A Entrepreneur’s Biggest Mistake By John Phanchalad

If it wasn’t so obvious, it could be forgiven.

OK.   I’ll forgive it this once.   But pay close attention so this whopper doesn’t get you.

Let me illustrate with an example.

Larry has a small business that delivers health care.  His practice has been ripping along now for a while – doing pretty well, thank you…until recently when a huge drop off whacked him unexpectedly. New clients became sparse.  Existing ones weren’t coming in.

Cash flow dried up.   His paychecks became irregular.   Payroll became a bimonthly drama – would he get enough money in to make those checks good?  Larry figured he didn’t need a sauna or steam; he could generate his own sweat of worry continuously.

When he contacted me for help, he was trying to keep his professional cool and not sound desperate. He had that funny tone in his voice that belied his fear. He told me things had been going so well and suddenly went south.

I went through my consultative interview designed to ferret out the main problems my clients face.

What as obvious to me, Larry was blind to see.

Larry had managed to set his practice up in a fast-growing town when he had started out 15 years ago.  Now that growth had cooled down to normalcy.  Larry had been busy from day 1 of opening his doors.  He had worked hard and was delivering his care well.  He was doing OK in the money department – no great shakes, but well enough that his wife didn’t nag him about the money he brought home, until now.   If anything, this was one of the more unsettling parts of the situation.  He hated to let her down.

Larry really was a bright guy, but like so many professionals and small business people, he was treating his practice more like a job than a business.

I asked Larry about his daily activities.  He described them in great detail. His passion for his work plastered itself all over his words. The problem was that he couldn’t cash a passion check.

Larry was so busy working inside his practice that he had neglected marketing it. He knew he needed to; he was just so darn busy. Naturally, he didn’t think what could happen if he didn’t proactively ensure the steady flow of patients. He felt nearly overwhelmed already. When it hit him, he was simply unprepared.

Larry had marketed his practice some in the past. It was virtually all via the power of the pavement – he got out and walked around, met with associations, and got himself known in the community.  But since he had gotten so busy, he had stopped doing this himself and didn’t have anyone else doing it either. Larry confided that he knew he should be doing something.

So have you figured out the mistake?

•   Marketing your practice or small business is a perpetual need.

If you neglect it or do it poorly, it will come back to bite you. Some businesses die from the bite, others take months or even years to recover.

Larry was a normal, intelligent guy with a love for his profession. He practiced at a high level.  It used to be enough to be very good at what you do.  It is not anymore.

Larry had stopped working to create his practice because he was busy working in it providing services. It made him vulnerable and now he was paying the price in spades for omitting what he intuitively knew must happen.

Most  people  need  a  coach  to  help  them  see  what  they cannot.  Larry later told me that just having a coach helped him “stay on his game.”

We worked out how Larry could fix his problem.  He swallowed hard when I told him all that would be necessary to get his marketing ship righted and going full speed ahead. He accepted that it was going to take some time and no small sum of money to rectify the sins of his marketing omission.  Today Larry’s marketing ship is under full sail and moving along with a fifteen mile an hour breeze. Larry, the marketing pilot, now keeps a smile on his face most of the time.

For more tips and ideas about Internet Marketing By John Phanchalad, visit http://johnphanchalad.com/.