Different processes are required to run a business successfully and achieve a win-win for all.

And it’s not possible to run a successful business by yourself. It’s about bringing in complementary skills. Recruit someone that has the skills that you don’t have in your team.

Focus on doing the things you are good at and get someone else to do the things you are not good at. Your productivity is much greater if you are good at it and therefore enjoy it and more eager to do it.

Running a successful business requires many skills, and bringing all those complementary skills together to achieve synergy and scalability.

There is the vision and direction.

There is the strategy.

There is the marketing.

There is the sales process.

There is the production.

There is the delivery of the final goods or services.

There is the collection of the invoice.

I want to explore marketing in particular, and outline why it’s essential for your business to invest in this area.

The more marketing that is done, the less that is required in the sales process. The less marketing, the harder the sales process.

It's much more cost effective and scalable to invest in marketing so that by the time the prospects comes to see you it's simply "order taking". No selling required. Thus, the better your marketing systems and brand, the less sophisticated the salesperson needs to be.

Without effective marketing and a brand value, the harder the sale and the more sophisticated the skills required of the salesperson.

That's what I have discovered at Chan & Naylor. Prospects come to see us, and whilst I have never met them, they act like they have known me for years. Naturally, they have been exposed to our books, newsletters, seminars and conferences, which have built up a lot of credibility and therefore trust.

And it’s all about trust.

Trust is built from familiarity. You build familiarity through marketing and doing great things in a consistent pattern.

Familiarity leads to credibility and credibility leads to sales results.

Running a successful business is a complete process, and we need to invest in every part of that process for it to be successful.