It’s rarely a lack of ideas
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how businesses often blame marketing when the real issue sits somewhere else. Since then, I’ve found myself thinking about another challenge I see regularly when working with business owners and marketers. It’s not usually a lack of ideas. It’s deciding which ideas deserve attention, where to start and what to prioritise.
There’s a networking event they could attend, a partnership opportunity they’ve been meaning to follow up, a new service they could launch, a podcast they’ve considered starting, an AI tool somebody recommended or a social media platform they haven’t explored properly yet.
None of these are bad ideas. The problem is there are so many of them and, if we’re honest, nobody knows which one will work best until they commit to it.
The challenge is that every opportunity wants a share of the same limited resources. Time, attention, energy and money don’t increase simply because another idea appears.
The hidden cost nobody thinks or talks about
When we think about the cost of something in business, we usually think about pounds and pence. The bigger cost is often focus. Every new opportunity creates more decisions, more tasks and more complexity. Something that looked exciting at the start can quickly become another thing to manage, another thing to update and another thing to fit into an already busy week.
I’ve worked with businesses that have invested huge amounts of time chasing new opportunities while existing opportunities were sitting right in front of them. Existing customers weren’t being followed up. Referrals weren’t being asked for. Services that were already profitable weren’t being promoted consistently. The business wasn’t short on opportunity it was short on focus.
When opportunity overload becomes a marketing problem
This is where it gets interesting… The website isn’t generating enough enquiries, content feels inconsistent, you’re not comfortable being on or writing for LinkedIn, everything feels all over the place, inconsistent. Lead generation is slow to non-existent and the right messages around the business just don’t seem to be hitting the mark. All these things feel like marketing problems, and sometimes they are, yet some are down to the business.
If the business keeps changing direction, marketing will struggle to stay consistent. When priorities change every few weeks, the message changes too. If you’re trying to speak to five different audiences at once, it’s no surprise the website isn’t converting as well as it could. If you’re trying to appeal to everyone, it’s much harder for the right people to recognise that you’re the right fit for them.
That’s one of the reasons I recently wrote Think you’ve got a marketing problem? Think again. The article explores why demand, priorities and focus are often the real issue, with marketing simply becoming the thing that gets blamed.
A useful question to ask yourself
One of the simplest exercises you can do is write down every significant opportunity you’re currently considering. Not just the things you’re actively doing. Everything. The ideas you’ve been thinking about, the projects you’ve been discussing and the opportunities you’d like to pursue. Then ask yourself one question:
If I could only choose three, which three would make the biggest difference to the business over the next 90 days?
Most people know the answer surprisingly quickly. The difficult part isn’t identifying priorities. It’s letting go of everything else for long enough to give those priorities the attention they deserve.
Who decided growth meant doing more?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Who decided that growth was about constantly adding more things. Somewhere along the way, many of us seem to have accepted the idea that if business growth has slowed down, the answer must be another idea, another platform, another event, another service or another opportunity. We tell ourselves we need to do more networking, create more content, launch something new or try the latest tool that’s supposed to save us hours every week.
The strange thing is that most business owners I meet aren’t suffering from a lack of opportunities. If anything, they have the opposite problem. They have so many potential opportunities in front of them that they struggle to work out which ones deserve their attention.
I’ve done it myself over the years. You get excited by a new idea, then another one appears. Somebody recommends a different approach. A potential collaboration lands in your inbox. You spot a trend that looks interesting. Before you know it, you’re trying to move five different ideas forward at once and wondering why everything feels even harder when it was supposed to make it easier to make money.
What often gets forgotten is that every new opportunity takes something from the business. It takes time, energy, attention, decision-making and focus. They’re limited resources for every business owner, regardless of the size of the business. That’s why growth doesn’t automatically come from doing more.
In many cases, growth comes from deciding what matters most, giving it the attention it deserves and sticking with it long enough to learn whether it’s working. That isn’t always exciting and it rarely makes for an impressive story on social media. It is, however, how many businesses build strong foundations, make better decisions and create consistent progress over time. That thinking aligns closely with Boo’s focus on opportunities, priorities, focus and decision-making rather than simply adding more activity.
The more I work with business owners and marketers, the more convinced I become that opportunities aren’t usually the problem. it’s deciding which deserve attention, that’s where the real wins begin.
Further reading
If this article sounds familiar, it’s probably because it links closely to another question many businesses are wrestling with:
Do I actually have a marketing problem?
You can read that article here: Think you’ve got a marketing problem? Think again
Before deciding which opportunities to pursue, it’s worth making sure you’re solving the right problem in the first place.
