Marketing

I recently purchased an Anker product on Amazon and it came with a small, two-sided card.

On one side, it asked if I’m happy with the purchase. When I open it from that side, it suggests ways for me to tell people. I may not have thought of leaving a review or telling people about it on social media, so the suggestion triggered a thought about doing that. It costs nothing to ask and is pure upside.

On the other side of the card, it asks me if I’m not happy with the purchase. When I open it from that side, it tells me where I can get my situation resolved quickly (airing my grievances, as I say in the video below). It’s always better to get critical feedback and resolve customer complaints directly. A few bad reviews can make a massive difference to your reputation (and product sales).

When people don’t have an outlet or means of rectifying inevitable issues, they leave negative reviews and announce their dissatisfaction anywhere they can. If this card helps to avoid even one negative review or solve a poor customer experience, it will pay for itself infinitely.

Include this card (or one like it) with every product you ship your customers.

Watch the video below for the full story.

A few years ago, I realized I had gained some weight. Not a lot, but enough that I noticed it happening.

I was in my late twenties and it became apparent that I could no longer eat literally anything I wanted and remain in decent shape.

As a kid, I was quite active, so remaining somewhat lean was not difficult.

As a young adult, however, my recreational sports went away and with that came the addition of beer and an increased budget for restaurant food.

For many people, variations of this story is a right of passage. There comes a time in most of our lives where we need to do something intentional about our health.

For me, it was exercising. I always had a hard time forcing myself to exercise. I’m not motivated by the dream of having a beach body (as you can see), so the idea of exercising for no personal benefit aside from “being healthy” was not inspiring enough for me to do it consistently. When you’re young, you think you’ll live forever.

I eventually realized that exercising did more than keep the extra pounds at bay. It helped me focus, gave me more energy throughout my day, and made me less stressed overall.

I started focusing on chasing that “runner’s high”. When I exercised, I always felt happier and more productive all day as a result. That was a benefit I could get behind.

The next step was to build a habit. Anyone who exercises infrequently knows that once you stop, it’s very hard to get going again. I actually found it easier to do it every day than once or twice a week.

But in order to do it every day, I needed to lower the bar for what qualifies as a successful day of exercise.

So, I set my bar low: all I needed to do was be in the gym or out running on the road for 20 minutes before I could call it quits at any time.

And, for the first several months (years?) I pretty much stuck to 20-25 minutes every time.

Did I see results? Yes. Did I get the productivity boost I wanted? Yes. Did I get a beach body? Well, no… but that was never my goal.

Today I exercise 4-5 weekdays per week for about 30 minutes each. And that works for me.

So what’s the point here?

There are two points.

The first is that in order to do something consistently, it’s often easier to make a small daily effort to eliminate the “should I do this today or not” factor. It helps to schedule it at the same time each day as well, which systemizes getting it done.

The second point is that if you want to be consistent with something, especially a habit, it helps by setting the bar low. Like, really low.

Like – barely passably low. Then give yourself permission to stop once you reach that point. Small, daily, consistent action beats sporadic and inconsistent big actions all day long.

How does this apply to marketing?

I’m not a self-help guru, so if you’re still reading, I’ll bring you back to my core expertise: doing great marketing.

The biggest hurdle to marketing your own business is finding the time to do it.

As business owners, we’re always busy working on “higher priority” things. Working IN the business seems like the more correct thing to do than working ON the business.

That is until we start struggling to make sales.

Every business owner is responsible for marketing in some shape or form.

What small thing can you do daily that contributes to marketing your business?

For me, it’s writing down a thought, insight, or story every day. Or working on a bigger article to help shape it further.

For you, it might be posting once to social media. Or doing something generous or remarkable for customers to give them a wow experience.

For others, it might be doing a short video and posting it on Twitter each day.

Setting aside even 20 minutes for your marketing each day will have huge effects in the long term. Of course, if that turns into 60 minutes, you’re even better off.

Not setting aside time will also have a significant impact on your business, but you’ll never know until it’s too late.

I hope this longwinded insight inspires you to take some daily action towards marketing your business (or getting healthier?).

What are you going to do to move the needle forward in your business? Leave a comment below.