It's easy to caught up with the popular myths:
'Twitter connects you to lots of potential new customers.'
'Facebook is a fantastic social way to sell your stuff.'
'People make millions on LinkedIn.'
'More people are listening intelligently on Google+.'
etc. etc.
These are all true to an extent, but only if you are quite clear about whether these platforms are right for your industry, your customer base and your objectives.
Start at the beginning
Sound sensible, but most small business owners tend to start in the middle. I'll let you into a secret - I was one of them for YEARS!
Of course, I had done the management course and I knew:
- That I should start with a perfect client profile
- That I should have a strategy that had been thought through and was based on reality not guesswork
- That I should have proper projections and a plan of how to achieve them.
The trouble was that is was difficult and I thought I knew the answers pretty much anyway. Result: the company struggled on and made a bit of money, but everything was hard work and we had to sweat blood to claw our way up the ladder. Eventually I gave up and resigned - and the company bombed the following year. Everyone lost money.
The morale of the tale is that, whilst these things are tough, doing them really does make everything else easier - online and offline.
Building the foundation for success
If you know what your perfect client looks like you'll be able to track them down online easily. You'll be able to find out where they are active and engage with them on their terms. It's all about relationships - not with thousands of random people, but with a few well-qualified potential customers. It might take longer and require more effort at the front end, but it will take much less time and effort long term - and deliver a far higher success rate.
If you know where to find your ideal clients you'll be able to construct a strategy that delivers on your objectives. This means you won't spend time on activities that are unlikely to reach the right people and can get laser focus on what really will work. TIP: Don't forget to include a means of measuring success in your strategy.
When you have targets for what you want to achieve and review and measure regularly you can adjust, tweak and revise your plan as you go instead of arriving at the end of your year and wondering why your turnover (and profit) is so much lower than you had hoped. Don't hope - plan, measure, revise and rework.
Big business stuff for small businesses
This is the way that successful large organisations operate (some better than others) and how they drive their ongoing growth. Take a leaf out of their book - even if you're a single person business - and you'll find you can actually plan your growth.
