Marketing Is Not a Magic Pill
Our society is one in which delayed gratification is a completely foreign concept. We want everything and we want it now. The weight loss industry is a clear testament to this. After all, it feels as if a new “magic pill” is “discovered” every day that promises to make you thin and beautiful overnight. Unfortunately, none of these solutions work.
What really works is eating less and exercising more, but also having realistic expectations. In other words, you won’t lose weight overnight. It will take time and hard work. However, these are two things we hate to hear.
Hopefully, though, as a small business owner, you have more patience because the fact is that marketing is just like weight loss. There is no magic pill to solve all your problems overnight. Marketing is a process and results take time and hard work. If you don’t put the effort in and aren’t patient, it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at it because you will never see results.
And just like with weight loss, once you do achieve the results you want, if you want to maintain those results and even see improvement, then you are going to have to stick with it. It’s not a one-trick pony that you can give up on the second you see a few sales. You need to keep going through the cycle or those sales will dwindle away.
But if you set realistic expectations, put the work in, and keep at it, you will see results. And these results will be sustainable over the long-term, which is precisely what you should be aiming for.
Chapter 2: Setting Goals and Objectives, Defining Strategies and Working out a Budget
First of all, before we start looking at strategies and tactics, we need to look at what you want to achieve.
Many small business owners get stuck in limbo when it comes to the marketing process because they have no idea where they should start. They wonder if they should hire a marketing manager or ask how much they should spend. At this point, these are the wrong questions.
