How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time of course.
OK, so the ’saying’ isn’t exactly original but on the off chance that you haven’t come across it before …
If you’ve set yourself a big goal or have a seemingly insurmountable task to perform the best approach is to break it down into little, manageable pieces that you can accomplish. Ultimately, step by step, you will have eaten the entire elephant!
As I’ve often noted, most small business owners don’t start out as a marketer in search of a product to sell. They start out with a background in, training in or an interest in, something specific. It could be fashion, retail, accountancy, art or anything – but usually not marketing.
So, once they decide to start a business they come to the sudden realisation that in addition to being really good in what they do they also have to do all the other bits that go with it – from book keeping to management and, yes, marketing.
That, to be fair, sucks.
You can’t expect a new business owner to know what they’re doing when it comes to marketing. There are more options and ideas than they could ever try so it’s no wonder that most either
- Do nothing to market their business
- Revert to ‘how everyone else does it’, or
- Try the latest marketing idea du jour
The best approach for most small business owners though is the do one thing approach.
- Scour blogs, websites and marketing books for ideas.
- Start by making a list of making ideas that you can do.
- This week try one new idea and keep track of the results
- Next week, keep that idea going and add a 2nd
- Over time keep adding new initiatives and track the results. Keep the things that work well and amend or drop the things that don’t
It may not be a sexy or glamourous approach to marketing but it does work, it is something anyone can do and it doesn’t risk the business along the way. Of course, as you get into the swing of things, you’ll gradually learn more about marketing and be able to speed up the process if you want – you’ll gain marketing momentum.
So what one small thing could you try this week or month to improve your business?
