Yesterday, while attending an event I had the opportunity to catch up with some friends and chat for a little bit. While chatting and talking it up, one of my friends mention having a buddy who does great photography but sucks at marketing and his business has been slowing down and really on life support.
As the conversation continued I then proceeded to explain, “how marketing isn’t that hard” but before I could finish my friend said something so wise. She said, “Patrick you know marketing because you do marketing.”
You know marketing because you do marketing! As soon as she said it I thought what a great marketing principle. I always say, “that marketing is action and action leads to profits.” It’s what you do more than anything.
Here are 4 ways for you to start doing marketing:
- Start a Blog. You can start blogging immediately – there is no risk, no downside and you can set up a blog site in about 20 minutes. It’s a completely safe method going into detail about your expertise and the industry. Don’t blog just for the sake of blogging – blog because you have content about your passion than you can’t contain.
- Prepare a 10, 15 and 20 minute speech around your topic. This can launch your business quickly. If you speak and people are interested they will approach you about working together. Make sure you always have a one-page handout with contact information.
- Help other people achieve their goals. Networking is always important when it’s real and a useless distraction when it’s fake. You’ll make it real because your goal is to find 3-5 people every month and do the only networking that matters, which is helping other people achieve their goals, doing it reliably and repeatedly, so that over time those same people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals.
- Add your own unique marketing tool here. You know your business, industry, customers needs and wants more than me. You should know how to satisfy those and how to reach them. You can use Twitter, start your own magazine, or use entertaining photos in your presentations.
There are thousands of ways to market your business. I encourage you to find at least 3 or 4 and do those with excellence and consistency. Without doing marketing and developing the proper mindset it’s very clear you will not experience any increase or success in business – regardless of the excellence of what you have to share with the world.
Question: What could you do this week to bring to life the principle that marketing is doing?