If you work at a small business, you have the opportunity to wear a lot of hats.
It doesn’t matter what your actual role or title is, you can contribute at so many levels if you take the initiative.
Marketing is one of those opportunities that is staring you in the face. Every company can benefit from marketing and so many small business owners simply do not have the time to manage a marketing program.
The irony is that marketing is the best way to grow a business yet is the last item on the to do list! And then businesses get stuck just trying to keep the business operational, wondering why they can’t drive the growth they need to get to the next level. You can’t just rely on what’s worked in the past, word of mouth, and people randomly dropping in. You need a plan and you need to take action to build your customer base.
It’s also ironic that there are so many people interested in growing within their companies, that want to contribute more, that want to do more, that want to help and make a difference, but don’t ever get the opportunity. And then the company loses great people that got bored or found a job somewhere else that offered more pay or more room for growth.
The truth is business owners need all the help they can get. And the only way it happens is when the team around them speaks up and volunteers. You have to take initiative within your company and show that you can be an asset.
And it’s so easy these days to do that. Marketing education and execution for small business can be done with just a little bit of inspired thinking and with the right volunteers looking to contribute to their company.
So, here’s what you do! Make the decision that you are the new “marketing team” and that you will do what it takes to help this company grow.
Do it now. Say to yourself, “this going to be a big year for me”. And go out and do big things. Now finish reading this article and then send it to your boss to get started.
Here are the 3 things your boss needs to know to kick start their marketing program:
1) You Cannot Do it Alone
2) You Need a Strategy
3) You Don’t Need Proof
If you can agree to these three things, you have taken the first step towards getting unstuck in your business.
You Cannot Do it Alone
The first thing any business owner will tell you is that they have a million things to do and no time to do it. And when you go through the list of projects for a business, marketing is always at the bottom of the list if it even makes the list.
To kick start a marketing program, you need to find someone that has the time to take on the responsibility of marketing.
Marketing can be outsourced but there needs to be someone internally who can provide resources and assets to the outsourced person to help move things along. If you are building a website, you need pictures and copy, and the information about your company that the web builder should know to tell your story. If you want to build content, someone needs to approve the content strategy, and approve the content that gets written and posted. If you need ads, someone needs to approve the marketing messages and be involved in the goal setting and performance reporting.
You don’t need to hire someone new internally to do all this! You already have people at the company that can easily be trained to manage these marketing tasks. They just need to be given the permission to make decisions and take ownership of the project.
If you want the marketing program to actually happen, someone has to be there to provide their time and energy into gathering resources and providing inputs. Once that happens, the business owner is free to focus on the rest of the business, as long as they can commit a little time for check ins with this new marketing lead.
I’ve seen it time and time again. If the marketing can be led be someone other than the owner, you can fast track your program from being a six-month project that drags on to being a 4–6 week project or less! That’s valuable time because every new lead you generate quickly with marketing, has that much more time to visit your business and tell their friends about it.
You Need a Strategy
The second thing every business owner will tell you is that they believe in marketing but want to make sure it’s done right. They want an effective marketing program. They don’t want to waste money on something without a plan. But they don’t know how to go about building that plan.
They don’t want to hire a marketing person for the company full time, and they can’t afford to hire an outside company to do it for them. And they don’t trust their current team, because they don’t have any background in marketing.
To build an informed marketing approach, you need to bring in experts as needed on a project-by-project basis.
You need someone that can come in and help you figure out what the priorities are for your business so you can decide what to tackle first. This expert doesn’t need to be full time or even part time. You can bring them in for just a few hours! And those few hours can give you the clarity you need to move forward.
And then you can decide what type of training your team needs to execute your marketing. You can hire a specialist to show you how to set up Facebook ads yourself, or how to manage your website, or how to optimize your email program. You can sign up for classes online that walk you through the process. You can outsource these projects to freelancers and use your team as managers that are responsible for hiring and managing the performance of the freelancers.
These marketing projects are now so easy to launch that high school kids are taking on projects like this after checking out DIY tools. I’m not saying you should hire people that are just learning it for the first time, but it really is that self-explanatory in terms of execution.
It’s the strategy that takes experience. You need an expert to map out a strategic plan. It’s the expert that you should check in with along the way to make sure you are following best practices. And then let the team execute against that strategy. Let the team follow the plan. Let the team check the work against the best practices.
You Don’t Need Proof
The third thing that every business owner will tell you is that they need proof that marketing will work. They need proof that this is money well spent. They need proof that the investment will provide a reasonable return. And even if they say that they believe in marketing, they want some sort of evidence that it will work for them. Even better, they want to know exactly what to expect.
Let’s tackle some of the obvious answers first.
Marketing works. There isn’t a business that exists without marketing.
You can’t sell a product or service without someone knowing about it. So whether you are actively managing it or not, you are always marketing your business. Your current marketing may only be word of mouth referrals, your resume, your storefront, your business card, your personal emails, or your networking with potential clients.
But should you be doing more than you are currently doing? If you are perfectly happy with your current business, maybe you should keep everything the same. I’d argue that you should always be looking for new ways to do things better, smarter, and faster. A well-designed marketing program can save you time and money while building your customer base. There are always wasted efforts and energy in every business. A marketing plan helps cut out some of those inefficiencies.
You want more proof? Look at every successful business. Look at your competition. Look at how you spend your own money. How often do you make decisions based on marketing? It’s probably a lot more than you think if you actually sit down and map it out.
The last time you needed something, how did you find it? Did you google it? Did you ask for a referral from a friend on Facebook? Did you see a TV ad for it? Did you compare costs for it on a website? Of course you did! You interact with marketing every day. And the companies that pay attention to it and have a plan, win!
Once you admit that marketing works, then you can get into how it can work for you.
But that takes commitment because it’s different for every company and you need to keep trying things to find out what works best for you. But the sooner you start, the faster you learn and improve. There are plenty of people to help give you ideas where to start. You can hire an expert, or you can get out there and network with other successful business owners and ask what works for them.
Once you commit to marketing, the only decisions become how to manage it with the resources you have and how to keep making it better.So many business owners, can’t get past the point of being too busy to make a commitment. But those that do, wish they had done it sooner.
So send this to your boss! Be an advocate for your company. Put on your marketing hat and get moving!
Check out my Free Online Branding Checklist to get tips on how to get your business found online!
And check out my iTunes podcast Brands on Brands on Brands for more marketing and branding advice.