Today’s Micro Business Perspectives guest post comes from Shakira Brown, owner of Best Business Mastery.
About a year ago, my business partner and I were leaning toward helping small business owners do more of their own marketing. Today, we are finding that small business owners embarking on marketing for the first time need more assistance from us. This is because the needs of our potential customers have changed.
Many of the small business owners who call on me to help raise their profile using public relations need more than that. I am hearing from business owners who say they have never needed to do any sort of promotion for their business because their customer base constantly recommended them. The reason why they call on me now is because the referrals have stopped and business has literally dried up. For me this means that I need to provide more comprehensive services beyond public relations to get them up to speed which equates to website design, branding, message development and sometimes much more.
In addition, I am serving in the role of business adviser to many small business clients seeking marketing help for the first time. Many small business owners in operation for more than 10 years are being approached to advertise and they are considering it for the very first time. In order for my clients not to be taken for a ‘free ride’ by slick sales people I help them make decisions on what they should consider and what they should do.
Getting small business owners up to speed with how the internet works and how they can benefit from it is the biggest part of what we are doing today. Explaining how search engines work and the importance of optimizing websites for search is quite challenging. In the end, I usually give them enough information to trust my suggestions. The downturn has definitely led to an increase in business opportunity, however, the small businesses retaining us need more assistance than ever before which means that we have to increase the level of services we provide to satisfy demand.
