How many potential clients are you losing each day?

Think of it for a moment. Every day you deliver marketing and sales messages to clients and potential clients through your website, email, social media, voice mail, presentations, advertising, signage, brochures and marketing sheets (to name a few or nine!).

Sending your message is one thing. How it is received however, is quite another thing. And when you fail to send the right message to the right person, the right way, your message is not only getting lost, it’s hitting you where it hurts the most – your bottom line.

Why? Because if potential clients are tuning out your message, confused as to what you have to offer, or simply don’t care about what you have to say, you’re missing out of lost sales and missed opportunities. Day after day, year after year, that can add up to hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Got your attention? Good, because nowadays, no one can afford to leave money on the table. Trust me. It’s far better in your pocket!

How do you find out if your marketing or sales messages are helping or hurting your business? Here’s a simple, but (dare I say!) obvious way. If business is great and your sales and profits keep increasing, then fantastic. Your message is hitting the mark. If on the other hand, you’re not generating more leads for your business, increasing your sales, or simply not getting potential customers to return your calls (curious about what you have to offer), then it’s time to change your message. It’s not working.

Change your message. Change your success.

Easier said than done, right? Not really. Changing your message is easy. I know. I've spent 25 years in the marketing/advertising field, crafting messages for a who's who of who's who. And the most important thing I learned was this. When you create the right message, to the right person, the right way, you create success. And people will actually come to you, curious and interested in what you have to offer.

So, how do you send the right message to the right person the right way? Simple, really, as long as you remember three things.

1. The right message is about your customer, not about you. Nobody cares about your product or service (well, except for you!). You can "blah, blah, blah" about your product or service all you want, and people won't give a hoot! They only care about how your product or service will help them. Show them that and you’ve got their interest.

2. The right person is the one you want listening - the customer who has a need or desire for your product or service. So, it's incumbent upon you to get to know your customers' needs, wishes and wants. The more you know about your customers, the easier it will be to craft your message to fit their needs. And chances are you'll see your next customer walking down the street.

3. The right way is to make your value stand out amongst your competitors. Don’t be a "Me Too" company, and sound the same as everyone else. You'll lose any competitive value. Be different. Be provocative. Get noticed. Give your message a likeable personality. And people will gravitate to you, as they do with any charming personality.

Now, stop wasting time with marketing and sales messages that don’t work. Make your messages matter. Start today to change them and increase your success.