3 Things Your Marketing is Missing Pt1

I talk to dozens of business owners each week about the challenges they are facing in their businesses, and while we cover many topics, revenue is always one of their top three worries. Even those that are doing well and seeing a profit seem to fear that it is not enough.

And so, very often our discussions turn to marketing. Most often, I learn that business owners are missing the three things that could have the biggest and longest-lasting impact on building solid recurring revenue, the first of which is a marketing strategy.

Almost every business owner I talk to is missing a marketing strategy. How can that be? Well, I find that it stems from not understanding the difference between marketing and a marketing strategy.

Marketing is any effort that advertises a business to its potential customers. It could include print ads, digital ads, event sponsorships, business cards, networking, organic social media, branded apparel and more.

Marketing strategy is the intentional plan of when, where, and why a business uses a particular marketing effort in relation to the marketing efforts initiated before and after it, understanding how each will help the other move a prospect through the pipeline.

See, every business owner knows that they need to market their product or service, but business owners are also notoriously impatient and tend to believe that they know what they are doing. They gather the information about what marketing has worked for others, maybe from their franchisors, top franchisees, podcasts, or business acquaintances, and then, they dive in and begin executing.

This method is essentially like throwing spaghetti at the wall and believing it will stick. The problem is, the owner has not factored in all of the extraneous reasons that the spaghetti stuck for the other cook – length of time the spaghetti boiled, climate, elevation, brand of pasta, etc. Hence, when the spaghetti doesn’t stick, or appears to stick and then slides slowly down the wall, the business owner is disappointed and dejected.

Over time, this practice is very costly. The business owner is burning through their working capital without receiving the ROI they are looking for,. But just as importantly, these failures are costing the owner time and energy. Inevitably they become jaded toward certain marketing efforts, believing the medium doesn’t work, rather than evaluating the effectiveness of the way the medium was applied to the marketing plan as a whole.

To turn this chain of events around, an owner does not need to become a marketing expert. Rather, the owner needs to become a strategic thinker and apply that skill to their marketing plan. Once they can connect the dots between the marketing efforts that will put a prospect on a path to purchasing, the owner can be confident that their pipeline will remain full, and that customers will continue to walk through the doors. With a strategy in place, the business owner can turn to a marketing agency to add their expertise to the execution of the plan.

It is through this mindset transition, from execution to strategy, that business owners become entrepreneurs. Those that scale into their SWAG (Sanity, Wealth and Gratitude) have given up trying to be a subject-matter expert for every piece of their business and turned their attention to becoming the strategic mind behind growing the business.

To receive a free analysis of your current business mindset and what it will take to transition into being the strategic leader of your business, schedule a discovery call with April here. ?