Jennifer Burns is an accounting professional with "big four" experience and a career in accounting and tax of more than 20 years. Something a little bit less known about her is that she also studied a marketing degree early in her career, and it has carried her along in different ways since she completed it. This has been particularly so since she stepped away from the mantle of being an employee and started creating her own micro business enterprises. She has seen many things over that time and these experiences have underlined her thinking that keeping things simple, low cost and time effective should lead anyone to success. Hence this book is inexpensive and quick to read, and also puts into action every cost control technique she has learnt to date!
Thus the main focus of this book is to help polish a reader's marketing skills, whilst keeping the time and cost involved to a minimum. Doing things in a good order and being organised are also concepts that are explored. To Jennifer, micro business marketing is predominantly about contacts and how you communicate with them. There are five types of contacts discussed in this book and these are the base tools used as the focus of her promotion strategy. They may not look or sound traditionally like tools, but they are definitely the starting point to get the job done. However, don't forget that keeping track of your contacts is super important as well (which is discussed later in the book). In terms of communicating with contacts that can be done in two ways:
Direct basis ? face-to-face or by telephone
Indirect basis ? online, by post or fax
To start with the indirect side first, there are an absolute abundance of sub-tools available to choose from. The trick is to pick the ones that will do the best job, and do it at the least cost. Therefore this book will also showcase the best and least expensive sub-tools that Jennifer has researched and discuss them in terms of various aspects of the Five W's (i.e. who, what, when, where and why). To take things a step further, here is a list of the three major methods of indirect communication that Jennifer practices and some of those individual sub-tools she will be talking about. They are:
Social Networking ? Facebook Page, Google+ Page, LinkedIn, Twitter
Virtual Promotion ? Website, Email Marketing, Online Advertising
Print Promotion ? Business Stationery, Business Gifts, Print Advertising
On the direct side, taking time to speak to someone in person or by phone is going back to the basics of business networking...and there are not too many variations on this theme. Giving up some precious billable time, however, means that direct communication can also be the most expensive networking of all. Hence this book will also give tips on how to kill more than one bird with one stone and still incorporate direct communications into a micro business promotion strategy!
