Success? "I don't need to market"

These images are from a web page of Cape Coral Plumbing in Fort Meyers, Florida, "South Florida's #1 Plumbing Contractor." "Cape Coral Plumbing opened in 1984 as a modest business owned by Lee and Butch Ritter. By the late 1980s, Cape Coral Plumbing was already a multi-million dollar company and the Ritter father and son team had "specialized" in their particular areas of expertise within the firm. With growth almost out of control, the company started to turn away business instead of sacrificing quality work. The Ritter team went to work and "crystallized" their company's mission. Adding office personnel, plumbers, trucks, inventory, equipment and a new facility would allow for quality growth."

An intriguing question raised by the previous post is whether you can define success by not needing to market -- that is, as Bobby Darnell suggests, you have it made when you are at the stage when you can say this:

I tell all of our clients that when it comes to selling, my goal is to only touch a telephone when I am picking it up to answer a “call-in” to my unlisted number. In other words, I want to build my business to a point where I am getting so much referral business that I no longer need to advertise and have an unlisted phone number!

This stage is obviously an enviable place to be - but some readers of this blog, now feeling the winds of recession, probably remember it with wistful hindsight. Surely, it is great when business is so great that you can pick and choose your clients, and determine your priorities-- with many people and businesses presenting proposals and ideas to you. In this perfect world, you can command higher prices on your output, and reduce your costs on the inputs, because of the desire of others to do business with you. (You can even build a business out of the spread, as Donald Trump's organization does.)

But how do you get there, and should you aspire to these ideals? Part of the key is successful branding -- that is,building a reputation that transcends your day-to-day life and causes people and organizations to give you an enhanced value and recognition. Your success in branding your business is, of course, your mark of marketing success.

Rather than reaching the stage of having so much business that you need an unlisted number to 'avoid' clients, I think you want to reach the point where all 'good' clients can find you, be ready to pay your price, and you are ready to serve them with quality and effectiveness -- these qualities will allow you to effectively recession-proof your business, and reach levels of growth and opportunity for both yourself and your employees.