Good marketing wins you business, great project management retains it

You don’t have to go very far if you’re involved in business to bump into a marketing person. The internet abounds with digital marketing experts, some almost at superstar level (have a look at Neil Patel’s publicity!) who have apparently turned just about every type of business into an overnight success.

They’ll put your website effortlessly at the top of the Google listings and make sure your tweets are endlessly re-tweeted. You’ll see business piling in from Linkedin and witness your Facebook posts being worshipped. How can any business can survive without this magical input from these alchemists, who spend their entire lives turning base metal into gold?

But let’s face it, this is easy business. It appeals to our basest fear…we all need more business and we’re never very secure about where it’s coming from. And these guys are so good at showing how your competitors are getting loads more website hits than you and how if only you’d hire them, you could start thinking about more time on a Caribbean beach sipping Pina Colada while the business magically starts piling in.

The only way you’ll see your customer coming back for more is if you make a damn good job of delivery

OK, let’s not get too cynical, some of this stuff works, but it is time consuming, expensive and a nightmare telling the real stuff from the snake oil. You clearly do need to get business in the first place, but as anyone will tell you, repeat business is a lot cheaper to get than new business, plus repeat business has a habit of mushrooming – you get personal recommendations and win new business.

So it’s great winning business with slick marketing but that’s when the tricky bit starts, particularly if you’re a service company or a product company selling a product with bespoke add-ons. The only way you’ll see your customer coming back for more is if you make a damn good job of delivery.

So how do you do that? Well that’s where good project management comes in and more than that, setting your company up to support delivery and support your project managers. Deliver what the customer wants on time and on budget, communicate well and make your customer feel involved and confident and they’ll definitely be back for more.