There really are only 3 marketing functions...once you master them, the rest of the game is pretty simple.

Every small business owner wants more business. So what do they do. They focus all of their marketing attention one thing - advertising, lead generation, making the phone ring.

Oh sure, without a steady flow of new leads most businesses are sunk. But, it does no good to have a bunch of leads unless you can turn them into clients. And, you are absolutely missing the boat if you don't have a systematic way to turn those clients into a bigger and bigger clients.

You can triple your business almost overnight if you will focus all of your marketing efforts on 3 functions.

Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, and Client Reselling. (I kind of made that last term but I rather like it.)

Lead Generation is finding ways to get "qualified prospects" to call, write, click, or otherwise act in a manner to find out more about your firm.

Lead Conversion is your firm's systematic approach to turning those leads into sales, customers, and clients.

Client Reselling is your method of taking your existing clients and getting larger, more frequent, and new purchases, or leveraging your relationship to get more clients and selling opportunities.

If you can create systems that help you do all three of these marketing functions then you are home free...and tripling your business is guaranteed. (guarantees are a tremendous lead conversion tool by the way)

All 3 of these marketing functions are intertwined, yet I rarely come across a small business owner that

Here's what I mean.

LGN -You must have multiple ways to target your best prospects and get the phone to ring. Your website, your Yellow Pages ad, direct mail, flyers, pizza box coupons, church bulletin ads, radio ads, airplane banners...just to mention a few.

LCN - You then must also have a set response when the phone rings. Presentation over the phone, send out an educational packet, direct them to a special page on your website, have them complete an evaluation, set an appointment (with a predetermined outcome) The point is that response must be predetermined and scripted. Everyone in the organization should be able to deliver it!

CRS - Once you land a client you must have a preplanned strategy to get them to buy again, more, bigger, faster, updated, upgraded, versions of your business. You should even look to create or add products for this purpose. In addition you must build referrals into your reselling efforts.

Look there are many things that fall under the heading of marketing but if you can just draw up a simple checklist of steps for perfecting these three functions (even if you do nothing else) then you will absolutely crush your competition.

Copyright 2004 John Jantsch

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant based in Kansas City, Mo. He writes frequently on real world small business marketing tactics and is the creator of “Duct Tape Marketing” a turn-key small business marketing system. Check out his blog at http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php