Earlier this week, I was talking with a friend, who is an expert in pay-per-click advertising. He is trying his hand at selling products on Amazon. He is purchasing products wholesale from China, shipping them to Amazon for fulfillment, and selling them through Amazon.
While he is an expert in promoting products on Google and Amazon, he is new to the whole backend of sourcing and fulfilling products. He has found it challenging as he figures out what he does not know. After you have been around the block a few times, you at least know what you need to learn.
The same is true with marketing. Most business owners and professionals are experts at what they do, but they do not know what they don’t know about marketing. They know they want more leads, but have no real idea how to get them. So, they try a few things and become frustrated by a lack of success.
There are two ways to approach this: (1) Spend the time and money to figure it out and learn what you need to know, then go out and learn it. (2) Get some guidance so you can take the short route to learning what you need to know to make your marketing successful.
To be honest, the first route will make you a better marketer, and some business owners have done this successfully. However, it can take a lot of time and money to make it happen. The second route allows you to take a shortcut. However, that means that you are more reliant on a guide to help you figure out your marketing and may be reliant on an ongoing basis.
Whatever route you take, it is important to figure out what you don’t know. And, allow yourself some space to make mistakes and figure out what you really need to learn. Once you do, you can become much more effective at whatever it is that you are trying to figure out.