June 11, 4:42 am
A little marketing advice for start-ups
After being in business for 20 years, I’ve come to appreciate the value of a marketing mind - because it doesn’t necessarily come natural to me. Therefore, from time to time I bring in a marketing wizard to help me get focused. Their valuable advice can be phenomenally helpful. But for businesses just starting out, perhaps the best advice I’ve heard is this:
Buy a little bit of your marketing person’s time; don’t buy his whole calendar.
This advice is echoed in a column entitled 7 Strategic Tips for Small-Business Start-Ups, by Karin Abarbanel. In that piece, Abarbanel says
“One of the biggest traps you can fall into is buying costly advertising or hiring a professional PR firm to make a splash in the media. Costly outlays on this front are rarely a sound start-up investment.”
And a great perspective she points out is this: When you get in business for yourself, you’re not in the business you think you’re in. You’re in marketing. [empahsis added]
It’s kind of like what Bo Peabody says in his book Lucky or Smart?: Secrets to an Entrepreneurial Life
Some people say forego marketing firms altogether. I say think twice about that. If you’re not a natural born marketer, then some advice from a professional can pay off big time.
Like I said – just don’t buy the whole enchilada.
Filed in Business, Leadership, Selling, Advertising, Workplace
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