After getting all the foundations of your business right, I would say that the third C in the 7C’s of Why is probably the most important. Don’t get me wrong, all Seven are important, which is why they are all in this program. But in terms of activators that will get your income flowing, this is right up there. This is a big subject, and the real magic you’d expect can be found in the full Accelerate development program.
The success of your business, the success of any business, is largely going to come down to the foundations, followed closely by your prowess at communication. Of course, great communication on its own is not going to cut it, but then again, none of the other elements will result in success without communication. The 7C’s of Why the communication that we deal with are:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Brand
Communication is the single most important element in business. I want to urge you to take this subject seriously and commit to learning more about the area and the importance of communication in the development and success of your business. From basic internal communication and how you talk to others to sales and public speaking and all the other stops, including influence, persuasion and more. Communication skills are the key.
Within the core subjects of Marketing, Sales and Brand, many other elements need to be considered. Following the program can show you significant change in a relatively short time.
Let us start with the two big issues, Marketing and of course Sales. Have you noticed the number of times the core elements (Marketing & Sales) of business communication are mentioned, they are always put together in the wrong order? You always hear people referring to Sales & Marketing. Surely this is wrong; surely, it is the other way around. Marketing comes first, then Sales, right?
Communication in business is something I feel very strongly about. Marketing is probably the most important part of business communication, as it incorporates many elements. This is followed by sales, of course, which is also very important and again is nothing more than communication with a specific outcome in mind. A point I make in my book called ‘making Rain’ and the previous book called ‘Sales Alchemy.’
In reality, the relationship between the two main methods of communication, that is, marketing and sales, is often misunderstood. I often refer to this relationship using the medium of golf. This is a bit strange given that I don’t play that well; my handicap remains anything bigger than an eight iron! In the game of golf, you need to practice both your long game and your short game. The better your long game, the closer you get to the pin on the green, and so the easier the short game becomes. But you still need to be well practised to navigate your way out of the occasional bad shot.
Business communication is the same, only in this case, marketing is the long game, and sales is the short game. The better you are at marketing, the closer to the sale you get, and the closer you get, the easier the sale becomes. Therefore it makes perfect sense that as a business entrepreneur, you need to practice and become very proficient at both the long and short game, particularly the long game of Marketing.
When it comes to the final area of Brand and indeed Brand development, I have included this subject with marketing because that is very much where it belongs; a brand you see is more about communication than anything else. It is about what you say and what the market says.
The aim is that you and the market are saying the same thing. Let’s be clear, the most important lesson to learn about creating and developing a brand is…
“Brand is all about what people say about you. Not what you say about yourself. Your Brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room…A brand is all about influence through behaviour.”
Chris Batten Author of The 7C’s of Why
We start this section by looking at the 7C’s of Marketing, which are illustrated below:
