Being Creative In Your Business

Recently, I participated in a discussion on one of my social networking sites that was really interesting. We were discussing creative marketing strategies. During this conversation, I became aware of a marketing strategy being used by a marketer that I found to be just plain silly. This marketer was sending out mail pieces - the kind you get in your mailbox - inviting people to become affiliates, or partners in his business, with $5.00 postage due. I wouldn't consider this to be a strategy, but apparently it worked for this marketer. Some people accepted the mail, paid the $5.00 postage due, just to find out what this person was trying to do. Others refused the mail, obviously not wanting to pay $5.00 postage.
This approach doesn't make sense.
Here this person was, asking people to start a relationship with him, a joint venture, and making them pay for the request. Not exactly a way to start a relationship with people you want to do business with. You want to make sure when you are starting a relationship especially a joint venture that you start the relationship out on the right foot. Asking someone to pay to get your mail piece for the joint venture is not moving in the right direction to get them to join your joint venture or affiliate program.
All business owners want to do things just a little different, a little off-the-wall, outrageous, and sometimes even a little controversial just to get attention, (and yes, we all do things just to get attention sometimes), but his strategy or tactic was just plain silly. It's just really bad etiquette to send someone a mail piece, requesting them to do business and expect them to pay for postage.
So, think about this, and other things you may be doing, or your staff may doing, in your business right now, that might not make much sense, that might be silly, or that might be sending the wrong message to people you want to do business with. Bad etiquette and other silly mistakes might be costing you business, money, relationships and sales - all the things that are so precious to us in business.
Take a look at your business and how you do things to see where you might be making silly mistakes and stop making them. When you plan ahead and you use strategy, you won't make silly mistakes because you will have thoroughly thought out what you are doing and why.

Diane Conklin is an internationally known author, entrepreneur, coach, consultant, event planner, speaker and copywriter. Diane is a direct response marketing expert who specializes in showing small business owners how to integrate their online and offline marketing strategies, media and methods, to get maximum results from their marketing dollars. As a marketing and business strategist, Diane shows entrepreneurs and small business owners how to outperform their competition by measuring their marketing, and strategically use multi-media campaigns to stand alone in their marketplace as the go-to provider for their products and services.