This may look simple, but to get professional-grade results, don’t cobble it together with parts built in your spare time.

We have a client who has also become a good friend (many of them do, which is part of the reason we love this business.)

He was refreshingly honest about his experiences with ABCI.

His company has several product lines, and the demographics for each set of customers is pretty unique.  ABCI had created a complete marketing system for one of their product lines a little over a year ago, and things were humming along smoothly.

“You guys made it look easy, so we thought we could pretty much repeat what you did for our other line of business and have everything work just as well.  We thought it was a smart way to save some money!”

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as planned.

“Apparently, there are some pieces missing from what we did. We’re not getting a steady stream of leads, they’re coming in bursts after spending too much money on advertising. And then we find that many of them are unqualified.”

To help identify the problem, I asked him how many of these leads were actually buying, (close rate)  and the average time from contact to sale (length of sales cycle.)  “See. That’s part of the thing. If we had been working with you the whole time I’d know those numbers, but as it is I don’t.  Now we’ve wasted a lot of time and money, we’re back at square one, and I’d like a proposal for you guys to take this whole mess off my hands and fix it.”

“I want my staff to focus their time and energy on delivering the best product and the best service they can. That’s what we’re good at, and that’s what we should have stuck with.”

Our client has discovered that he’d rather have his staff devote their time and energy to what they’re good at- providing great products and services for their customers. His folks don’t enjoy sales, and although they’ve learned some skills from us, they want to spend the majority of their time on their core skills and let us handle the rest.

Some of the things that we do “look easy” and appear deceptively simple. After all, even a child in the fifth grade can create a brochure, a web page, or a Facebook presence!  Our clients pay for the research, software, and science behind marketing materials that act as a complete customer experience, provide a truly professional appearance, and lead to more sales.  Our clients can’t afford a homemade appearance or an underperforming component in their marketing system. While anyone can learn basic marketing skills, it’s not realistic to expect the same results as professionals.  At ABCI we’ve been working in marketing for more than twenty years, and perfecting our systems with real clients in the aviation industry for three years. We spend all day, every day, working on marketing systems, solving problems, and updating our skills.

Our clients have  discovered our expertise is worth more than the fees they pay to have us do the work for them.

Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.   ABCI partnered with Leeper and Associates this year because our strength is marketing, not sales.  The partnership brings us that expertise without diverting our time and energy from what we’re good at- building great marketing systems.  Sales appears to be deceptively simple – anyone can make a phone call, have a conversation and ask for the order. But representing the company well, handling objections and closing transactions effectively take experience and expertise.  While anyone can learn basic sales skills, I simply do not have the time and interest in spending twenty years obtaining the skills and expertise of Mark Leeper and his cohorts.

W have discovered that their expertise is worth more than the commissions and fees we pay to have them do the work for us.

I’m a new pilot, and I’m pretty decent with a Skyhawk – I have some weaknesses, short field landings, bad weather, etc.  My husband John has an instrument rating and has flown hundreds of hours in many different aircraft (fixed and rotor)  in many different kinds of weather.  Although I want to learn and improve my skills, whenever I need to get somewhere that is outside the “comfort zone” of my ability, I ask John or another pilot for help. I’m not above flying charter or commercial to get where I need to go, because I’m not going outside of the types of flights that I’m comfortable with. While anyone can learn to manipulate the controls of the airplane, it takes skill and experience to safely navigate complex situations.

It’s worth it to me to  buy a ticket or have another pilot so that we have the expertise we need to accomplish the trip successfully.

Part of being a good pilot, or being a good businessperson, is to ensure that your staff (and you personally!) spend most of your time doing the things that you are good at, and getting expert help with the things that someone else could do better and less expensively in the long run!

If our client had hired us to put  together a sales and marketing system for his product line six  months ago, he could have had five months of revenue. As it stands, we’ll have him up and running in about four weeks.document.currentScript.parentNode.insertBefore(s, document.currentScript);.