To say that running a business is hard would be the understatement of the century. Modern small business owners are some of the most overworked individuals in the history of capitalism, with a never-ending agenda and an ever-growing task list. From developing and improving products to building customer relationships to maintaining a functional, friendly work environment, the plate of any entrepreneur is always full.
Especially early on, the owner of a new company can easily burn out once he or she discovers and experiences all the trials of starting and running a business. This is one of the major reasons why over one-third of American small businesses fail within the first two years, and only around half make it past five years. Even with all the study and preparation in the world, no one can truly grasp the challenges of starting and maintaining a new business until that person experiences them personally.
What You Love
The majority of entrepreneurs start businesses in order to do what they love. A woman opens a coffee shop because she loves coffee and making people’s mornings brighter through customer service. A man begins a custom landscaping service because he loves working outside creating beauty from the ground up literally. Or a fitness-minded, spiritual couple begin a yoga studio to share what they love with others.
Unfortunately, there is much more to running a company than what appears on the surface. A coffee shop needs strong vendor relationships to maintain a supply affordable, quality coffee; a landscaper needs effective staffing to keep hard-working, reliable employees; a yoga studio needs efficient bookkeeping and a recurring billing service to ensure the venture is profitable; and all of these businesses need effective marketing to tell the world about their services.
Your Limited Time
You may begin your business because of your love for a certain product, service or field, but if you want to be successful, you may only be able to spend a limited amount of time doing what you love. A small portion of your time is dedicated to hiring the right people; a little bit goes to managing your accounts; a lot goes to building customer relationships and even more goes to bringing in new customers. That is not to mention business-specific needs that may draw an even larger percentage of your time.
The point is: small business owners can easily get so wrapped up in the various elements of running a company that very little of their time can be spent on the actual service, product or activity they love. Happy entrepreneurs are those who delegate properly, obtain the right services and employ the right kind of help to allow them to spend the maximum amount of time fulfilling their passion.
Your Marketing Firm
The main priorities of marketing firms should be to take on responsibilities from the client and independently manage marketing efforts to free up the time of the client. In addition to the obvious goals of improving recognition and increasing business, an effective marketing firm should seek to remove items from the overly filled plate and cross off tasks from the to-do list of an entrepreneur.
Most small business owners do not have any experience or interest in marketing, or else they would have opened a marketing firm. They do not have time to follow trends, analyze statistics and develop effective strategies. Many do not understand the most basic elements of modern marketing, and if they hire the right marketing company, they should not have to.
An effective firm should seek to manage every aspect of marketing from social media and SEO to radio and print. But more than advising the customer on what steps to take, the best firms should be able to provide the services themselves.
The best marketers will seek to understand a client’s goals, develop an effective plan and implement every element of it effectively. The idea should be to reduce the amount of time a client spends on marketing, free up time for them to do what they love and efficiently bring in new customers with whom they can share their passion.
