Testing Theories: Marketing Experimentation


Advice is one thing but thought and research are still necessary.

Theory is another thing (I'm all for it) but experimentation is where the rubber hits the road (and many other analogies).

Now is a good time to try new things and figure out what works. It's the time to really consider what we want to spend our time doing. Maybe it's the time to give something up and see if it makes a difference. Or perhaps it's the time to dig deep and see what can be accomplished with more effort.

Like many of you, my business development plans got interrupted by a world pandemic at the beginning of March. Also like you, it caused me to think more creatively about my approach to sales and how I would spend my time. So I dug deep and eventually I arrived at: I'm going to have more conversations. (It was a no-brainer; I love to talk about small business marketing. What a great experiment!) Next came my go-to "how?" After that, it became fun to come up with ideas to create more opportunities for conversations - with people I know and with people I didn't know.

I was intentional about it. I stayed alert for "chat chances". I watched what others were doing to encourage conversations. I talked to friends about referrals. I used software to enable scheduling and follow-ups. I tried some more specific calls-to-action. And... too much to go into here more.

The result? In June I had 35 conversations and my best month of sales in over a year. This was a good experiment - one that I'll keep repeating.

Are you trying something new? If not, maybe it's time to experiment.

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