Start with basics, Fancy Pants!

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I recently wrote a post called When Cutting Edge Cuts Too Deep in which I warned against getting too fancy pants with your small business clients – for instance, focusing on a Pinterest campaign for a dry cleaners when they’re not even making the most of the big business opportunities available such as handling a large local hotel’s cleaning.

But I want to take this one step further back.

We all come to any given client with certain preferences for generating business.  And there’s no question that the current favourite, the in vogue wunderkind of business, is social media – not surprising, it’s fun, contemporary, ever-changing – it gives you that uber-cool, “I’m a social media expert, darling” buzz!

But hold your horses!  Take off your preference specs for a moment and look at what’s right for the client.

Maybe a renewed focus on simple local marketing through leaflet delivery with a special offer is what’s needed to kick start a new phase of growth.  Maybe creating local strategic partnerships between small businesses would be the right way forward.

One thing’s for sure, you’ll know this when you understand the basics.  Here are some incredibly simple but very important questions to get you started.

  • What do you do?
  • Who are your customers?
  • How do you do what you do?
  • What has worked before to get business?
  • Why did it stop?…or Why did you stop?
  • What are other people doing to get business in this industry?
  • What if anything has stopped you doing this?
  • What do you think might work for you?
  • What’s stopped you doing that?
  • What do you know would work if you could figure out how to do it!?
  • What’s the challenge with that?

Now take a moment to use ALL your business nous and ask yourself what are the bang-you-on-the-head obvious things that are being missed here.

And if your first answer is Pinterest then stop and ask yourself, “Really? Or is that my preference talking?”

You see, I think social media has a big role to play but it is rarely the first port of call to help a business grow.  Everything has its place – so help your client get the foundations right before you go all fancy pants on them!

If you’re a business coach, do you agree?  If you’re in business, have you found an unhelpful obsession with social media over less-fashionable approaches?