Why you should double down on your marketing NOW.

It's fascinating to see how different businesses respond differently to world events. Even when there are hundreds of free ways for you to grow your business, marketing is normally the first thing to get dropped when your attention gets pulled in different directions.

Now, more than ever, marketing should be a priority in your business if it isn’t already.

This is why.

The last few months have forced pretty much most businesses on the planet to rethink how they operate. Some are better off, some are worse off, but in the process it’s fair to assume that everybody is learning something new or growing in some capacity. When things settle down, I’m not convinced it’ll go back to the way it was before.

For six years we have worked remotely. From Costa Coffee in Birmingham, to the Fern Forest Cafe in Thailand, to the Fansipan mountain in Vietnam and even a McDonalds inside a Walmart in Texas.

What’s my point? Remote work has worked for years, but a surprising amount of businesses have resisted it until now. As a result? More and more businesses realise they can actually work just as efficiently, if not more efficiently, with people working from home!

This fundamentally changes the landscape of how you market your business.

From experience, I can tell you working from home requires discipline and habit development which for some can take years. It’s now so much easier, to pick up your phone, open your web browser, quickly tick this item off your to do list...because your environment has changed and no one is looking over you or your employee’s shoulder anymore.

This means at any given time there are more people online on Google, on Facebook, on LinkedIn. I mean, you’re reading this article now, is there something else you’re supposed to be doing? My point exactly.

So let me summarise this with a story.

A fisherman bravely sails his boat out to deep waters, finds himself a great spot and casts his line. Business is booming, each day bringing a new haul of fish. One day, he looks over and another boat sails over and does the exact same thing. For all the fish you catch, so does your competitor, even worse he starts catching more!

Before you know it, not only is your take decreasing, but more boats are seen on the horizon coming your way. It doesn’t take long for the boats to saturate the water and there's barely any fish left for the taking.

Then out of nowhere...a storm hits.

Clouds blot out the sun, the water churns aggressively and lightning brings the only illumination as far as the eye can see.

What happens? All the fishermen begin to panic!

They can’t lose their boats! They can’t lose the fish they’ve already caught! 

They sail back to harbour and choose to wait for the storm to pass. Time passes but the fear doesn’t. “What if the storm returns?” they say, “What if it hasn’t fully passed yet?”. It’s just too risky.

But miles away, back in the middle of the ocean, a handful of fishermen ride out the storm and keep their lines out.

What do they find? The stormy waters somehow brought in new life, whether it be the nutrients lifted from the sea bed by the turbulent waters, or the lack of boats on the water's surface….there are now more fish than ever before!

Even better? Less fisherman out at sea.

The question is, are you going to keep casting your line? Or sail back to port whilst your competitors catch all the fish?