Your small business is a being. It’s a living, breathing,
moving, growing, changing being. It needs to be fed in order to keep it fat and
happy.
Think about how you feel when you skip a meal or don’t eat
right. Your stomach gurgles, your energy level is low and your mood changes.
This is the way many entrepreneurs are with their small businesses.
They work every day on what will bring them revenue today or two weeks from now
and forget to feed their business with leads and contacts that will help them
be full further down the road. Occasionally, they’ll stop and send out a single
post card or email or post something on Facebook, but there are large gaps in
between and not a good balanced meal to sustain the company’s energy, so the results are not what they expect.
Imagine instead if you devoted a percentage of your time and
a dedicated monthly budget to your business. The old adage of paying yourself
first applies to your business as well. It doesn't have to be a huge amount of
time, or a huge amount of money. It just has to be consistent. Start with an
hour or two a week and $500 - $1,000 per month.
That doesn't sound like much time or money to invest in marketing, but
it can go a long way. It’s much more about getting started, being strategic and
keeping it going than about how much you can do today.
If you start with a small budget and you’re not a marketing
guru, invest in a consultant to make the most of that budget for you. The right
consultant can stretch that amount each month into a good mix of marketing and
social media to get you the best reach for your investment.
Then, invest the limited time you have into communicating
and providing information about your business to that consultant and then to
networking as much as possible to cultivate current connections and add new
ones. The consultant can take the information and turn it into blog posts,
social media posts, email campaigns and other marketing and advertising to come
up with the right mix to maximize your investment and always keep you in front
of your target audience.
You also must have realistic expectations. With a small
investment of time and money, you won’t see huge results immediately. So don’t give up after a month
with no immediate results! With consistency, you will start seeing your
business and your brand awareness increase. Over time, you will solidify your
brand and your network will grow. So as you have new products or services to
offer down the road, your monster will be full of new prospects and potential
customers to sustain your business.
Is your monster being fed a good meal consistently or is
that a gurgle you hear?
