5 Signs You aren’t Ready for Marketing

You’re assuming the mantle of your family’s business.

Some facets of leading the company are no big deal for you. You have been “working in the field.” Now there are new hats you have to wear. And marketing is a new hat.

You know your marketing needs to change.

Considering you are new, be careful about jumping in. We have seen this go badly too often.

Here are some signs your company isn’t ready for marketing:

You are busy trying to please everyone.

You want the business, so you bend over backward to twist your services so you can deliver.

Not every lead is an opportunity.

It’s okay if not every lead is the right fit for you, just move on to the next and keep on trucking.

Vetting leads will keep you from twisting your services into a knot.

You haven’t found your niche.

Buyers value the depth of a specialist’s expertise. They trust specialists to better understand their world and their problems.

HR consultants don’t try to be CFOs.

Dentists don’t try to be surgeons.

There are orthopedic surgeons specializing in hips and accountants specializing in e-commerce. They provide expertise beyond their general job description.

Buyers seek out these specialists to find knowledgeable solutions to their specific problems.

You’re ignoring your true strengths.

Find your niche.

Your business model is a copycat of your competitor’s website.

You’ve got to want to be different.

You can’t be willing to copy someone else’s business model.

If you simply copy someone else’s business model, you will start a price war between them and you, which is a race to the bottom.

Build a business focused on working with people you love to work with, building the kinds of products you love to build, or solving the kinds of problems you like to solve.

You talk about yourself too much.

Your website’s too busy talking about you, saying what you do, believing that you’re the miracle worker with the solution.

You really might have the solution, but stop looking at it from your point of view.

When people buy, they’re not looking from your point of view. They’re looking from their point of view.

It’s their problem.

If your website’s too busy talking about you, people will leave your site. People won’t make an effort to understand you; they will make the effort to find companies that understand them.

You can’t do marketing for an entire year.

If you can’t do marketing for an entire year, you can’t do marketing.

I’ve seen it too often: too many companies try a quick hit. For example, they try social media for a month. When it doesn’t work, they abandon it. Then, two months later, they try some SEO.

They’re making random shifts in what they’re trying to do.

Marketing has to be consistent.

When you have a year of patience and a large marketing budget, you can figure out what works. And what doesn’t work for your business.

Look at the metrics, make changes, observe how they change, and then do it all over again. Marketing is a long game of constant self-improvement.

Now, pause for a second.

Take a reality check—are you trying to save every single lead that comes your way? Are you dabbling in everything? Are you a carbon copy of your competitor?

Start being your clients’ hero.

Focus on consistent efforts, watch the metrics, and refine your approach. It’s about running controlled experiments, tweaking your email marketing, and watching those open rates climb.

When it comes to metrics, keep it simple and check out our 6 B2B Marketing Metrics Your CEO Actually Cares About.

Steady and strategic wins the race in marketing.