When I’m recommending tools and resources to people I’m often asked ‘Is it free?’ We seem to have this expectation that we should be able to have free access to the tools that will help us grow our businesses. Yet we expect other people to pay for our goods and services.
Everyone seems to be talking about the free tools and platforms that can be used, and there is this perception that social media, email marketing and PR are free forms of marketing. Google ‘Free Marketing’ and you’ll find ‘free marketing tools’, ‘effective ways to get free marketing’, ‘free marketing ideas’ and ‘ways to market your business for free’. Then there’s all the free workshops, talks and seminars that offer to teach you all these things for free too.
But free marketing is a myth. The reality is that that it takes time and effort to market your business. AND your time is worth money! Nothing in life is free, there has to be some exchange, you are simply trading your time for marketing instead of trading time for money.
We feel entitled to be able to use free stock imagery, but then we complain when we see other people using the same images to promote their business. We download these free tools then get frustrated that we have to pay to unlock the premium features - the ones we want - the ones that will help us grow our business.
But these free tools (or free versions) are designed to demonstrate the impact that using them can have on your business. It’s great that there are these free versions available to enable you to get started, but as your business grows there’s a point where it becomes more cost efficient to invest money instead of time.
When you are ready to scale your activities to reach more potential customers, convert more browsers into buyers and keep more customers coming back then it’s time to invest. Investing in marketing systems is the only way to market on auto-pilot without a ton of manual intervention and sleepless nights.
What's your price?
What are you saying no to in order to spend time marketing your business - time with family? socialising? sleeping? Are you limiting your growth with the number of manual marketing tasks in your business? Could you even be losing sales? Are you neglecting other areas of your business?
Are you spending too much time at free training events that aren’t tailored to your specific business needs? Or are you overwhelmed with so much free information that you don’t know how to put it all into action to market your business effectively?
All marketing comes with a price, what’s yours?
**share if you agree and tag someone you think needs to hear this today**
