Many online businesses I talk to are growing, but sometimes they’re wasting money, time or energy because they misunderstand what is actually causing their growth (or keeping their business stable, or causing a decline).
Just in case this is you (or could be you one day), read on…
(Not growing? The principles here still apply if your business is stable or in decline.)
Growth can be due to many things, e.g. successful marketing, being mentioned or featured somewhere with a large audience, your competitors closing down, a Google update that boosts your search ranking, luck, etc.
Make sure you know what is causing the growth, so that you maximise those causes, and especially don’t waste money on what isn’t actually working.
Example: wasting money on ads
For example, a client was growing each month and spending thousands of dollars on facebook ads each month.
But they were getting less than $300 in sales from those ads, and very few email signups. Their sales were actually coming from their existing email list and from influencers on Instagram, places where they weren’t investing much money!
So they cut the facebook ads, invested further in emails for their list and spent more time cultivating influencer relationships, and their business grew faster and became more profitable at the same time.
Example: wasting money on team
Just to show I’m not picking on facebook ads, let me give you another example.
Another client hired a marketing team member for about $6,000 per month, and spent a few months in handover training. The business was growing in MRR (monthly recurring revenue) every month.
But when we looked at it, the growth wasn’t due to any of the tasks the marketer was doing or responsible for.
After some unsuccessful work trying to turn this around with the marketer, the client decided to let them go. The monthly cost was invested in other marketing services and the business continued to grow.
Takeaways
Key lesson: don’t waste time, money or energy on things that aren’t actually driving your growth.
Action items:
- Think about what is actually causing your growth (or maintaining your business as it is, or causing a decline, whatever the situation you have).
- Once you’ve identified the cause(s), review whether it makes sense to continue spending your time, money and energy the way you currently are.
- If it doesn’t make sense to continue as you are, make a change!
Reach out if you need help with this, or if you have any questions.
