If I were to ask you what was the most important “job” in running your business, what would your answer be? For most solo-entrepreneurs the answer I get is that creating the product or delivering the service is the most important job. A Realtor tells me helping clients buy or sell homes is the most important job. A direct sales rep tells me selling her products is the most important job. A freelance writer tells me writing is the most important. And so on. But they are all wrong.
Any any business, the most important job is marketing. And I’m convinced that most small and solo-person businesses that struggle, do so because they fail to see that job number one is getting the word out. That doesn’t mean that the product or service isn’t important. Obviously it is. But without clients or customers, there is no one to provide products and services to, and therefore no business.
Once you grasp the idea that marketing is crucial, you can redesign your business efforts so that it becomes part of your daily tasks. In fact, not a day should go by in which you don’t do at least one thing that lets the world know about your business whether its running an ad, calling people on the phone, writing an article or press release, etc. Marketing is not something you do once in awhile when you need clients. Its also not something you do once and sit back and wait for results. Marketing is pro-active and needs to be done every day to build and maintain a steady stream of clients and income.
If you’re not sure what to do, talk with experts in your field or get a good marketing book and create a marketing plan. Then add marketing tactics to your daily to-do list so that it becomes habit.
Below are some of my favorite marketing books for small and solo-person businesses:
