How do you define your marketing message? Is it what you say at networking meetings, how you do presentations, how you speak to potential clients, how you write your newsletter, your blog or your website?

Yes, these are all part of your message.

But your message is much broader than the words. Marketing goes beyond the narrow definition we often have of "promotion, selling and advertising."

Marketing is about communication. No matter what you do, you can't NOT communicate. You are always sending a message, whether you're doing it consciously or not.

It's non-verbal as well as verbal. This includes how you present yourself at networking meetings, how professionally you look and behave, how your employees treat customers, how you answer the phone - it all communicates something about you and your attitude towards business and your clients. And it all contributes to your image and your credibility credbitility with your prospects. .

Ray Kroc, founder of MacDonalds, believed that marketing included clean restrooms and consistency of service because it all helped to convey a message to his customers. Customers know that they can go to the restroom without being faced with the mess that they find in many other places, and they can depend on the consistent delivery system.

At Disney World, picking up gum and trash is not 'cleaning up." it's marketing. It's helping to create the image of a clean, wholesome place where your children will not be exposed to dirty sidewalks. At Disney, men used to be forbidden to grow beards so that they would convey a clean-cut image where parents would feel comfortable with their children (I don't know if it's still that way).

Take some time to review your non-verbal messages and see how they stack up against the image you really want to convey to your prospects and clients. And how do they support or conflict with your verbal message?