Have you ever made a decision that turned out to be a bad decision? Maybe it cost you a lot of money. Perhaps it cost you a friendship or your marriage. We all make decisions, even very important life-altering decisions, based on information we have gathered or our personally held attitudes and beliefs.
Typically, the more important the decision, the more time we spend gathering information. We’ll make a decision on buying an inexpensive food item in just a few seconds. But, if we’re about to purchase a car or a home…we’ll weigh the pros and cons. We’ll shop around. We’ll get second opinions. We’ll talk to our friends. We’ll shop online or read product reviews. We’ll sleep on it. But even the big decisions become very costly when not thoroughly researched.
As I learned a long time ago, “It’s not what you know that hurts you…it’s what you know that isn’t so (that hurts you).” Actually, I had to think about that for a day or two before the meaning became clear to me. What hurts us— (and makes us pay dearly) —is each decision we make based on mis-information. Information we believe to be accurate, but is not.
In the past 35-plus years of working very closely with small businesses, I’ve seen business owners waste hundreds of dollars…thousands of dollars…hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not because of what they knew…but because of what they knew that wasn’t true. I saw it on a daily basis in marketing and advertising mistakes.
Oftentimes it was only a minor mistake when the “weekend sale” didn’t produce the results they had hoped for. But too many times the mistake was life-changing. Employees were let go due to poor sales receipts. And too many times they paid the ultimate price with a business-closing bankruptcy. The business “died”…..or, in reality, committed suicide.
In today’s recession, the question is even more critical. Customers are more difficult to come by. Profit margins are being squeezed tighter and tighter. Competition is tougher.
Perhaps it’s time to reexamine your thinking about advertising and marketing. What works? What doesn’t work? Are you telling the right story to consumers? What are your competitive advantages? Do you even have any competitive advantages? What closely held attitudes and beliefs are you holding on to that aren’t true anymore? What media would work best? The questions…and the answers to the questions…are all to be found in Marketing Firepower.
Now, more than ever, it’s time to get serious about your business. Even in these difficult times, there are incredible opportunities for business growth. Just because the pie is getting smaller doesn’t mean you can’t help yourself to a bigger piece of it. And the rewards you will reap when good times return are even better. Remember, “It’s not what you know that hurts you…it’s what you know that isn’t so.”
Van is vice president of Marketing Firepower with decades of experience in helping small business succeed through the effective use of advertising.
