5 Reasons Every Business Owner Needs To Be Hands-on With Marketing
Want to know the number one question business owners ask me? (Prepare not to be shocked!)
“How do I create more consistency in our cash flow?”
Not shocking right? I am constantly amazed, but not shocked at how entrepreneurs and small business owners accept the “feast or famine” cash flow that should have no place in business. Large business owners would never accept a negative cash flow month just because it was preceded by a great one. Your business needs cash every single month!
Fortunately for you, it’s not that hard to create consistent cash flow. All you need is consistent sales! Easy right? YES if you have consistent leads!
A rocking marketing plan is the first step to having consistent cash in your business. I am all about hiring out and delegation, but let me share with you 5 reasons why you MUST be hands on with your marketing plan!
- Consistent Leads build consistent sales. Imagine having 100 new leads per week. Every single week. What would that do for your business sales? Too many business owners are hoping for consistent sales without consistent leads. They go hand in hand. There are hundreds of ways to get leads, your job as a business owner is to find which ways work for your business and then do them over and over again. You can absolutely hire out and get help in creating and running the marketing plan. But as the CEO you are steering the ship! If you want to create growth, you must get in there and work alongside marketing to create the increase in lead flow.
- It’s all about the numbers. Do you hate math? If so, it’s time to get over that! Your business is a mathematical equation. Whether you like math or not, your business is running off of numbers. You have a series of numbers that if calculated and run correctly will predict your sales based on the number of leads you have. You can also determine how many leads you need to hit any given sales goal. Success is not mysterious, it is mathematical. If you are not aware of your numbers, you are running your business on hope. Hope is great, but it is not a business plan! Know your numbers! It is extremely powerful.
Not all leads are created equal.If you are not hands on with your marketing, you may miss some important information with your leads. Do you know where the leads came from that your business is currently working with? Do you know how they compare to the leads you worked with last month? Do you know what marketing campaigns have historically produced the highest converting leads for your business? When you know that information, you can make better decisions. You can stop putting time and money into campaigns that don’t produce. And you can start spending more time and money on the marketing campaigns that bring in the right leads!
- Small businesses are small fish in a marketing firm’s pool. I have had clients spend $15,000 over the course of 6 months with a marketing firm and not generate a single sale from the work done! Ouch! That really stings. That is a lot of money for marketing for a small business. That is a tiny amount of marketing money for a large company. Marketing firms are used to working with companies that have more money in the budget for them to play with. Every dollar that you spend with the marketing firm does not go straight into your ads or SEO strategy. Your dollars are paying salaries, the firm’s overhead, and for the firm’s marketing and then it is paying for your ads and SEO. I’m not going saying that you should never hire a marketing firm. I have hired marketing firms and had great success. I am saying that you should know when to hire out and be involved in the decision making process with your firm to make sure you get the most for your money.
- You can’t grow something you don’t understand. Let’s be honest, most small business owners and entrepreneurs started their business because they were passionate about their service, message, product, or opportunity. I was the same way. I started my business because I loved to coach and I loved to speak. I still love those things. And I’m going to be brutally honest, knowledge of your business will create stronger results than passion about your product. I meet people who are better speakers than me from time to time. Most of the time their business is not as strong as mine. I meet people who have stronger businesses than mine, they are rarely better speakers than me. As business owners we spend so much effort mastering our craft. And that is important, you need to have a quality product. But when you step into entrepreneurship, BUSINESS also becomes your craft. Your number one job is to create business growth. And you simply cannot grow your marketing department if you don’t understand what is going on! For more details: http://amywalkerconsulting.com/
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