Entrepreneurs Who Get-up and Show-up

Marketing Agencies are harder than they look

Many other industries enjoy the benefits of employees staying more than 3 years with their companies, whereas a marketing company is like a revolving door. In part, marketers get bored fast, but mostly, they know that if something isn’t to their liking, they don’t need to work at it and they can just move onto the next job. There are many jobs to be filled in the marketing industry and no marketer that is half-decent at their jobs need to remain unemployed.

Marketing is also forever changing. Keeping up with the pace, learning new things and being across all the various marketing technologies is a full-time job. Only marketers who truly want to succeed tend to be across martech in a way that always adds value to a business.

Small businesses are struggling

When you work in the small business market, you fast realize that “more” is needed, not less. Marketing agencies are having higher demands on their services, more judgement on whether there is a visible return on investment, and a need for lower cost marketing options.

Wearing blinkers when it comes to the needs of small business regarding marketing will not only see a marketing agency lose market share, but also, it will make them irrelevant.

Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone

Isn’t that the truth! At first, I thought it wasn’t for me, but eventually I found my legs and didn’t just walk, ran.

Entrepreneurship will always have ups and downs and sometimes challenges seem insurmountable. However, the good times far outweigh the downtimes and when you savour those moments of “winning” it really reinforces why you chose this path in the first place.

Some things I do that keeps me “showing-up” include:

• Early to bed, early to rise
• Drink loads of water (and if you are like me and forget, have someone remind you)
• Buy a portable massage gadget so when you get stressed, it relieves the tension
• Always go to sleep calm and resolved
• Never wake up with yesterday’s baggage
• Learn to listen rather than just talk
• Limit your screen time
• Eat well
• Surround yourself with supportive friends
• Exercise daily
• Keep a diary and don’t be afraid to write down the challenges (when these are off your chest, they don’t seem so bad)
• Live in the moment and learn to process information
• Focus on your thoughts and get rid of “roommates” in your head (read Untethered Soul)
• Keep your goals somewhere where you can see them
• Learn to not get distracted by the new shiny toy

I wouldn’t change my job for the world and will be forever grateful for the day I started my first business. Running a marketing agency has been a pleasure and although it has also come with many challenges, I wake up each day excited to go to work and be part of making a different to people’s businesses.