One thing I know.

Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.

I was at the gym the other day – yeah, yeah, for those of you who know me … stop laughing now!  I’m not a gym kind of person, but I’ve had one of those ‘awakenings’. You know the ones, where someone highly medically qualified told me I should lose some weight.  Ouch!  But whatever, the reality was, I knew it… I felt it… I was just stagnant (literally) and in denial about those clothes that must have shrunk in the wash!  I was going nowhere but my clothing size was on the UP!

But I digress…

At the gym the other day, on my first day back after a good 4 weeks of relapse, and feeling like absolute sh*t, I saw THIS sign…

I realised that even if I only make it once a week (cos my life is hectic and the gym is a an hour round trip and therefore two hours out of my narrow child-free window) it’s better than what I was doing about my fitness before, which was a big fat hairy zero.  Subsequently – unsurprisingly – it netted me exactly zero of my goals which I somehow magically wanted to have just happen without me lifting a finger, or a leg, or a weight.

Fitness is a marathon not a sprint (unfortunately I was always a sprinter in my younger days) and it’s going to take some time to get my head into the habit and my body out of bed when I don’t want to.  But I will because a) I’ve just told all of you lot – eeek – and so I’m accountable and b) I need to do it.  I have long term goals and these affect the rest of my life.  This is serious, Mum!  Bugger, bugger, someone forgot to Peter Pan me and keep me young forever!

Fitness and marketing – alike?

So this week it also became clear to me that marketing is also a marathon.  I received an email from a friend, who was about to become a client.  Paraphrasing her email, the gist was this:

“Our business has been very quiet since we spoke, so we’re not going to build our website now.”

This made me really sad, but I get it.

I SO totally get it.

It’s so HARD when cash flow is tight.  It’s HARD when you’ve taken the MASSIVE leap of starting your own business and you don’t have a back up income any more.  It’s SO difficult because sometimes even when your business has already established some regular income, doing something ‘extra’ means finding some ‘extra’, and finding ‘extra” means doing some more hard yards (mostly).

Chicken or Egg – what if it’s neither?

But then we get to marketing chicken and egg (to draw in another analogy).

You need some money to do some marketing.  But you need the marketing to bring in the work to get some money.

It could go on forever, so it has to stop somewhere.  There is no right or wrong, but what if it doesn’t have to be either.  What if you just did something – rather than waiting for the ‘perfect’ website just build a ‘good enough’ one.  Rather than relying on your money to pay for a website, why not try your own creativity instead and use some of the other talents you have… Like taking photos?  How about Instagram?  Like telling stories, start a Facebook page…  Create a google listing… do something, but whatever you do, don’t give up on your dream.

Slow progress is better than no progress, right?  A little bit done, is better than nothing, right?

This is not a sales pitch.

Now I don’t want to sound all sales-pitchy here – that’s not what prompted me to write this post.  I’m not worried about the money for this job, I’m worried about my friend and the business she is running.  This has truly made me sad.  I want to help this special small business.  We can do it.  Slowly.  Cost Effectively.  Most importantly, we can do it together in a way that works for this particular business.

Like any good fitness plan – it starts with a plan.  We need to have a conversation.  We need to be open.  Honest. Creative about how we might go about doing something new NOW even when finances are tight.

Whatever happens, please don’t stop everything…  marketing IS a marathon, but if you’re sitting on the lounge waiting and hoping to lose weight – or waiting and hoping for leads, sales, bookings or whatever to turn up in your In Box – you’re going to miss the race.

Pete, Kate and I implore you… “Don’t give up!”

Onwords and upwords,

Heather x

 

Let’s start a conversation

Here’s another relevant quote/ analogy – attributed to many  people, but based on my research, most likely to be Henry Ford.  What does make me chuckle is it being attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States of America.  I wonder what the advertising budgets and mediums were in the mid-late 1700s?  🙂

I digress – again – contact me!