other words, you always have two things going. One, you're trying to build the impression and make sales. Two, you're trying to learn about what works in building the TRUE impression. Start with the plan that you will discover what works and that your business will outgrow your ability to PERSONALLY sell and deliver. This means that you are doing all of this work for your business and not for yourself. Do it in a way where the impression and the customers can be handed off to other people working for you with no consequences to THE impression.

Your impression is built in the customer's mind step by step. Understand that this process takes time for the customer and don't push them too fast. It is best to create a series of learning steps for the customer and to have a strategy as to how to best present each step. It's also important to always know what step the customer is on in the impression building process. That way you can put your energy toward just building the next step instead of pushing for a sale. Ultimately, you are going to hand your selling system off to another person to run. Make sure that it is well thought out and works. This system is critical if you are going to achieve the first level of freedom from your business.