If you're a financial advisor, you probably think you're marketing financial advice. If you're a sales consultant, you may think you are marketing sales training. If you are a realtor, you may assume you market homes or commercial properties. If you market big screen TVs you may think you're selling latest technology.

In each case, you'd be right in terms of your deliverables, but you'd be wrong about what your prospects are buying.

Over years, I've worked with service providers ranging from plumbers to financial advisors, to data management firms as well as numerous marketing consultants. Despite diversity of services they provide, they all face same hurdle to increasing their sales. Each and every one has product or service they deliver confused with what they are marketing.

What you're marketing and what you actually deliver are two different things. The key to increasing your sales is to realize that what you are really marketing is hope – your clients' hope of achieving their goals.

You're marketing to your prospects' hopes that they'll be happier, more successful, more attractive, smarter, richer, more comfortable, more secure, etc. Target your marketing to real reasons people buy, and you'll be much more successful in motivating them to make a purchase from you.

Focus your marketing by identifying what your prospects want. Make a list that describes their hopes. Following are some samples to give you idea:

- What Your Prospects Really Want - Residential Realtors' Prospects - I hope I can find a home I can afford - I hope I can find a home to accommodate our growing family - I hope I get best possible price for our current home

Sales Trainers' Prospects - I hope I can generate more leads - I hope more people understand how I can help them - I hope I can sell more of my products and services

Readers love fresh, relevant, useful content. People surf net to find solutions to everyday problems. If you can provide this kind of information, your readers will love your site and will tell their friends.

We recommend you consider each point in checklist and how it related specifically to your website. Most small, home businesses are owned by busy people with other responsibilities. Few people will have time and resources to research and develop all these points at same time. We recommend you work on one or two at a time, and develop fantastic content, rather attempting to tackle all these aspects at once.

Remember, it takes time to put together a fantastic site with incredible content.

1. How To Articles: they include detailed step by step instructions. Examples: how to publish your e-zine, how to promote your business, how to attract visitors to your web site.

2. Tips: they are usually small pieces of information about size of a paragraph. Examples: tips on using a product, tips on doing your taxes.

3. Top Lists: they are a group of tips listed in order, usually numbered from first to last. Examples: top 7 ways to get to top of search engines, top 10 ways to market your product.