Small Business Self-Marketing: Time Well Spent or Time Suck?
Yeah I know. If only marketing a small business was romantic, and as easy as it looks in the photo. No need to fantasize. You will love marketing your small business when you do it right.
The universe is talking to me. I know I might as well listen. I know I might as well write it down and share. You might benefit here, too.
You see the matter of small business self marketing came up for me yesterday. It came up not once. It came up not twice. It came up in three different consultations with small business owners. Safe to say, when the topic of small business self marketing gets put on the table…it usually lasts longer than a good meal. It can also linger like indigestion.
Is it right for small business owners to do their own marketing?
This is like the chicken or the egg stuff. Ask a hundred small business owners, and you won’t get a hundred different answers. Nope. The most likely scenario is you won’t get many definitive answers at all. Instead, what you will get are plenty of shoulder shrugs, and plenty of looks of frustration and confusion on people’s faces.
Deciding how to effectively do marketing of a small business and deciding who does it, have been challenges for all types of industries for quite a long time. Back in the day, it could have been figuring out who wrote the classified ad for the local newspaper, or who dealt with the folks from the Yellow Pages once a year. Then, the information superhighway rolled in.
Internet marketing changed small business and big business, didn’t it?
That’s a relatively easy question to answer. Today, the trendy hats to wear in marketing include Social Media, SEO, Blogging, Video Producer, Circus Master, and more.
The following questions are some of the ones which aren’t so easy to answer.
– Do you consider yourself most effective as a businessperson or blogger?
– Do you hire an internet marketing consultant or agency, or do you try to put the YOU in “guru”?
– Are you the best pitch person to appear in videos, or do you have someone else such as a professional spokesperson to deliver the messages you want in the ways people want to receive them?
– What is the best way for your marketing to save you money and make you money now and in the long run?
Yesterday, I was asked to answer these questions for 3 different smart people. I took what I know to be a smart action in return. I only made observations, suggestions, and repeated key points I heard. It’s not my first rodeo. Choosing yay or nay on small business self marketing is a fundamental decision which usually works out best when the decision maker arrives at the conclusion on his or her own.
I recommend every small business owner or executive answer these questions by asking herself or himself one more very probing and problem solving question.
“What’s the best use of my time or my staff’s time?”
Asking this question honestly provides real insight. You can determine if it is better to save some money or sacrifice quality, productivity, and efficiency.
You can explore if there is someone else in your company who can do your job better than you or in place of you while you are the marketing guru.
You can look closely at how best to maximize time, skills, and results.
I will point out many small business owners come to the conclusion they are their own most effective marketer. They say they are going to dedicate themselves to doing it and being it.
But as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” New needs and priorities pop up. Procrastination and frustration show up. And their self-marketing machine gets held up. Nothing gets done until the cycle repeats itself weeks or usually months later.
Maybe your small business self marketing can be different. Maybe it can’t. You choose.
Let me know if AZ STRONG can help with marketing solutions.
Call (602) 535-2320. Or Email
