Orvel Ray Wilson, CSP
Orvel Ray Wilson opened the first general session of Cloud Summit 2014 with a rip-roaring session on strategies to double your business. Wilson, an award winning speaker and best-selling co-author of the Guerilla Marketing books showed the summit participants just how important consistent marketing efforts are in making a business successful.
Mr. Wilson covered almost every aspect of a business when focusing on how anyone can ‘make a name’ for themselves and keep that name and impression in the forefront of not only their current customer’s minds, but more importantly in the minds of their future customers. One key point as he started his presentation was the importance of ‘being consistent’ in your marketing efforts. “Poor marketing done consistently is better than good marketing done sporadically.” For those of us who only on occasion think about ‘what can I do now to attract new clients’, this is a real ‘kick in the derriere.’ He emphasized that consistent marketing is viewed as ‘stability’ and ‘stability’ is a very important trigger point for people looking for professional services like those of an Accountant, ProAdvisor or Business Consultant.
Another key point Mr. Wilson made was the importance of ‘confidence’. It’s important to believe in both your products and people, this confidence begins with ‘self’ (as in self-confidence) but it also expands from the individual to the organization (and the organization to the individuals). Confidence serves as the mechanism to support quality, service, selection and price (fees). If you are not confident in whom you are, what you are and in what you do, how can you possibly convince someone else of your capabilities? This carries over to a later point in Mr. Wilson's presentation, ‘excitement’. How many of us really ‘get excited’ when a client calls with ‘an old problem’ (or even a new one)? How much enthusiasm do we show over the opportunity to prepare another tax return, or perform a compilation, or install another copy of QuickBooks Pro?
Mr. Wilson also spoke about patience and consistency…telling the audience to fine tune their knowledge and skills at every opportunity. He alluded to the fact that if you are not marketing every day you are getting further behind every day. Consistency also involves the ‘marketing message’ itself. As an example he told the story of Campbell Soups’ Mum Mum Good campaign...for years Campbell used this marketing message which became firmly lodged in the minds of most Americans; then years later with a new advertising company the Soup giant was convinced to do away with the old slogan and adopt something new and fresh. Absolutely nobody can remember ‘today’s slogan’, but we still all remember “mum, mum good.” It just goes to illustrate the old adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’
I think I also realized just how important it is to always focus on how each and every client can be your very best marketing opportunity. Word of mouth is great, but how about ‘clients doing your advertising for you via social media?’ Do you have a client who would spend the few minutes it takes to tell their social media networks about you and your business? If you are saying to yourself “you don’t think so”, then you need to figure out why that is the case. If the impression you are making with your clients isn’t of a quality that they are willing to promote you, then you better be altering the impression you are making.
This was one of the best ‘marketing instruction’ sessions I have ever attended, and clearly shows why companies like IBM, Oracle, Apple and many others retain Mr. Wilson to coach their personnel.