Making a Superstar Company

You are getting ready to start or you just started a new business. You are an expert in your current field such as Shoe Retail, Heating/AC or Business-to-Business Sales. You are stuck as to how to build your customer base and continue to gain customers. That is why I wrote this book, to help you do just that. This book is for anyone about to start a business or anyone who has a business that has been open for less than three years.

I have spent over 35 years helping small and medium-sized business owners grow and expand their customer bases. Starting in radio advertising after college, I moved into other areas including wholesale product sales, government services, advertising and Internet marketing. I have seen successes and mistakes made by many business owners. The purpose of ‘Making a Superstar Company’ is to share my expertise regarding the building of a business from the marketing perspective, helping people avoid some of the novice errors.

This book will not give you all of the answers to every possible question or situation; to read that book, you would never have time to run your business. However, we will cover many aspects of business promotion and discuss how to run a business. I suggest that you read this book from beginning to end to understand the various options to grow a business. Then, reread the book, a couple of chapters at a time, and accomplish the things that mesh with your business goals. The process of starting a business can be difficult enough; too much information absorption, all at once, will just make it more difficult.

Chapters 2 and 3 help you focus on your overall business practices and goals, as well as how to apply funds to marketing. We will also touch on product inventory and selection so that you do not make the mistakes made by many first-time business owners.

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 cover basic marketing concepts and provide choices to brand your company. We explore things - including color concepts, basic business materials, and traditional media - to brand all aspects of your business to reflect the message that reaches your target audience.

Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 explore some primary traditional marketing areas, looking at the pros and cons of each. We discuss my decades of experience as it relates to these areas.

Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 cover the newest area of advertising, the Internet. Internet marketing strategies vary widely and this book cannot address all of the questions related to marketing. However, we will look at the different ways to incorporate these strategies into your company.

Chapter 18 looks at public relations, a way for you to gain additional exposure for your business. Touching on the importance of company branding, we explore why it is important to keep your company in the limelight.

In Chapter 19, we discuss how to put all of the processes together. You are now ready to catapult your business to success.

Finally, in the Appendix, we provide a host of questions to consider as part of the survey that you will continually perform to gauge your target audience and grow your customer base.