It’s time to stop overthinking your marketing

Consistent actions done over time will result in progress. But only if they are the right actions.

You can be meticulous about making sure you’ve got content posting every single day for the next month on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, but does that mean you’re going to be successful?

Hell no.

So what is your secret sauce?

If you’re going through the motions and doing what everyone says you should with your online marketing, but yet you’re not making money, here’s some things to think about.

1. Spend more time building relationships

While we have all of these amazing tools at our fingertips, nothing has ever and will ever replace the importance of relationships when it comes to business building activity.

If you’re just getting started, you should be spending even more time on this.

Building relationships is also the long game but you can have some quick wins too if you manage to connect with the right person.

It’s how I got my first clients, and how I continue to get clients to this day. I would also go so far as to say that this has been the backbone of my 6 figure business, besides the fact that I really believe in what I offer.

Make these connections and use them to build and expand your own audience. It’s much faster than the ongoing grind and hustle on your own platforms.

2. Stop trying to be perfect and do the marketing that matters

If you’re paralysed with all the things you’re meant to be doing online, you’re in a place that many small business owners get trapped in.

But there’s an easy way out.

Stop overthinking the tools, the tactics and the strategy. Just pick one thing you’re going to promote and schedule it in your diary. Make sure that it’s something that gets you excited.

Now, using that one thing, you can then start to bring in your tools to help promote it. Too many people find the latest tools and think “How am I going to bring this tool into my business” rather than “I'm going to offer this amazing experience, and in order to promote and deliver it to my customers, I need [insert name of tool here].”

Once you start looking at your marketing from this angle, you’re going to become much leaner (which means more money in your pocket). You’re not going to throw money away on Facebook ads just because someone said you should be running ads, even though you’re not really sure what you’re promoting.

This is how you find clarity in your marketing and make real progress.

3. Stop comparing yourself to others

I’ve never encourage my clients to study the competition. One big reason is that what you see online, and on social media, is the highlight reel. It's not a true representation of what's going on. So best not to compare! It only leads to imposter syndrome.

There’s usually two reasons you are in business:

a) You’re running a social enterprise, with the goal of creating real change

OR

b) You're trying to make a living to support your family and build a good lifestyle for yourself

And possibly you want to create an abundant business, while doing good (go you!).

Regardless of your reason, businesses need revenue and profit to survive. Otherwise it’s just a hobby.

We are not running businesses to get 100,000 likes on Facebook. Yes it would be nice to have, but just because a business is doing well on social media, does not mean that it is making money.

I know of countless people online who have large social media audiences and are active everyday but haven’t managed to convert this to leads or buyers. So while they're successful at social media, they are not successful at monetisation.

So while social media is a great tool, there has to be much more to a business than this.
So please don’t compare your business to someone else’s outward facing communications as it’s all just perception.

Focus on your own race and how you’re going to get to where you want to be, faster.

It’s a matter of identifying your objectives, making a simple plan and then invest in the right things to get you there.

As your business grows, this can expand of course. But to get to your first six figure year, this is all you need.