Diversification – It’s All About Balance

Ask any good investment specialist and they will tell you that your financial portfolio should be diversified. As the saying goes “It’s not smart to put all your eggs in one basket.” Diversification is important for more than just managing your finances. A recent magazine article I read suggests that small companies need to be multi-dimensional in order to stave off the larger corporations from crushing them. A slightly diversified product line is just the trick. A large corporation can copy your one product and probably even improve it, but it becomes much harder if you have numerous products and/or product lines.

Marketing is another area where diversification can pay off. Don’t put together a great website and believe that it will deliver all the business your company needs. Even if it is optimized to the max, you are still missing potential customers that do multi-media research. Consider adding in some direct mailing, a magazine ad or two, a trade show, e-mail blast, and the never to be replaced face-to-face visit by a salesperson. I once assisted a company in starting their first ever internal marketing dept. We had a very limited budget, but used a tried and true method for determining where to spend our dollars and get the biggest benefit. Within three months of implementation the phones started ringing like never before. One caller told me “I’m seeing your company everywhere all of a sudden.” That’s what marketing is all about – starting a buzz because you are perceived to be everywhere, and therefore, must be the best.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.