Walk the (marketing) talk - it's business critical

At a recent networking event a colleague said to me,  "I'd feel much more confident about buying those alternative medicines he talks about if he didn't always look so flippin' ill..."

It immediately reminded me of a sign I'd noticed when driving on the way to deliver a workshop in Gosport last week.



At the side of the road outside a private house was a sign proudly marketing a highly skilled carpentry service.  The sign was held up by two bits of wood nailed very crudely together....

I'm afraid I have seen a lot of this incongruent marketing over the years and boy can it wreck your business.

The communications company that had a dyslexic copy writer

The slimming expert who wasn't...slim that is...and therefore presumably NOT expert

The accountant who talked with passion about his eye for detail but who had both the word email and enquiries spelled wrong on his business card.  One can only hope his attention to detail DID cover numbers...

The web designer with the ghastly website

The financial advisor who lived in a tiny dated flat

When you are the sole owner of a business you have to at least do well the thing you claim to do well...it's not rocket science is it?

I do know, however,  that we can fall victim to "Plumber's taps" syndrome i.e. we are so busy delivering our expertise to everyone else that we fail to do it ourselves.  I was once called on that myself.

 I had given a talk in Bournemouth which included advice about having clear calls to action on website pages.  One guest subsequently e-mailed me to say how much they had enjoyed the talk but  that they were somewhat surprised that I had not got any calls to action on my own website.  Was my face red!

Have I got them now?  OH YES!!  If you want to see them just click onto www.businessfulcrum.co.uk and check out the pink duck with the green beak.  What?!  Isn't that the type of photo everyone uses for their calls to action?

What's your best example of business irony and incongruence?
Go on, own up what did you get called on in your own business?