“Build it, and they will come” – field of dreams

Imagine, you’ve just built a glorious 5 star hotel, with white marble floors, mosaic wall patterns, flamboyant water fountains and stunning interior decorations. You have tennis courts, beautiful blue swimming pools, sports gyms and a sauna; everything a guest could ever want and everything your architect said you’d need. Yet, you stand looking through your hotel window at the beautiful oasis next door and wondering why is no one visiting me here in this beautiful dessert?

The truth, it doesn’t matter how great your business idea is or how glorious your new 5 star hotel, if no one knows they exist how can you expect people to visit and spend money with you?

The biggest mistake new and budding entrepreneurs make is believing that once they’ve built their website, people will come and it will take care of itself.

“if you do nothing, then nothing will happen” – Chris Reeves

Successful entrepreneurs never stop evolving and refining their business, they constantly look for new innovative ways to promote and sell their products or services to prospects; they never stop marketing.

I often say 50% of your business is marketing, yet if I’m honest, it’s much more. Without prospects you won’t make sales, and without sales, your business will fail.

“Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably” – Chartered Institute of Marketing

Marketing can seem complicated and challenging and in some ways that’s true, but don’t become disheartened, marketing is only as complicated as you make it.

Marketing isn’t complicated, consider:

Marketing is only as complicated as you make it.
Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated, simply wearing a T-Shirt branded with your business name or talking about your business to a prospects counts as marketing.
Recognise that you’re actively marketing your business right now.
Have you had a conversation with someone about your business? Then congratulations, as you’ve already started marketing your business; the next step is to scale up your efforts!
Recognise there are hundreds of way’s to market your business.
There are hundreds of ways to market your business, don’t become dependent on only one or two marketing strategies.
Don’t be afraid to use third parties.
If something is too complicated or you don’t have the time to work on it, don’ t be afraid to outsource for specialist knowledge.