Author: Baldy

Marketing vs Sales – There is a difference

I see a lot of small businesses go big in the social media space to get their name out there.  This is a good thing, but does not necessarily pay the bills at the end of the month.  All you are achieving is that people are now aware of you.  They haven’t yet seen your offering, they just know you are in the market, and what kind of product or service you supply.

If they are at a stage where they’re looking for a replacement product/service to the one they are currently using, they may even make a decision to try your offering.  Building a client base this way is slow, because ultimately you’re only getting sales from the people who are in the right frame of mind at the time they see your marketing.

Sales is a different process, you target specific people or groups of people, and you get in their face with your offering, actively telling them of the benefits of it.  And not relenting until you have an answer, even if it is no.  This is a faster way of building your client base, even though it is twenty times scarier.  And the only reason it is scary, is because a larger percentage of people will say no than yes.  This is a fact of sales.  So accept it, and get out there and sell.

Marketing should be an extra effort, not the only effort.

“Goals” kill motivation

Well maybe not, we all need some lofty goals for ourselves to keep things going and add some spice to life. But in my opinion these should be extremely high level.

A few years ago I followed the advice of some blog out there, I’m not even going to attempt to find that link again, and set some specific goals for myself. Some of them were around my sideline business at the time, some around my sports training, some around self improvement, and some around the things that I actually enjoyed doing.

When I say specifics, I mean SPECIFIC.
One of the goals was to lose x kilogram by this date, another to write so many blog posts every month, etc, etc, etc.

Now, blogging is something I did for fun at the time, and the moment I put that “goal” on myself, I stopped enjoying the writing process, because now I was forcing the issue.

Since then I’ve been writing off and on more then that now, and constantly thinking to myself, I should be doing x many posts, and I’m just not getting it done.

So, in an effort to actually enjoy life, and the things I used to love some more, I’ve removed a lot of “goals” from my life. And maybe added a few new ones in the process.

Some of the new ones:

  • Try not to think of work over weekends (Everyone needs rest, and to maintain life balance)
  • Don’t do anything you don’t enjoy doing (Pay other people to do the mundane stuff, it works out better for both parties)
  • Spend as much time as possible with the family (there’s a caveat here, because I also want to spend quality time on my bike, but balance is important in all aspects)

You see, at a much higher level, and aimed at getting some more enjoyment out of life. We have enough pressure at our workplaces to not need any more in our personal lives. And if this means that I don’t get to make the billions everyone dream of having, then so be it. Memories are worth more anyway.