Are you making these 5 sales & marketing mistakes?

9/10 startups might as well take their marketing budget and set it on fire.

Dramatic? Maybe.

Valid? Yes.

Here’s why:

In the last 8 years that I’ve been running Accelity, I’ve met thousands of founders. (That sounds kind of crazy, but I ran some calculations and it’s a solid estimate.)

These are the stories I’ve heard time and time again:

“I have lots of marketing ideas but never follow through because I don’t have money or resources.”

“We keep trying different strategies but nothing makes an impact.”

“I’ve hired marketing employees and agencies but none of them worked out.”

I have seen founders BLOW their budgets on marketing strategies that weren’t a good investment. Make poor choices for their budget. Not stick with strategies long enough to make an impact. Hire the wrong resources for the job.

There are tell-tale signs of a startup that’s strolling down the wrong marketing path. In this article, I’m going to tell you how to get (and stay) on the right track.

Marketing to everyone is marketing to no one. No exceptions.

“Our product could be used by almost anyone.”

“We’re going to miss out on sales if we niche down too much.”

If this is you, knock it off. Please!

There’s a reason this saying was born: the riches are in the niches. Your startup needs a target audience.

And if you’re tight on cash, start with ONE. You can always expand, but I’ve seen very few exceptions where brand-new startups do an excellent job at marketing to more than one audience right off the bat.

Think of it this way:

You’re right (and I don’t say those words often ??)—you may miss out on sales that are outside of your target market. You will also win WAY MORE sales within your target market because you’re specialized and putting all your resources toward one goal. It really is as simple as that. Pick one strategy, and do it right. Then duplicate.

That leads me to my next point…

Be realistic about what you can achieve.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant hungry?

I have. I went to my favorite mexican restaurant around the corner while hungry a few weeks ago, ate a bunch of chips, ordered an appetizer and a huge meal. Don’t judge, I was starving.

You know what happened after that?

I hardly ate any of my actual meal, spent way too much money, and kinda felt like crap.

Now take my fun little story and apply it to marketing. You’re a startup with zero marketing, and you’re hungry. Make sure your eyes aren’t bigger than your stomach and you only order what you can actually eat (and digest? This analogy is getting weird).

You have to keep your plans realistic to be successful.

Yes, ideally I would post on LinkedIn twice a day, interact before and after, and have half a million followers. But I don’t do or have any of that, because I have a company, and a family, and a sad social life that I’m trying to improve. Whatever, you don’t need my excuses. ;)

My marketing plan says that I post 3-4 times a week, spending a few hours each week shooting new content, editing, interacting, and meeting new people in the DMs. That’s what I’ve got to give right now, and that’s realistic for me.

When you overdo your marketing plans, then fail, you’ll just discourage yourself. It’s good to stretch but your goals must be attainable.

Consistency is the name of the game.

One of the main reasons I see startups fail is because they give up too soon.

Your first video didn’t go viral? I never would have guessed.

Especially with organic strategies, you have to stick with it for a LONG time until you find success. You see it here on LinkedIn all the time with people like Joel Lalgee talking about how no one cared about his first 10, 20, or 100 posts. (Shoutout to Joel for using *consistency* to build a killer audience!)

Here are two of my own data points for you to ponder:

One: It took my company over a year to hit our stride with digital content, start driving good-fit traffic to the site, and get consultation requests from organic traffic alone. We are still constantly tweaking our systems.

Two: It’s taken me almost 3 years of consistent posting to build this audience on LinkedIn. And not just posting—interacting, stalking people to make them my friends, responding to hundreds of DMs… it could be a full-time job.

The takeaway? Good things take time.

Set up your systems before you start

I beg you: do not start any kind of marketing until you have a few important tools set up.

The easiest time to get a CRM in place? When you only have a few contacts to add.

The easiest time to get web analytics in place? When you build your website.

The easiest time to start tracking your social or email numbers? When you first post on social or send emails.

You get the picture.

I’ve seen too many companies that have web traffic and a marketing program in place but no idea what’s working. A little bit of legwork upfront will save you a lot of headache in the long run.

The best way to cash flow a business? Make money.

Last but not least, sales are the ultimate cure. A mentor of mine said this phrase 8 years ago when I was just starting Accelity and boy, did it hit home. (Clearly—I’m still repeating his words almost a decade later.)

Talk to potential customers even before you launch a product or service. Make sure there’s a market. Shit, you can sell a concept before you even sink money into building it.

You want to invest in marketing? Sell something.

You want to invest in your product? Sell something.

You want to hire? Sell something.

If you don’t know how to sell, learn to do it, and do it well. It’s one of the most important parts of being an entrepreneur.

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Thank you for reading my half-ramble, half educational article. :) If you want more of my advice about how to build a marketing program for your startup, please check out the pre-sale happening NOW for my new course: Marketing for Cash-Strapped Startups.

Questions? Comments? Drop ‘em below!