It’s so easy to be overwhelmed especially if you are a small business owner or entrepreneur. With the advent of Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest, we get bombarded by marketing gurus and business opportunities. We often rush to sign up for monthly subscriptions, or purchase expensive products, in order increase our business and make some extra bucks.
The problem is; not every product, service or seminar is right for you and your business.
If that’s the case, you waste money instead of make it. Pundits say you must have this tool, this gizmo, or that gadget in order to build your business to the next level.
The fact is: the simpler, and more personal you keep your business marketing, the better.
Automation is cool and convenient but is it truly connecting you to your potential prospects or creating relationships with your existing clients? Most likely it’s not. People want to hear your true voice and authentically connect with you. They don’t want 100% marketing messages. Instead most would prefer to get to know you as a person they like and trust. Showing compassion, having a sense of humor, not being perfect, and delivering stellar content that helps others, is much more effective than communicating by auto pilot.
On social media, for example, there are ways to automate tweets and updates, but you can always tell when it’s being done. Have you ever seen someone promoting a marketing message on Thanksgiving, or after a national tragedy? It’s inappropriate. You may also see a post update on Facebook that receives some comments, but the original poster never responds back? The truth is, he or she probably used a 3rd party site and isn’t monitoring responses. Someone who posts manually, listens and responds appropriately, will have much better results than an automaton.
If you are going to join a program or use a tool, make sure it is truly valuable for your business and is not just a way to help someone else to make an extra buck. (This is often the case)
Here are a few questions to ask yourself before you jump in and press the paypal button to hell:
- Will I be receiving relevant and valuable content to truly help build my business, or is it simply marketing hype that will give me information that I already know?
- Is the gimmick or gadget just an excuse I am using for not actually communicating or picking up the phone?
- If I spend X amount of dollars for a product or service, will I make my money back after using it.
$47 per month may not seem like much but if you add it up over a year that is $564. Have you ever joined a membership site only to have the service provider drop off the face of the earth for a while?
Will the learning curve for this product add to the overwhelm I am already experiencing and waste time I could be spending actually marketing my business in a way that has already been proven to work?
K.I.S.S: Keep it Simple Stupid (or Sweetie which sounds a little nicer) is a buzz phrase for the current state of the economy but will reduce stress and is more effective in the long run. Paste it on your computer and resist the urge to waste your time and money if you don’t really need to.
About Rebecca Olkowski
