Today’s interview is with Dee Blick, bestselling business author, marketing consultant and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. She agreed to join me to talk about her new book: The 15 Essential Marketing Masterclasses For Your Small Business.

This interview follows on from my recent interview: Business Growth Via Strategic Alliances….Done The Right Way – Interview with Marsha Wright – and is number seventy four in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

Here’s the highlights from the interview I did with Dee:

• A two-time best selling, self-published small business marketing author.
• Recently published a new book: “The 15 Essential Marketing Masterclasses For Your Small Business‘” this time with a publisher: Wiley
• The bedrock of marketing remains the same it’s just that we now have new ‘friends’ to play with.
• But, marketing is also changing as the customer really is ‘king’ these days. They have such a powerful voice and the tools at their disposal to make their voice heard.
• The medium is the same but the methods are changing.
• The new marketing landscape doesn’t just require the learning of new tools or the acquisition of new skills, it requires new attitudes.
• Entrepreneurs need to learn to take more risks and collaborate more.
• The late Peter Doyle said that ‘Marketing is a philosophy of business that places the customer at the centre of the universe’.
• Many entrepreneurs get to a point that they get so focused on running their businesses that they forget about listening to their customers.
• Building your expert status within your niche is a great way to engender trust with your marketplace and can compress the buying decision cycle.
• However, building expert status, like building trust, takes time and needs to be done right.
• Developing expert status requires commitment to an ongoing journey of learning, improvement and sharing and can be applied to all types of business.
• You used to be able to buy trust, in some cases, but not any more. Now, you have to earn trust.
• Dee didn’t set out to achieve this but has ended up building a lot of trust and expert status in the realm of small business marketing.
• Don’t worry about giving away all of your best stuff because those people that take your expertise, or what you share, and do things for themselves….they’re not your customers. Your customers are those that consume your stuff, allow you to build trust with them and then come and ask for for your help.
• Dee has included a chapter on customer service in her marketing book as she believes that it is an essential part of developing a more relationship based and customer focused business. And, therefore, has to be part of your marketing strategy.
• Dale Carnegie “People will like you based on how you make them feel about themselves”.
• In the interview, Dee goes into some great examples and case studies (an air suspension for vehicles firm, a firm that adapts vehicles for disabled motorists and an accountancy firm) and explains how some of the principles and masterclasses have worked for them and some of her other clients.
• Marketing is about communicating in a relevant and charming way to every one of your different target audiences.
• Awareness, interest, evaluation, desire and action are the stages that every business and its marketing plan needs to address.
• No plug from Dee other than if you do buy her book then do get in touch with her and say hello!

About Dee (adapted from her website bio)

Dee is a Chartered Marketer and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Fellowship is the highest status awarded by CIM, the World’s largest marketing body.

She has 29 years’ marketing experience gained from working initially with blue chip organisations and in the last 16 years with small and medium businesses. Dee has extensive experience in new product development and marketing strategy, with a track record of planning and delivering exceptional campaigns on a shoestring budget.

Dee is also a bestselling business author. Her first book, Powerful Marketing on a Shoestring Budget for Small Businesses, was the number one reader review rated small business marketing book on Amazon UK for over 12 months and is regularly in the top five bestselling small business marketing books. The sequel, The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book , was released in June 2011. It immediately became the best selling small business marketing book on Amazon and remained in that position throughout 2012. It currently has over 100 five-star reader reviews on that site. It was also the best-selling marketing book in 2012 for the Chartered Institute of MarketingBookshop.

Dee has just published her third book, The 15 Essential Marketing Masterclasses for your Small Business, which is published by Wiley, the world’s biggest business book publisher.

She’s also an enthusiastic, quirky and entertaining Marketing Blogger. You can read her blogs and subscribe to a monthly dose.

Why don’t you check out her new book, give her a call, send her an e-mail or connect with her on Twitter @deeblick.