The world of small business ownership is an exciting adventure, to be sure. But, at times it can also be downright consuming and even overwhelming. The good news is; you don’t have to travel the path of entrepreneurship alone. In fact, I want to encourage you to journey on your road to success with the assistance of others.
Take the topic of small business marketing for instance. I can speak to marketing because that’s the arena I work in.
Often, we encounter small business owners who are spending enormous amounts of time trying to work out the best way to handle their own marketing. They might be trying to figure out SEO or how to handle their social media effectively, or laboring over the details of running an effective email campaign.
The problem is that when you try to do these things on your own, they tend to have a long learning curve. That means you’re probably sacrificing precious time and energy that you could be devoting to running your business. Think about it; the amount of time it takes you to figure out marketing versus an expert, who has done it many times, can be vastly different. In the end, the result we often encounter is that small business owners tend to spend a lot more time on their marketing than they should, and to make things worse, they often get little or no results for all their hard work.
As small business owners, it’s important for us to recognize the areas that we need help with and to surround ourselves with people that can fill in those gaps. That’s how I built my business. I purposely hire people that are smarter than me with a ton more skill than I have — so that I don’t have to micromanage them and so that they can bring serious value to our company, and to our clients, from day-one. I believe that a big component to running a successful business is the ability and the willingness to seek out great advisers and take action on their advice.
3 Ways to Get the Help You Need and Cut Down on the Learning Curve —
So You Can Focus on Running Your Small Business
With your success in mind, I’d like to share three ways that you can connect with people who can help you — even if you are on a limited budget. These tips will also apply to other areas of running your small business like accounting, customer service, and more.
1. Hire an expert (or a company) to handle your marketing for you
If you can afford an ongoing monthly fee, then hiring an expert to manage your marketing for you will allow you to keep focused on the stuff you’re good at. For some types of marketing, like SEO and Pay-Per-Click campaigns, ongoing help is usually the most effective way to work, if you can afford it, as these marketing methods almost always take time to see optimum results.
2. Hire an expert to provide a thorough evaluation and a list of suggestions
Maybe you’re just getting started with your small business and you can’t afford to pay someone to help you every month. That’s ok, we’ve all been there. Here’s a tip that I have personally used several times. Find an expert you trust and hire them for a one-time comprehensive evaluation of your website and/or your marketing status. A good consultant will know exactly what to look for and they can provide you with a list of actionable steps to help you improve your marketing.
Before you hire someone, be sure to ask him (or her) what they will provide you with after their evaluation is completed. It’s critical that you get a list of actionable steps, in writing, so that you can refer back to it whenever you need to. It’s also a good idea to get a follow up call included in the deal so that you can go through their suggestions, with them, and make sure you understand everything.
3. Hire an expert for a one-hour phone consultation
I’ve done this for my own business. If I feel stuck, I reach out to a consultant that I trust and I am happy to pay them for their time. Why? Because I have learned that the fee I pay them (usually between $100 and $300) will probably save me many hours of work and that I will make much more money than I paid them for the call. I recently hired three consultants and the information they shared with me put me weeks or even months ahead of where I would have been without their help.
Keep in mind, with a consultation; you will have the opportunity to ask the consultant specific questions about your unique situation. This is a huge advantage over watching a video or reading a book.
So, there you have it; three ways to get help and to stop trying to figure everything out on your own. I hope this post encourages you to make a decision to reach out to someone who can assist you.
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