Perseverance (pur-suh-veer-uhns)
Steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., esp. in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.
Business is tough. There it is, right out in the open, plainly spoken. Anyone who has started a business knows that while it may be the American Dream to own your own company, much fewer are the number of people that actually take on such an endeavor and fewer still that make it to a stage that they would consider "successful". It's like the ancient Chinese proverb says:
"To open a shop is easy, to keep it open is an art."
Hey, if were easy and not an art we would have a lot more business opening up all of the time. Setting aside the argument of government involvement/regulations/obstacles etc. just the determination and persistence needed, the sacrifice required, is daunting. I understand it, big time!
So after you have taken the time and expense to develop a product or a service that you believe in, found a facility to house your business, hired a modicum of staff to help you take your business to the masses that can use it the thought of parting with more hard earned cash to develop a marketing plan and tools is a tough pill to swallow. The first thought, many times, is that either you can just make that another hat that someone in the company can wear, or that you can skimp in that area because your product will speak for itself and word of mouth will just make the business flow in. Both thoughts have been the undoing of many great and promising companies.
What happens, however, to many owners and entreprenuers on the other side that DO invest in marketing of some nature, is that because they are already stretched so thin financially out of necessity they unrealistically expect to harbor INSTANT results and if it doesn't happen, they develop the business equivalent of ADHD. They immediately pull money away from what they were doing and jump onto a new band wagon, schizophrenically moving from one short term effort to another, typically with the same unsatisfactory results. Many times these efforts are precipitated because of an "amazing, limited time available, act now" offer from different marketing outlets. Let me give you some examples and see if any of them sound familiar:
- The local TV channel had this great offer for a month of spots, with a great time slot that seemed to fit your target demographic so you took the plunge, but the phone never rang because of it so it's obvious that TV doesn't work for you.
- You ran 2 months of spots on an inexpensive radio station, and sure they only ran after 9:00pm but the price was right. No increase of sales occurred so it must be that radio isn't a good fit for what you do or sell.
- You launched your brand new website a month ago and your haven't seen a jump in your Search Engine listing, and you haven't received any emailed requests for more information or appointments so the website must not be working right.
- You've heard all of the stats on social media so you launched a company Facebook page and 3 months into it you still only have a handful of "Fans" and those are all your family and friends. Social media must be a waste of time for what you do.
The list could go on and on of examples of business owners bouncing from marketing idea to idea, never giving any one the attention and consistency it deserves to really get the marketing brand out there and into the mindset of the target market segment. CONSISTENCY is the name of the game when it comes to marketing. It's really understanding the time to bail on a bad idea and when to stay the course on a true and effective marketing effort.
A bad idea is something like being a local state bank and spending a couple thousand dollars on foam fingers with your name on it for the local high school football team. If you want to make that purchase for the sake of supporting your community then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but if you are thinking that is a serious branding campaign to increase your business and you've been doing for a few years with no results it might be time to rethink the value of that campaign altogether.
Staying the course, on the other hand, is understanding that when you are really wanting to leverage the power of radio to drive business you have to give it more than 2-3 months to get the results you want. A solid radio campaign really starts out at 6 months bare minimum, and that is with a 3 frequency every week (meaning that an average listener hears your spot 3 times a week, not that you just run it 3 times a week), and running it for 12 months is really recommended.
It's understanding that any movement in organic search engine results usually takes 60-90 days at a minimum depending on what phrases you are optimizing for, and the longer your website has been up the better your results. Don't expect a month old website to produce a massive wave of revenue, although you may have heard stories about it happening to other people. It's about consistency!
Good marketing can produce results and grow your business, in fact it is crucial to your success! Name me some great companies that have been built without the aid of solid and consistent marketing, how many are there? (That's the sound of crickets chirping) Tough to do, isn't it?
Now with all of that being said, I want to reassure you, Mr. and Mrs. Small to Mid-Sized Business Owner, that you can go back and read more than one blog article written here that stresses I am not advocating the need to spend inordinate amounts of money just to get that solid and consistent marketing. I think you can be SMART with your marketing dollar, not skimp and shortchange your business, and not get gouged and overspend what is appropriate. What you can't do, and be effective, is be inconsistent with your efforts.
Doug
