There is conclusive evidence that the three characteristics of a highly successful firm are an obsessive focus on strategy, teams and marketing. 

Much of the recent plethora of research and training activities has focused on developing strategic thinking and teams in growing businesses.  Business advisers, bankers, accountants and consultants have taken it for granted that good marketing must be taking place in a small business, especially if it is surviving and / or growing.  All too often, however, this assumption has disguised a lack of basic marketing skills.  So why are growing firms not all avid marketers? 

There are several reasons - and they're not restricted to the small business community alone.  The first issue is that marketing is often confused with selling.  But any marketing professional knows they are very different animals.  If the purpose is to get and keep a customer, marketing is about how you should achieve that aim.  In other words, it is about developing products or services that will profitably satisfy customer desires.  Selling, on the other hand, is about getting people to buy your product.  This basic message, from chapter one of any marketing book, simply has not been taken on board and understood, or rather communicated effectively, to the smaller business owner-manager. 

The second issue is that marketing often seems to be made unnecessarily complicated.  BCG (Boston Consultancy Group) matrices, product portfolio analyses, perceptual mapping, Porter & Ansoff are too often presented by the less scrupulous as a pseudo-scientific, jargon-ridden form of black magic which is all about features and little about workable benefits. 

High-flying theories in textbooks are specifically designed for the MBA audience and brand managers of multinational companies.  The models presented are academically approved, intellectually rigorous and based on many years of research in larger organisations.  But what the average growing business needs is a simple yet powerful took kit; and the more academic textbook approach does not readily seem to offer such a package. 

Anyone who has run their own business or acted as an adviser will know that any tools offered must be intuitively attractive and be seen to be able to generate results fast.  Global marketing strategy may be intellectually attractive but it is limited in effectiveness for the average entrepreneur. 

Marketing is often misunderstood and a new Warwick Business School report, "Marketing Success In Fast Growth SMEs", identifies the need for some good simple common sense.  Marketing is about knowing who we want our customers to be, today and tomorrow; understanding who our competitors are, today and tomorrow, and knowing what is going on in the marketplace and in the industry.  That's all - just plain common sense - but all too often, businesses simply aren't able to step back and assess what is going on around them. 

One of the real barriers to business growth is an inability to think strategically - owner-managers are constantly fire-fighting and sometimes end up as the proverbial busy fools.  They need to work smarter. 

 The report is based on a series of case studies of real businesses, and the research draws out nine fundamental lessons about how marketing can work for growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).  The bottom line is the acronym KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.  The lessons are as follows: 

Professional advice: outside professionals can act as a catalyst, to focus the business on the importance of marketing 

Basic techniques: simple techniques are required, eg. segmenting the market or using existing information 

Customer focus: this will improve business performance because you will be better able to give customers what they really want. 

The need to plan: the discipline of putting the customer first brings with it a range of benefits, eg. systematic planning, prioritising and measuring effectiveness, all of which aid performance. 

New focus changes other factors: focusing on customer needs changes the whole outlook of the business as it review all its functions in a new light. 

New rules create new markets: legislation and regulations have created new opportunities for those actively seeking them.  This is a real growth area. 

Competitive advantage: by focusing on customer needs and marketing issues, SMEs can establish a competitive advantage, as they target their operations on what is really required of them by the customer. 

Changed outlook: marketing can become the central business function, which increases the firm's competitiveness. 

Staffing changes: staff need to change to adopt the new philosophy. 

The report is timely.  It brings us back to sound business basics.  Businesses must never lose sight of who their customers are and what they want from them.  If you ask the right questions, you get answers that can be used effectively to develop your business.