Business Development using the C.E.O. Plan

If you have a product, and have researched your market, this one simple three step process will ensure your success. If you take all the business guru's and condense their message to the simplist possible formula, I'm confident they would all agree that the C.E.O. formula describes the essentials.

Step One is the "C" - Connect

Most people understand this step. Even people that are not business owners know that prospects and customers must be connected with in some manner. The connection happens in a variety of ways:

- Direct Mail
- Buchesiness Networking
- Telemarketing
- Business Greeting Cards
- Targeted TV Commercials
- Radio Commercials
- Infomercials
- Internet Marketing
- Social Networking Websites
- Magazines
- Face to Face - 30 second elevator speech

These are just a few of the methods that business owners have used for many years to connect with their customers. You've probably attended seminars, listened to motivational cd's, read books and magazine articles on strategies for everything on this list. The whole point of connecting is to make some
kind of contact with your prospect or customer so that the small business owner can deliver the message about the product or service. The is where most small business owners focus all their attention. There is much written and taught about how to connect with the customer.

Step Two is the "E" - Engage

Engaging the customer comes next. This is the part of the process where business owners share their message. For example, the direct mail postcard is the tool used to connect with the customer and the message on the postcard engages the customer by conveying the features and benefits.

Step Three is the "O" - Offer

The most successful business owners understands the importance of this final step. Yet many hard working independent business owners completely leave this out or make a weak offer.

Let's look at these three steps together in an example.

In our example Rachel is a Life Success Coach and works with corporate clients that need productivity coaching. She's been a Coach for 5 years - part time because she only has five clients. She writes and publishes articles, does a cable TV show and teaches a couple of classes on self improvement to promote her business.
From this description it's seems as if she is making lots of effort to connect with prospects. In her writing and speaking she engages customers with her message of personal development. After asking Rachel a few questions it was discovered that she had never developed a call to action. She connected with
lots of people, and the people she connected with knew that she offered personal development services. She admitted that she had never developed a specific call to action. The advice given was to create a message where she would begin inviting and asking the people she was communicating with to hire her as a coach.

Begin to look at all of your marketing tools and check your own marketing message. Does each message have a strong call to action? What about when you are networking, how comfortable do you feel out-right asking for the business? Asking for the order, making the offer is the most natural next step if you've
connected with the right customers and delivered a compelling message.

When creating business development plans use the simple C.E.O. Formula as a guide to be sure that you're not leaving out any of these three important steps.

Melody Campbell, Business Coach invites Small Business Owners to do an "Extreme Marketing Make-Over." Receive her Special Report "5 Strategies that Any Business Owner can do for an Extreme Marketing Make-Over" at www.TheSmallBusinessGuru