A lot of the discussions on the center around the mistakes that newbies make but I want to take this opportunity to discuss the biggest mistake that semi-successful marketers make.

I say 'semi-successful' because technically these marketers could be making lots of money, but they are not 'uber-successful' because they do not realize the full-potential of their business.

So What is the Biggest Mistake?

The biggest mistake semi-successful marketers make is that they are too intent on what THEY want and not what their CUSTOMERS want.

Here is an explanation:

This is especially true of services marketing. Your objective should be to provide your clientele with what THEY want provided that it is profitable for your business. If they want something different than what you offer, adapt your business model to ensure that you are providing your customers with what they want.

It is easy to get lost in what is most convenient for you, and if you are getting super wealthy off of it then by all means keep going, but great services companies continue to LISTEN to what their customers want and provide them with those solutions in order to continue to grow and leverage their business.

Because of the fact that these semi-successful entrepreneurs are typically making some decent cash it is easy to get lost in that notion, easy to have a bit of an ego, etc. When this starts happening they become less likely to LISTEN to their customers because they attribute making money to being successful -- and while to some extent this is true, it doesn't mean they are maximizing the potential of their business.

All of this becomes especially true if your company relies on varying demographics of people.

This Example Should Help Clarify

Let us say I mow lawns for a living. I have a service where I will mow your lawn for $30 bucks every month provided you sign a 6 month deal with me, and that is my only option.

What if a young married couple has an atrocious yard. The husband has been bogged down at work and hasn't had the opportunity to mow it

Baby's First Internet
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<a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jienXKDbIYHNPcywgq84IqyHtbPw">The popular online trading site eBay is one of the many companies that wants to have its own domain name.</a> <em>PARIS (AFP) — Web regulators Thursday voted to allow the creation of thousands of new <strike>domain names</strike></em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-level_domain">top-level domains</a><em>, from .paris to .Pepsi, in one of the biggest shake-ups in Internet history, a French web official said.</em>
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First!
<a href="http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/archive/episode.php?id=288">"Wow, a new user... That's Great! We'd be happy to show you the ropes!"</a> a PSA on conversation starters in forums and comment threads online that have never been heard or used before. Brought to you by <a href="http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/">Red Vs. Blue</a>.
Suspension de labonnement internet
<a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20080618-france-try-web-subscription-suspension-against-piracy-internet">"There is no reason that the Internet should be lawless,"</a> President Nicolas Sarkozy told his cabinet, as <a href="http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/acteurs/biographie_5/christine_albanel_ministre_culture_56390.html">Culture Minister Christine Albanel </a>presented <a href="http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/chantiers/culture_851/lutter_telechargement_illegal_oeuvres_1072/christine_albanel_presente_projet_60336.html">a new bill </a>designed to encourage responsible use of the Internet. The legislation would set up a new administrative body that would receive complaints from the music and film industry and track down offenders through Internet service providers. An e-mail warning would be sent to suspected downloaders followed by a registered letter. After two strikes, offenders would risk losing their Internet subscription for up to a year. "We know that we are not going to eradicate piracy 100 percent, but we think that we can reduce it significantly," Albanel told a news conference. Minister of Culture and Communication, Christine Albanel, has made <a href="http://www.ifacca.org/national_agency_news/2008/05/26/albanel-celebrates-french-spirit-responsibility/">the French spirit of responsibility</a> a cornerstone of her portfolio. The new bill follows agreements signed on the 23 November 2007 at the Elys&#0233;e Palace, in the presence of the President of the Republic,<a href="http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/index-olivennes231107.htm"> by 47 businesses and organisations representing cinema, music and television, and also by all the Internet service providers, </a>who the Minister has compelled to fulfil the agreement. Firstly, the Minister<a href="http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/index-olivennes231107.htm"> revealed </a>that 74% of French people are in favour of the mechanism of the bill, which would, in the first instance, consist of sending numerous educational advertisement messages to Internet users who use their Internet connection to pirate works. Then, in the case of this behaviour being repeated, the temporary suspension of Internet access. The Minister also revealed that the projected mechanism will be useful from the preventative phase, since 90% of French people would stop downloading after two advertisements. This study also shows the adherence of the majority of French people to the defence of the right of the author, without which ‘creation’ would have its existence threatened, against those who support openly the law of the jungle and permissiveness on the Internet.
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?ex=1371441600&en=dcb3569538ca10b7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink">Le r&#0233;seau</a> - Starting in the late 19th century, Belgian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Otlet">Paul Otlet</a> envisioned the basics of a human powered Wikipedia and Google. He created a 12 million item database on index cards and accepted queries via mail or telegraph. The article describes his work and the Mundaneum museum in his honor. Be sure to watch the video. There is a <a href="http://www.sofidoc.be/lhomme.htm">full documentary on Otlet</a> as well.
The Internet dies a little bit
<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9967119-38.html">Goodbye alt.*</a> <em>Andrew Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist. In a press release, he took credit for [Verizon's] blunderbuss-style newsgroup removal by saying: "We are attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers...I commend the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry."</em> Verizon eliminates the entire alt. subset of usenet. <em><a href="http://www.giganews.com/usenet-history/index.html">Today</a>, the alt.* hierarchy is by far the most populous on Usenet.</em>
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Mapping Iran's Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere.
<a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2008/Mapping_Irans_Online_Public">Mapping Iran's Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere.</a> From the abstract: <blockquote>We used computational social network mapping in combination with human and automated content analysis to analyze the Iranian blogosphere. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that Iranian bloggers are mainly young democrats critical of the regime, we found a wide range of opinions representing religious conservative points of view as well as secular and reform-minded ones, and topics ranging from politics and human rights to poetry, religion, and pop culture. Our research indicates that the Persian blogosphere is indeed a large discussion space of approximately 60,000 routinely updated blogs featuring a rich and varied mix of bloggers. Social network analysis reveals the Iranian blogosphere to be dominated by four major network formations, or poles, with identifiable sub-clusters of bloggers within those poles. We label the poles as 1) Secular/Reformist, 2) Conservative/Religious, 3) Persian Poetry and Literature, and 4) Mixed Networks.</blockquote>

lately, and his father-in-law is coming to dinner for the weekend and already thinks he is a bum. Since he usually mows his yard (albeit maybe not very well), but this time he wants a really GREAT job done just this once.

Well, obviously I do not have an option for him. He does not want to pay for 6 months that he is not going to use. Would not make sense for my lawn mowing service to have a one-time-fee of something like $45 dollars?

This is a relatively crude example, but do you see what I'm getting at?

Summary:

In marketing, especially in services marketing, leave the ego and what you want at the door and make certain that you are providing your clientele with what they want or you will be making the biggest mistake a semi-successful marketer makes.

Another tips is, if someone takes the one time service and they enjoy the service immensely, provided they do actually need the long-term or membership service, they might be very inclined to make that commitment. You benefit in the end.