Taking Shortcuts is Bad for Business...especially Small Business

We live in uncertain times.

Economically, the world is unstable. Unemployment - whether the stats show us hope or not - is a growing issue. Running a small business successfully requires more hustle than ever...which is why I am baffled that people still believe that there are shortcuts to success.

The other day, a friend of mine was telling me that she was having a tough time getting leads. She's really great at what she does, so I was surprised. She mentioned to me that someone told her to go to Fiverr and hire someone for cheap to create a bunch of links into her website so it would appear higher in search results. After advising her against Black Hat SEO, I asked her about her marketing strategy to date. Being that she has 20+ years of experience in her profession, I expected she would have a lot of expertise to offer via content.

To my horror, she told me that she hadn't even thought of marketing or content. Then she added that she had run out of time and didn't have the bandwidth to produce any content to generate leads.

So...I made this video:

Not only was she going to waste her time paying for an SEO practice that could hurt her findability on search engines in the long-run, but she was also investing in the types of things that were not going to help her achieve her goals.

I reasoned with her, "Right now, you have more time than money. Use it to build your reputation and relationships so that this doesn't happen again."

The truth is that, yes, this process is a TIME INVESTMENT. It won't lead to immediate results. But most small businesses don't have the budgets to make any sort of dent using short-term attention-grabbing tactics. Big businesses are also wasting their time and money, but they have deeper pockets.

If there is ANYONE that content can benefit, it's a small business professional. I started putting up my videos in November and I've had a steady stream of leads ever since. But without my LinkedIN column (120,000+), my Twitter followers (52,000+), and my overall online audience, these leads wouldn't have been coming in. 

I've been building my reputation online since 2002. It started off VERY slowly. Nobody read blogs back then and THANK GOODNESS because my content was pretty bad. I got more serious in 2004 and my readership started to grow. Blogging led to me to a job offer at an exciting new startup in San Francisco in 2005 where I worked hard to execute on the ideas I had blogged about, which led me to connecting to amazing thought leaders who I got to write and speak alongside, which led me to a book deal, which led me to more speaking and writing, which led me to higher profile clients and projects, which led to...it went on. For 14 years, I have made it a priority to share what I'm discovering freely, which has ALWAYS led to good things for me, my career, and my business prospects. Content acts as an online portfolio for me as well as free advertising to attract future prospects.

In the future, it won't be enough to have experience and talent, you will need to have an audience as well. Actually, I take that back. The future is happening now.

So if you are a small business owner or a consultant and you are NOT creating content, I have some bad news for you:

You have a lot of catching up to do.

But as I say in the video, it's not too late. You just need to stop getting distracted by the 'get rich quick' schemes and get serious about building your reputation and relationships. It will last longer and will get you where you actually want to go.

Oh...and big ups to the Marketoonist, Tom Fishburne, and Giff Constable - you should definitely check out Talking to Humans before you do ANYTHING.

And, if you are so inclined, subscribe to my Truly Social YouTube series.