Caught In a Trap
A funny thing happens when I sit on a bus for an hour… my brain starts ticking over and smacks me around the head with insight, ideas or unpleasant truths. Today was the turn of honest truth. It was the unpleasant truth that I don’t really want to admit to, yet somehow I MUST.
For anyone serious about building a successful business (and I am) then the focus has been completely wrong… almost all the time has been spent on the technical stuff (which IS important) and neglecting the business and marketing side of things. It’s an easy trap to fall into (very VERY easy). It’s a trap that many sole traders and small business owners are caught by (so at least i’m in good company!)
The fact is it’s dead easy to allow all your effort, energy and attention to go on the stuff you’ve been doing for years and that you know really well… at the expense (and most likely to avoid) the stuff you’re not so comfortable or experienced with. For me it’s writing code, for you it may be writing your latest masterpiece, designing a new range of baby clothes, or refining, tweaking and adjusting your prices, timetables or computer database!
History is littered with “technically superior” products that lost the war and all too often the reason boils down to crappy or non-existent marketing. In other words, marketing like mine…
So how can this be turned around?
Well, first up, I’m not about to abandon all technical development to just do “sales”… That would simply take things to the other extreme – i.e. crappy or non-existent product or service! The trick is to find a balance, a compromise between technical development, business development and marketing. For one thing I’m going to start paying more attention to the info I get via Mal Emery’s CD of the month (if you like people who cut through the BS, check out Mal), and also make a real effort to start enjoying the marketing side of things (that’s a big ask, trust me!)
So, how does someone go about “enjoying marketing”? I believe there is only one correct answer to this and that is to tap into the genuine enthusiasm and belief I have for the value and benefit provided to the work-at-home community. Let’s face it, I put in many hours creating the product because of that belief… Now it’s time to use that to get the product out there!
Actually, I wonder how many people would recognise this trap? Quite a few I suspect…
