Marketing Power

Last week, I wrote in this space about how having a culture where workers can take ownership over what they do benefits everybody involved in the operation. Maybe it was because those ideas were in my mind, but I then found myself drawn to another article on the culture of a workplace. This time, it was about a marketing mindset mentioned in this article from Accounting Today.

The biggest point of the article is that the highest performing accounting firms market themselves. This isn’t a wild concept, for it takes a long time for a business to achieve a spot where it is known enough to not really need marketing.  But even then, there’s a reason there why you still see McDonald’s commercials.

I can’t possibly get into HOW one should market in this article (largely because I am nowhere near an expert in the area), but I do think this necessitates a mention of WHAT you should market.

There is not one answer here that will cover every business, but if you are a business, you should have one answer that covers yours. If someone asks you what you do, do you have a good, prepared answer? If you don’t, then you should. And once you do, that is what you need to market.

I mean, sure, you don’t do one thing in one way every single day of your work life. The jobs where that happens are mind-numbing, and not the ones anyone ever wants to talk about. But think of all the different work tasks you do throughout the day, they mostly have the same end goal. That goal is what you do, and that is what you should be marketing.

The Accounting Today article speaks of a marketing culture, though, which is different than just putting out advertisements and hoping they find the right people who need your goods and services. A marketing culture comes from the inside. It means that those who work with you also know the answer to the question of what do you do, and they answer it with a nod to what the company does and not just what they do as individual piece of the operation.

In there, we return to last week’s ideas of letting workers take ownership of the things they do. Few people want to only be invested in their one small task, they want to be part of the bigger picture. Allowing them into that bigger picture leads to better work and better works, and letting others outside the operation know that bigger picture leads to natural marketing and more customers.

If you don’t know the answer to that big question of what you do, though, don’t fret.  Many people start ventures with only a vague idea of what they want to do. As long as you love what you do, you are on your way. Narrowing that focus, though, can help give you more direction and get your message out to the right people.

Sometimes finding this focus can start with figuring out what aspects of your business are running the best and are the most profitable. So as always, remember we are here to help you answer these business questions and give you the tools and knowledge to grow. 

​Warmly,

Nicole Odeh
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