Marketing: Who's Going to do the Work?

Here's a simple but important question: what will you do with the data gathered from your marketing efforts? And here's the equally important follow-up question: who will look at the data and decide what to do with it?

In my last post, I stressed that it's important that someone be available to speak on behalf of the company, someone who knows what to say, what message to communicate. There are lots of systems out there to help the small business owner generate potential leads. But leads must be cultivated before they become real customers, real clients. Cultivation takes conversation, and that means someone has to make the call.

Put simply, someone must "do" the work of following up!

The people who choose to create something new, do something different, and get out there on their own as a small business are the most interesting people I know. Although I need to review the most current U.S. Census data (more about that in a later post), even a cursory reading of small business information shows that more than 90% have fewer than a dozen employees and close to 3/4 of all U.S. businesses are single-owner or nonemployer firms. And let's not even discuss how many millions of dollars it takes to qualify as something bigger than a "small" business!

The truth of the matter is that the typical worker-owner is also responsible for marketing and follow-up. Gathering the data, qualifying the leads, making the calls -- all of it -- falls to the one who started the business in the first place. That can be overwhelming.

On the issue of identifying the potential customer and making the call, there are plenty of business resources available. On the issue of pushing through the details of marketing and making up the mind to deal with it all, I recommend the following. Please notice that none of these have a marketing focus.

• The Entrepreneurial Instinct (Monica Mehta, 2012). Ever wondered why some business developers do what they do -- and do well?

• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (Cal Newport, 2016). This one is written from the perspective of one who works in knowledge and data. But it made me think (and is still making me think). What do I do and do well? How can I make the time for that every day?

• The ONE Thing: The Surprising Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results (Gary W. Keller & Jay Papasan, 2013). Identify the one thing that you can do (today) such that by doing it everything else becomes easier or unnecessary.

• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (Steven Pressfield, 2002). A remarkable attack on Resistance -- the attitudes, ideas, excuses, and distractions that keep us from doing the work we are called to do.

I've read these and keep them on my resource shelf next to my desk. They remind me daily of what needs to be done in order to do well (or at least the best I can for today) in business in general and marketing in particular.