By Christine Gallagher
A mentor of mine once said that when it comes to business, “the marketing is just as important as the mastery.” They were basically saying that the know-how and the “what” of your business is important, but if no one knows about you and what you do, it doesn’t matter. They actually qualified it by saying that the marketing is just as important–“if not more.”
Makes sense, right?
Truthfully, there are many small business owners who aren’t comfortable with this idea. They’re proud of their skills and abilities and oftentimes have to gone into business because they feel strongly about helping others. They believe the majority of their time should be spent doing just that.
But if you want to reach as many people as you can with your services or products, your marketing needs to be just as much a priority. I’ve spoken to solopreneurs who have told me that they spend Monday through Thursday working with clients and devote Friday mornings to doing some marketing. That’s a start, but honestly, you should be doing some form of marketing every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s small and only takes you five to ten minutes.
What are the types of things you could be doing? If you are doing business online, you could write and submit an article to an article directory, write and submit a press release, put up a blog post, interact on a social media site such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, comment on blogs or forums, prepare and send out an e-zine, tweak your website for SEO, and on and on. There is no shortage of marketing activities you could be doing.
It doesn’t mean the “what” of your business isn’t important, it just means that mastering marketing is as crucial as mastering your craft. You can be the absolute best of the best at what it is you do–but if you are not marketing consistently, your talents, skills and abilities won’t be enough to truly sustain you.
Now, if you have all the business you can handle then by all means, keep doing what you are doing. :) But if you enjoy what you do and want to keep doing it, you need to make sure you are devoting enough of your efforts to keeping your pipeline full.
© 2009 Communicate Value. All Rights Reserved.
Christine Gallagher, The Online Marketing and Social Media Success Coach, is founder of Communicate Value, where she is dedicated to teaching small business owners and professionals how to conquer the overwhelming aspects of online and social media marketing to increase business and maximize profits. To get your F.R.E.E. 5-Part E-Course and receive her weekly marketing & success articles on leveraging technology, building relationships and boosting your profits, visit http://communicatevalue.com.
Nice article! Especially right on about marketing consistently. You can have the best products, best management team, but you also need to shout out to the world on a consistent basis. Constancy and consistency!
Janette
Absolutely! It’s so easy to overlook marketing, or just try something once or twice, when really the only way for us to get our products or services out there to help people is to let them know we’re here by marketing.
It’s so important because there are a lot of shops on the net, and how can anyone find mine? And why should they buy from me if they find me? Then, of course, the issue of free versus, paid comes into play. Should one try paid advertising, and if so what’s the perfect spot to do it? Sole proprietors are expected to wear many hats, even if some don’t fit well!
So very true, I definitely notice an upswing in business when I am making extra effort to put my biz out there. I do pretty well with free advertising, social networking etc.