Can you imagine leaves growing without the tree trunk and branches?
Sounds like a crazy idea.
Leaves don’t even exist for long without the rest of the tree – soon wilting and dying when they have fallen to the ground.
Yet that is exactly how most people try and grow their businesses…
They put in place the tactics before the fundamental building blocks of their business.
The Downside of Technology for Today’s Business Owner
We live in an age of rapidly changing and advancing technology, the speed of change and advancement is only going to get quicker.
This enables many things including new and rapidly evolving tactics that we can use to market our businesses.
It gives us many great opportunities.
However, it comes with a downside – the constant search for the magic quick fix or silver bullet.
People think that they just need to find that “magic” technique or tactic and they will have an instantly successful business.
What they don’t realise is that although we have a far greater choice of marketing tactics; tactics that give us so much opportunity to reach and connect with far more people more easily than we’ve ever been able to, all of these tactics still need an understanding AND IMPLEMENTATION of the fundamental principles of business for them to work effectively.
The fundamentals of business don’t change with time. It is how we apply them that changes.
You still need to put in place the basic foundations or building blocks, the business fundamentals that are like the glue that holds everything together. You still have to do that initial work to make any of the tactics work well for you.
Building blocks such as – deeply understanding your market on an intrinsic and extrinsic level, solving a problem that people want solved, being able to articulate what you do with the right message that resonates with the people you want to serve, giving those people a reason to choose you over all their other options (standing out), having a basic sales funnel in place, knowing your numbers.
Think Differently To The Majority
Think of it this way:
Imagine a tree…
– the roots, trunk and big branches are your business fundamentals.
The leaves and twigs are tactics.
In this age of expecting instant results and gratification, many (struggling) business owners focus on the tactics first – a sexy website, how to make social media work for them.
This is focusing on the leaves of your tree.
Successful business owners focus on mastering and implementing the principles, the business fundamentals before moving on to the tactics they will employ.
This gives a far more stable and adaptable business.
Without the roots, trunk and big branches there are no leaves.
Trees lose their leaves every winter, although they thrive for decades, even hundreds of years, because they have strong roots and trunks.
Ways of marketing your business come and go.
By first understanding and putting in place the core fundamentals of business you are in a great position to quickly and successfully implement marketing tactics.
You are also in a great position to adapt as to new marketing tactics and tools as they arise.
When those specific tactics become obsolete or lose effectiveness, you still have your strong trunk to grow new branches and leaves from (tactics).
Without the knowing and understanding the business fundamentals it becomes incredibly difficult to make any tactics work effectively for any length of time – be that direct mail, your website, organic social media, paid ads, networking and so on.
Business Fundamentals Are What Enable The Tactics To Work
The stronger your fundamentals, the more easily you and your business will be able to adapt to any future changes and thrive.
The stronger your fundamentals, the more you reduce your risk of going down a route that leads to constant struggle, frustration, overwhelm and lack of clients and profit.
Sadly, most small business owners aren’t willing to do the work to put in place the fundamentals, especially when it comes to understanding their market.
Yet this is probably the most important thing you will ever do in your business.