Getting caught up in the excitement of starting your own business can cause you to get ahead of your self. It’s a common mistake, but you may pay dearly for it.
Starting a business is part hard work, part lots of fun. Unfortunately, in the beginning, there are bigger doses of hard work – getting your website up and your shopping cart in place, registering for tax ID numbers, not to mention preparing your product or service. So it’s understandable that people want to jump into the much more satisfying activities of marketing and PR, but don’t take these steps until you’re ready.
First, if you hire a marketing or PR person before you’re ready, you’ll be wasting your money and their time. And, second, even if you’re doing these things on your own (I love DIY!) you could be caught with your pants down, so to speak. If clients, journalists, and sponsors coming knocking before you’re ready, you will look amateurish and create a reputation for being unreliable.
I once jumped into a marketing opportunity before I had my vendors lined up. A huge order came in from this and I suffered a sleepless week getting the work done for my new customer, with the added pleasure of paying a subpar vendor a fortune for a “rush” job.
If your dream client/PR contact called you, would you be ready? If the answer is, “Yes, but I just need to ______”, then the real answer is no.
I get it. It’s thrilling to go full steam ahead, but you have to make sure you have something to offer before inviting the world in. It is easier to build a strong reputation from a clean slate, than it is to repair a damaged one. So clean house, get your ducks in a row, or whatever other metaphor you would like to use, then get out there and show the world what you’ve got.
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Tags: entrepreneur, homebased business, marketing, micro business, PR, small business, startup
