The Three Simple Keys to Small Business Success: Clarity, Quality, and Marketing

Are you starting a small business, or do you need to re-focus and take your existing business to the next level? Then read on – you can use many of my mistakes over the years to learn the three simple areas you must focus on to grow your business.

Recently, I received a phone call from a fellow improv comedian and instructor who is just getting started in the speaking business. He wanted to hear some of my story and potentially learn from my successes and failures.

At one point he asked the standard, “if you had to do it all over again, what would you do different?” question.

I thought for a moment, and then three things popped into my head. As I reflected on the conversation afterward, I realized that those three things are simply the cornerstones of building any business, regardless of the industry. Anyone looking to start or improve a business would do well to simply focus on the three things I relayed to my friend.

Below are the three things I said I would do differently. Regardless of your stage in your business, if you focus on these three things you should see growth, improvement, and sustained long term success:

Clarity

The first thing I would do differently is to have developed greater clarity about my business much sooner.

By “developed clarity,” I mean I would have:

I have always known what kind of a speaker I want to be. I love doing one hour “keynote” style speeches that get audiences laughing while teaching them a few simple things to make their lives easier and more successful. It ain’t fancy, but it’s clear.

In my early years, I often got pulled away from that vision by the temptation of goals that might seem easier, or make more money, or that I saw others doing with great success.

Every time I did that, I set myself back a few steps and ultimately ended up going down a path that didn’t serve me. I would eventually return to my original path, but only after having wasted weeks or months and having lost critical momentum.

This is not to say that you need to have blinders on and never deviate from your course (that level of rigidity can be equally damaging). There is nothing wrong with pursuing opportunities that take you off your original path if:

1. You need cash, and the opportunity can get you some now. Bills need to be paid, mouths need to be fed, and the taxman cometh. Nothing wrong with doing some “non-core” work for a quick cash infusion. The operative word here is “quick.” What starts out as a quick cash infusion often ends up as an unsatisfying job that kills your dream for the long run.
2. The opportunity comes to you, and you have the time OR need the money. There’s a difference between what you pursue and what you accept. Put all of your marketing and development efforts around your clear vision for your business, but if someone approaches you on their own and asks you to do a project, and doing the project won’t cut into your core tasks, then there’s not much harm in doing the work. Or, if they come to you and you need the money (see point 1) then yes, take the work. But if you don’t need the money and the project will take you away from your core vision, let it go.
3. It’s something you are truly interested in, and you truly have a talent for. And it won’t take you off your selected path. If an opportunity comes along that you really want to do, that’s great. But if it doesn’t forward you down your path, then treat it as a hobby or side business. Don’t put so much time or effort into it that it detracts from your true goal.
4. You reassess your long term plan. Don’t be too quick to do this one. However, sometimes an opportunity comes along or circumstances change and you have to take a step back and look at the big picture. If you can honestly say, “I have a new direction that I would prefer to go in,” that’s fine. Not every goal you set one or more years ago is still worth pursuing. Just make sure you are being honest with yourself and not just following the latest bright shiny object that crosses your path.

Start with a clear vision of what you want your business and life to look like. Then focus all your energy and activities that take you down that path, and be very wary of pursuing things that don’t support that goal. You’d be shocked at what you can accomplish with some single minded focus and effort.

Quality

At the risk of sounding egotistical, I think I have been a pretty good speaker for a pretty long time. In fact, I was pretty solid in my first year as a speaker. By year three, I’d like to say I was “very good.” Audiences, planners, and decision makers seemed to be very happy with my presentations.

You know what? That just didn’t matter. Being “very good” wasn’t nearly good enough. It rarely is.

Things for my business got better when I did one important thing:

I changed how I evaluated the success of my programs

At first, I cared how the audience reacted. Did they laugh, clap, and give me great reviews? If so, I was happy.

Then I realized the audience was not the client. So I changed my criteria of success to how the decision maker reacted. If they liked it, even if the audience didn’t, I considered it a success.

Then I realized that that was not enough. “Liking it,” or “being happy” wasn’t going to build my business. What I needed was referrals and follow up business. I needed to be so good that people referred me to others. So I started judging success based on the number of referrals I got.

Then I realized that the number of referrals was meaningless. What mattered was how much follow up business I actually booked. Would you rather have 100 referrals and no business or 4 referrals and 4 bookings? Me too.

This may seem a little unfair because I can’t completely control whether a referral hires me. You are right. But my performance can affect the quality of the recommendation. Take these two scenarios:

1. A friend of yours goes to a new restaurant that just opened in town. The nest day you talk to him and he says, “It was really good. You should go.”
2. A friend of yours goes to a new restaurant that just opened in town. The nest day you talk to him and he says, “Oh My God!! This place was amazing? It ranked in my top five meals of all time! I am still thinking about the food. You HAVE to go try this place out!!”

Which one would you be more likely to go to the next time you were going out to eat?

The restaurant can’t control whether the referred person goes, but they can make their food so damn good that the recommendations almost demand you go.

In the same way, I decided I needed to be so damned good that people would walk out the door and couldn’t help talking about me to their family, friends, co-workers, etc.

Am I there yet? No. But I’m working on it. And I am already seeing results from the effort I have put in.

A great quote I recently came across is Be so good they can’t ignore you. (To be honest, I can’t quite source it. I’ve heard it’s from Steve Martin, and Jerry Dunn, and some others. If anybody has an official citation, please let me know)

I modify this quote for my own business to, “Be so good they can’t help but talk about you to everyone they know.”

That’s all there is too it. Don’t settle for “good enough.” Be so damned good they can’t ignore you.

I wish I had realized that years ago. I would have been working the heck out of my speech and presentation skills from day one. Instead of puffing up my ego saying, “I’m a good speaker, I just need some clients,” I would have taken those slow times to transform myself into an amazing speaker much, much faster.

How about you? Are you settling for “very good,” or “good enough”? Or are you working every month, every week, hell, every damned day to be so good that they can’t ignore, that they can’t help but rave about you to everyone they know?

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. And I wish I had known and accepted that on day one…

Marketing

I’ll admit this right now: I hate almost all forms of marketing.

• Cold calling? I’d rather die.
• Networking? Not a fan. If you see me at a conference or meeting, come up to me and say “hello,” because I’m really bad at doing that.
• PR? I hated trying to come up with press angles every month, and I despise trying to follow up or get the ear of a reporter.

This is kind of unfortunate, because, quite simply, marketing is the engine that drives business. You don’t market, your business dies.

The one form of marketing I do enjoy is writing. Sadly, it took me about six years to figure that out.

For the first six years in my business I tried all the different forms of marketing that people said you “should” do. I cold called. I sent direct mail. I email marketed. I went to networking meetings.

I hated it. I wasn’t good at it. And as a result, I:

Here’s a marketing secret:

The best marketing strategy is the one that you will implement consistently and well.

There’s not really a “best” marketing strategy. Sure, some strategies may be easier than others, and some may get you faster results. But at the end of the day, pretty much any marketing strategy will yield results. You just have to keep at it.

Too often, small business owners get sent down a marketing track for the wrong reasons:

• Someone told them, “this is the way you have to do it.” There is no have to with this stuff. There are lots of ways, you just have to find the one that works for you.
• They model another successful person without taking into account that person’s strengths and weaknesses.
• They ignore their own strengths and interests and pursue the tactic that they think will work “best.”

There are dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of ways you can market your business. Figure out the ones that play to your strengths, that you will enjoy doing on an ongoing and consistent basis, and commit to working the hell out of those tactics.

Do that, and your business will grow. Don’t, and you may get frustrated very quickly.

For example, I have a buddy who, when he was starting his business, did a lot of cold calling. He hated it, and he was seeing very little results. One day I say to him, “dude,” (he’s an old college friend, so I can say, “dude”) “you are awesome at meeting people, making friends, and getting people to like you. You should put all your marketing efforts into networking.”

He decided to give it a try. He went to his first conference and came back with a bunch of cards and three good business leads. He got involved with the local associations for his industry and quickly made connections with some major players in his field. He was also made the producer of an industry conference and the head of a local association. He now has three or four strategic partnerships that bring him money. The last time I spoke with him he was complaining about having too much work.

If only we could all have these problems.

For me, there are two things I like to do: speak and write. All my marketing activities focus on those two things now.

Looking back, I wished I had realized this in year one. With all that free time I had not working (it was year one, I had no clients), I should have been writing 2-8 hours per day. I could have cranked out books, articles, e-zines, e-books, booklets, workbooks, etc. I had previously spent years working as a web programmer – I could easily have started a blog back in 2003, before everyone had one.

Instead, I wrote about one article a month. Two years into my business I wrote my first book. Then it took me another two years to get the second book out. Three years after that I finally started my blog.

Have you ever felt so stupid at your past that you wanted to smack yourself in the head with a shoe?

Ok, so we can’t change the past, but we can make sure not to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

I am committed now: Writing is my thing, and that’s what I am going to do. And I am going to do it well, and consistently, and with great volume.

How about you? For your business, what are the marketing activities you excel at, that you will enjoy doing, that will take you to your goal? Figure out what they are and throw yourself 100% into those things. Ignore the advice of people who tell you “there’s a better way,” unless they really understand you, your business, and your strengths and weaknesses.

Also, go massive with your activity. This is why it’s critical to pick something you love. Like cold calling? make 100 a day. Love networking? Go to four or five meetings a week. Writing your thing? Spend hours cranking out 5-10,000 words a day.

Remember, marketing is the engine that drives your business. Without it, your business dies. Focus on what you love and what your strengths are, and you will begin to feel like your business is driving itself.

In Conclusion

Being successful in busy may not be easy, but it is pretty simple. And I say this as someone who has both done some things very well and some things very wrong.

If you are starting a business, or if you need to take your business up a notch, just imagine if you spent your days:

If you did just those three things, do you really think you could go wrong…?

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Do you need help gaining clarity, improving your quality, or finding the best marketing tasks that match your interests, budget, and strengths? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!