Don’t Let the Small Stuff Prevent Your Business’ Success

Success and failure aren’t just about how motivated you are. Most of us who own and/or operate a business are very detail-oriented, and it’s easy to get tangled up in the small details. Sometimes, getting stuck on the minutiae can really get in the way of launching and succeeding.

Let’s discuss some common pitfalls businesses often get stuck in that prevent them from driving their operations forward. 

It Happens to the Best of Us… 

We get stuck on the day-to-day tasks and minutiae and forget about using our time and talent to do things that actually drive the business forward. 

Every single business owner faces this challenge every so often. After all, we usually like the minutiae. We typically love the details. That’s what makes us great business owners in the first place. We like solving problems. 

I don’t think a day goes by when I’m not compelled to sit down and just take care of something when I really should delegate it out. 

With this in mind, I want everyone reading this to take this following passage to heart: 

If you are anything like me, you probably want your hands on as many things happening within your business as possible. You want to make sure your employees are handling your clients well, you want to make sure projects are being done right, and sometimes you just want to dive in and solve a problem because it’s faster than delegating it… 

Treat this as permission for you to step away! 

Give yourself time this week (and every week) to step away from the day-to-day tasks and focus on doing something great for your business. Streamline a process. Kick off a new service. Ask your clients for referrals. Give yourself permission to reach for greater heights. 

To help make this goal a reality, I’ve put together a list of some things I’ve seen many businesses get stuck on. Maybe this might inspire you to step back and push the “go” button instead of getting stuck on things that, ultimately, don’t matter. 

Don’t Let These Trivial “Problems” Stop You From Marketing

I’m Too Busy Putting Out Fires

Let’s start big. You might not say something is a “trivial” issue, but when it comes to your career and your company’s growth, most day-to-day problems are short-lived. If you let them consume all your time, you won’t have time for the essential things that could benefit you and your company long-term. 

Yes, you need to put out fires, but you should always be looking for ways to prevent them or at least delegate them as they come in. 

I Just Don’t Have the Budget for Marketing

You can’t expect to grow without putting some effort into your marketing. Fortunately, that effort doesn’t have to involve spending a ton of money. 

Many activities don’t cost more than a little bit of your time and effort. 

For instance:

• You can go to your chamber mixers or other local peer groups. Shake hands and mingle!
• Talk to your vendors about market development funds. More likely than not, they might even have marketing materials you can use.
• Offer to give webinars to train local businesses to use your services better. 

The possibilities are endless… and don’t need to cost an arm and a leg. 

Plus, if you got yourself a new client or two, you’d have a budget for marketing.

I Think I Need a Different CRM/CMS/PSA

There’s a chapter in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, in book two, “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,” where the main characters end up on prehistoric Earth with a crashed spaceship full of exiled middle managers, hairdressers, and marketers. The exiled refugees would have regular fireside meetings to discuss how progress was coming along as they attempted to build society from the ground up. 

One of the main characters (Ford Prefect) inquires about how the invention of the wheel is going. The conversation goes something like this… 

Manager: Ah, well, we are having a little difficulty there.

Ford: Difficulty? What do you mean, difficulty? It’s the single simplest machine in the entire Universe!

Manager: All right, Mr. Wiseguy, you’re so clever, you tell us what color it should be.

Being picky about more minor details is fine, but you don’t need to let it stop you from moving forward. 

One of the most prominent examples we frequently run into is selecting a new CRM system and migrating everything over from the old one. That’s a huge endeavor and definitely worth doing, especially if the older platform wasn’t serving you, but if your goal is to get in front of more prospects, you don’t necessarily have to wait. It doesn’t have to be the most complex, expensive marketing campaign, but you can certainly start communicating and putting in the legwork while you get your house in order. 

I Need to Change My Website Backend

This isn’t the first time we’ve discussed this, but I want to level with you. As long as your website is secure and has reliable performance, you don’t need to worry about what platform it’s on in most cases.  

Yes, if your website is 10 years old, it’s probably running out-of-date software, has an outdated design, and the content is probably also (sorely) behind the times.  

We’ve seen more than a fair share of businesses delay sales and marketing efforts because they want to migrate their website from one perfectly good CMS to another, simply because someone told them the grass is greener on the other side. 

Whether your website is built on Joomla, WordPress, or even Wix, it can serve your marketing needs. As long as the platform is stable and secure, the site is responsive and accessible, and the content can be managed and updated, the platform really doesn’t matter. 

Yes, we have an obvious bias towards Joomla. We manage thousands of websites, and those built on Joomla are—by far—the most stable, secure, and easiest to grow. Complex sites thrive on Joomla.  

WordPress is fine, too, but neither has a significant advantage over the other when it comes to marketing performance, SEO, accessibility, and all the metrics that actually matter.

Even in cases where we know wholeheartedly that Joomla is the better option for a business, if that business has a WordPress site, we’ll still run marketing campaigns and follow all the steps and best practices before they get to the point where they need to make the switch. The CMS has very little to do with your marketing in most cases.

I Need to Clean Up My List

While you should constantly be pruning and cleaning up your prospect list, you shouldn’t let that task stop you from launching. You can goldmine your existing clients while you clean up your prospect list.  You can run social media campaigns and ads. You can start building inbound content and email drips.  

As you prune through your list, you can take small batches of prospects you approve and just start touching them. Your mailing campaigns don’t need a thousand mailers at a shot—you can always start small and build up. The idea is to focus on forward momentum instead of letting a single task get in your way.

Don’t Make Excuses that Stop You from Growing Your Business

It happens to the best of us. Launching is hard. It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae (just take it from me!). 

Fortunately, we’re here to help. We’ve been helping businesses grow and market for over 15 years. If you want to set up a meeting to discuss your hopes and dreams for yours, give us a call at 607.433.2200.