How to Promote Your Product by Promoting Yourself

At some stage, an entrepreneur has to promote a product or service. The promotion may be to investors, distributors, major customers, or sales staff, all of whom expect an entrepreneur to engage in the marketing process.

Enthusiasm

The degree to which entrepreneurs take part in promotional activities, however, varies according to individual preference and communication skills. Not all entrepreneurs are natural salespeople, and those who are good at selling clearly have a head start. The rest needn’t worry too much, though, because there are still ways of demonstrating commitment to the success of a business.

Certainly something investors, staff, and customers like to see is enthusiasm. For most entrepreneurs this comes easily, although at times the pressures of the commercial world can dampen the spirit of the most passionate business advocate. Nonetheless, consistent enthusiasm is infectious. It can motivate people to believe in a product; inspire employees to work hard to make an enterprise succeed; and encourage consumers to buy.

Positive Attitudes

Positive attitudes tend to accompany enthusiasm. One of the best ways of promoting a sense of confidence in a business is for an entrepreneur to maintain a positive attitude to opportunities, problems, and the daily workload. The latter, for instance, includes basic issues such as health and safety in a factory, or increasingly relevant matters such as responsibility to the environment.

These attitudes create a favourable image of an entrepreneur in the minds of staff, financial backers, and the public. This image then transfers by association to an entrepreneur’s products and services.

Insider Knowledge

An entrepreneur who has inside knowledge of any part of a business must use it and build on it. This knowledge may be in manufacturing, distribution, marketing, or accountancy – the actual subject isn’t important as long as it’s relevant to the business.

An entrepreneur should promote this expertise, particularly at the start of a venture. It confirms that a business is in safe, professional hands.

Previous Successes

Perhaps the greatest expertise an entrepreneur can show is previous business success. This is how a lot of entrepreneurs make their reputations. Just about everyone who’s likely to have anything to do with a business appreciates knowing that the man or woman leading it has a history of establishing profitable concerns.

Promoting such success is therefore not about vanity. It’s about selling an entrepreneur as a trustworthy commodity.

Knowledge of the Media

Some entrepreneurs enjoy the media spotlight and can turn public exposure to business advantage. These people are in a minority, however, and there’s no need for anyone with little experience of the media to think that such blatant self-promotion is necessary.

Nonetheless, it does help to know the ways the media can provide promotional opportunities. Press releases and interviews to local newspapers and radio stations, for example, are a relatively cheap way of bringing a business to the attention of consumers.

Self-Promotion

Self-promotion is inextricably part of winning support for a business idea and then developing it. This doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs must change their personalities and adopt roles they find uncomfortable. Even so, they should expect to sell themselves as well as their products.