The World Needs You.

This is a rather serious email from the Brand Doctor about a very serious subject. It may not sound serious to you but, it is. It’s killed off the dreams of many entrepreneurs. It’s squashed very solid, if not groundbreaking, products and services.

It’s the reason companies like TiVo hang on by a thread despite being first to market with a little innovation called the DVR (Digital Video Recorder). The DVR now occupies a place in over 43 million homes in the U.S, despite very few of them actually being TiVo brand.

I’m talking about the failure to properly market what you have to offer.

I see it more often than I care to admit. Good companies—great companies—that brush aside the tools at their disposal. They ignore their marketing. They think word of mouth will quickly spread and everyone will see how wonderful their product or service truly is. They waste precious time chasing the latest fad while their market share dwindles and their momentum crawls to a stop.

Sadly, there are marketing plans tucked away in drawers; There’s great copywriting filed away on a hard drive that never makes it onto the website. Or perhaps they meant to do more marketing if only the sales would start to roll in. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

The US Small Business Administration recommends spending 7-8% of your gross revenue on marketing. The average marketing budget in the US was just over 11% in 2018.

Call it fear of failure, fear of success, or failure to thrive: failure to get the word out about your idea is an especially selfish type of failure that deprives the world of the best you have to offer.

Get out of your way and market it. The world needs you.