Advice from a Marketing Consultant to Entrepreneurs

Dear Entrepreneur,

Here's a love letter I wish I received 25 years ago when I first started my businesses. 

You see... It’s inevitable. As a small business owner, you will wear many, many hats.

• Product or Service Specialist
• Technician (aka Worker Bee)
  
• Bookkeeper
  
• HR Manager
• Receptionist / Assistant
  
• Technical Support Staff
• Marketing Manager
• Customer Service Rep
• And most importantly... Sales or Business Development Rep

But while this type of task juggling is to be expected, you have to be aware that not

all of your hats are created equal. Sales outweighs bookkeeping, for example, because without sales, there will be no cash to manage.

Not only that, but you have to consider how much time you’re spending in each area  as well.

If you spend all day tweaking the design on your website and put off sending an email to your list, what have you gained?

Sure, you might have a prettier website, but you lost an opportunity to drive traffic to your offer.

And what if you don't have the right offer? A pretty website doesn't matter if it's not connecting with your target consumer.

In an ideal world, you’d simply put on your CEO hat and delegate the rest, but here in the real world, we don’t always have that option. Instead, we have to work smarter, and take care how we’re spending our time.

Don't Just Wing It - Have a Plan for Everything

• Start with Sales - what are you selling? What are your monthly revenue goals?
• Next? Finance based on operating expenses. Break down the expenses per each product or service you will sell. Per unit, per month - whatever that may be.
• Then... create a net revenue model to determine your sales cookbook.

The Sales Cookbook will help guide your marketing strategy - including who you should target, when and how. This strategy will outline your consistent monthly marketing tactics.

Then be consistent. Work the Plan!

Prioritize Your Daily Tasks

We all have different skills and sweet spots when it comes to the tasks we WANT and NEED to do. You might love customer support and hate bookkeeping, while someone else enjoys the numbers game and doesn’t like dealing with the help desk. But regardless of your personal preferences, one thing is certain: money-making tasks should be at the very top of your to-do list.

That might mean learning a good sales process for your business.  Because sales is NOT marketing. Many confuse being busy with blog writing, emails, social media and tweaking a website with effective prospective and lead generation. Being busy does not mean you're being productive. 

Identify those money-making tasks in your business and be sure to prioritize them every single day.

Know the Difference Between Important and Urgent

In his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey recommends prioritizing tasks based on a time-management grid. Every task is assigned to a quadrant of the grid, based on whether it is urgent, important, both, or neither.

Once you know where a task falls on the grid, you’ll immediately know what you should be working on. For example, content marketing and social media are important but not urgent. A ringing phone is urgent, but not important. The promotional email or Google Ad to boost lagging sales, is both urgent AND important.

So before you prioritize your daily to-do list, think about where each of your tasks falls in the quadrant, and schedule them accordingly.

Will you always be working on the best task for right now? Probably not. Nor will

you always use your time as wisely as you could. But by making a conscious effort to

organize and prioritize your days, you’ll find it’s a lot less stressful and overwhelming to manage your small business.

Know Your Role and How to Delegate

Most business owners know they need resources offered only through an expert.  It's easy to understand, that just as you can use Quickbooks Online, doesn't make you an accountant. And access to IncFile doesn't make you a corporate lawyer. 

However, because many marketing tools are easily accessible and doesn't require a master's degree - many believe they can just do it themselves. But here's the thing... you can also buy a hammer and nails, but it doesn't mean you're qualified to build a house with electricity, plumbing, secure structure, etc.

Here's what I want you to focus on:

Why did you start your company? What exactly about it?  Only you can answer these questions.

• Say you started a voice acting business because producers like your tone of voice.
• You became a real estate agent because you love finding people's dream homes.
• You are an exceptional hair stylist and love making your client's look amazing.
• You opened a food truck because everyone loves your smoothies.
• And what started as a hobby became a successful boutique candle company.

About Emilia Andrews - Marketing Consultant

These are examples of the types of clients I work with. All of my clients are looking for answers to problems. Because consultation isn't therapy - it's a solution to your challenges.

1. We work together to determine what parts of the business you love to do.
2. We work a plan to make your DIY (do-it-yourself) part of the business efficient - like spending an hour a week doing your bookkeeping and writing a blog a week.
3. Then we assess what you can delegate with a team - either staff, virtual assistant or service providers like a marketing consultant.

If you're looking for a safe place to vent frustrations, get answers and solutions to your challenges and a way to improve business growth, let's talk.

I'm here for you...

Emilia Andrews