You know what? Good marketing is difficult to do. It’s not complicated. It doesn’t have to be expensive. And it doesn’t have to be overly creative. But it is difficult. Mostly because it involves some things that most of us aren’t really good at – listening to other people and changing our behavior.

How you get your message out, be it, radio, TV, social media, sponsorships, or about 100 other things, doesn’t matter. Frankly, your potential customers and clients will ignore you unless your message is based on what the customer has said they want. And that means listening hard. I usually find that many businesses assume they know what customers wants. Sometimes they guess correctly. Usually, they don’t. But if you know how to ask and listen, your prospects and clients WANT to tell you what to tell them. This is where you need to change your behavior; accept that you might be mistaken and that what your customer wants isn’t often what you thought they loved about you.

Stop assuming and start asking. Survey your customers after the sales process. Survey them again each year. Call a few each month and ask how you're doing. If you get great reports, then you're doing the right things. If you get bad news, consider it an opportunity to change. I used to enjoy calls with dissatisfied customers because I looked at them as an opportunity to make it better. After all, you can’t fall out of a hole.

If you truly understand what your customer wants and how you solve that need, then marketing it is actually pretty easy. Almost any marketing will work when the message is aligned to the customer’s desire.