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Home > Marketing Articles

How to identify your company’s marketing problems

During one of my recent seminars, an attendee took issue with my use of the word “problem”. It seems he’d been trained to call them “opportunities” instead, and felt that using the word problem was negative. Now, I’m all for putting a positive spin on things, but in my mind problems are something we grow up with. Can you imagine how some of our day-to-day expressions might change if we substituted “opportunity” for “problem”? For example:

“Johnny, I’ve got an opportunity with your attitude.”

“Susie, please finish your math opportunities.”

“He’s a real opportunity in the classroom.”

I believe in telling it straight with a minimum of happy-talk, so in my world, you’ll find “problems” in a marketing effort, and “opportunities” in the want ads section. I mention this because developing a good marketing plan for your business is really a problem-solving exercise. You’ll identify your company’s marketing problems and then work towards solving them through your marketing efforts.

Problem-solving steps

As you develop a marketing plan for your business, first identify all marketing problems (i.e. lack of awareness, declining sales, pricing is too low, etc.) your business faces, and get them out on the table. Then, prioritize each to determine which ones require immediate attention. Finally, you’ll start addressing those that are the highest-priority problems.

Identify Your Problems

Perhaps your employees...