by Michael Harrison
The phrase “speculate to accumulate” is a time-tested piece of advice that any business owner should always keep at the front of their mind.
Simply stated, you need to spend money to make money.
It’s a tough call at times when you’re focusing on your bottom line and thinking about budgets, but if you’re in this for the long game, you have to steel yourself and accept that a percentage of your revenue must be taken up by advertising and promoting your business.
If you’re in any doubt about this, the question you really need to ask yourself is how badly you want to be in business. Are you genuinely committed to your business and to making a success of it, or do you just like the idea of owning a business but are reluctant to put in the time, effort and finances required?
The vast majority of businesses operate at break even for the first few years, or at best make minimal profits. One of the major costs in these initial years is investing in marketing, and the smart business owner knows that this is an investment, and not money down the drain.
If you think spending $1,000 is too high a price to pay for a little marketing, then you’re not looking far enough ahead. That $1,000 could bring in $10,000 in new business. If it only brought $2,000, that’s still a 100% ROI (Return on Investment).
Are you marketing in the right places?
The nature of your business will largely dictate what forms of marketing you invest in. Some work better than others for different business models. If you know your industry inside out – as you should – then you can easily identify which forms of marketing traditionally work best. Even if you are new to your business, it is not a difficult task to become familiar with all you need to know by researching online.
If your budget is limited, then you may need to target specific types of marketing above others until you can cover them all, but the important issue is not to think that advertising and marketing are optional extras. They’re not; they are the lifeblood of any business, especially in its initial stages.
The World Wide Web
There’s a clue in the title. It’s world wide. Which brings us to the topic of websites. If you are currently not able to insert a www in front of your business name on any promotional advertising, then you are seriously missing out on a colossal market for your business.
For any business owner, having a website is essential. But it goes further than working in your favour; it can actually prove detrimental to the public perception of your business if you don’t have a website.
Not being able to direct a potential customer to a website is tantamount to suggesting that you’re only dabbling in the business; you’re dipping your toe in and it’s just at the hobby stage. Would you buy from someone who didn’t want to invest in their own dedicated business website? What would that tell you about their whole ethos? You’d think they were laid-back, non-committal and lackadaisical, wouldn’t you? Would you therefore feel confident that they’d be sticking around, or that their service wouldn’t be equally underwhelming?
When you think about your business, remember this: sell on price, buy on price, die on price.
That’s not just true for your product or service; it counts equally for your marketing efforts. There are some pretty shoddy websites out there. These are sites that are built on a shoestring budget, or built on a DIY platform, or built professionally but never updated.
If you do have a website and any of these apply to you, think what these characteristics are saying to your potential customers. Your website is your shop front.
If you you had to choose between a coffee shop where the windows were filthy, the sign was falling to pieces, the lighting was dull, and the décor was tired and uninspired, and another coffee shop where everything was bright and fresh and up-to-date, where would you choose to spend your money?
A decent website will cost to set up and to maintain, and you may not immediately notice the rewards, but not having one is simply not an option. If you are in the position where you have had a website for a while and you still don’t see any benefit, then perhaps there are issues with your site that need attending to. Or it may be perfectly fine, but that amazing customer you’ve been waiting for just hasn’t discovered it yet.
Paying for a website to be maintained and updated is a cost you just have to bear. If you won’t invest in this area of your business and your site falls into disrepair or is taken down, that amazing customer will still buy – they will just become the amazing customer of someone else.
Michael Harrison is a consultant, marketer, and business generation specialist dedicated to assisting professional services businesses to grow and increase revenue, margins and profits. He can be contacted at Strategies Plus
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