Every day we see companies that are unfunding their marketing. That’s particularly sad because we’re sure that’s a leading reason why companies fail. It makes us weep, and going out of business or underperforming expectations makes entrepreneurs weep, too.
Why is investing in marketing so tough to understand? Spend a dollar, make three, ten or more. Invest a few cents and the short cut you take almost always leads to disaster.
Here’s something we hear with alarming frequency: “Oh we’ll get around to that branding and planning stuff after we get the business cards and website up.” Huh? Would you build a house without a blueprint? This approach with marketing is at the very least inefficient and more often it’s completely dangerous. Yet too many business owners are stuck in either in the doing-things-backward trap or the never-doing-it-at-all disaster.
One reason owners underfund marketing is that the business in general is undercapitalized, and marketing is often the last thing on the list. Growth Nation is probably not going to change that any time soon, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. Another thing we can do is connect our community of entrepreneurs and business owners to better financing and hope that results in greater capitalization and some better business decisions.
Soooo . . . on October 14th 7:30 – 10am the next Growth Nation event at our SkySong headquarters will be a little about marketing and a LOT about getting access to cash in order to grow. We have identified over a dozen financial and investment resources to attend our morning meeting to discuss ALL the financing, funding and wealth management options a business owner may ever need.
In attendance that morning will be top lending banks, credit unions, alternative financing, M&A resources, financial consultants (like B2BCFO) and a full spectrum of financial and funding experts that owners need to manage their personal and business finances.
Each expert will briefly describe their services and then there will be time for Q&A and follow-up. Attendees may connect with the people they’d like more information from.
For example one resource we’ll talk about is the Invest Southwest Capital Conference. It’ll be too late by then to apply for the December 8-10 event (the deadline is September 1st at 5pm), but it is one way to find the funding for some early stage tech firms to jump start growth. We’ll have many other resources and so you won’t want to miss this if you’re tired of not having enough money in your business to get by.
If you’d like to learn more, please send an e-mail to grow@growthnation.com. If you’re already in our community you should be hearing about the event from our newsletters, Twitter and Facebook. Sign-up if you’d like more information like this in the future to help you grow your business.
Our October 14th event won’t end the river of tears, but perhaps we’ll ease the flooding. See you then!
About Doug Bruhnke
You have identified the number one reason why so many businesses fail, under-capitalization, in particular under-capitalization of the marketing efforts (advertising). Business owners need to come to the realization that marketing should be the first place they spend their money. But they need to spend it wisely, in places that make sense for their particular business and with those who offer the highest chances of making the phones ring. This is something only an expert can tell them after reviewing the business, someone like Growth Nation for example. Borrowing money and spending it on non-targeted advertising is almost as bad as not spending it at all.