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By Casey Grey
Blog |
Never underestimate the power of community.
People coming together for one common purpose. Share your ideas. Spread the word. Ask for help. Look for feedback. Put yourself out there. Leave your ego at the door. Great things are never accomplished alone. If you've been following my social media lately, you are aware that I have been having issues with my 1977 VW Van. It's been in and out of the shop for the last month.
(I wrote about the last time it went into the shop on my blog post titled Great Customers.) Yesterday I picked it up for the fourth time and, knock on wood, it's running better than it ever has since I purchased it. Throughout the last month as people would ask about it, I would let them know it's back in the shop. They would ask what was wrong and I would explain some of the issues I was having. In some cases people would start offering their opinions as to what was wrong with it. Personally, I love cars but I'm not a mechanic. I don't play one on the internet and I don't pretend to be one in real life. I leave that stuff to the experts. Construction, I know. But even within construction, there are many aspects that I don't know to the level of some of the experts I work with. Electrical, I leave to the electrician. Plumbing, I leave to the plumber. HVAC, I leave to the mechanical team. Engineering, I leave to the engineers. That being said, I have been building and renovating homes for 16 years now so I know more about all aspects of construction than most. In addition, my team and I have been a part of every single Certified Passive House in Ottawa except for one so we especially know more about building energy efficient homes than most people in the industry let alone the general population. But, there are still people who believe they know better. People who have done a renovation to one of their houses in the past or people who have helped their dad renovate their home when they were growing up, for example. Does this mean I won't listen to what they have to say? Absolutely not. I may learn something new. However, the weight their opinion carries over my experience or the opinion from one of my team members or expert sub-trades is much less. For my van, did I listen to people's opinions as to what they thought the issue was? Sure! But I did not believe their opinion over the opinion of my mechanic who had been working on VW Vans for 35 years. Everybody has an opinion but not everybody is an expert. The next time you are looking for an opinion or giving your opinion, remember, there is a difference between an "opinion" and an "expert opinion". I enjoy puzzles.
I never did many puzzles growing up but my mom would always have a puzzle going on the dining room table. Every morning when I would come down, she would be in the dining room enjoying her coffee and working on her puzzle. The process is fun. Organizing the pieces, testing pieces, moving pieces, testing again and so forth. It's rewarding when you finally figure it out because you have put so much time into it! In my mom's case there was likely some frustration as well when she realized that she was missing one piece at the end which was likely hidden somewhere by my brother, Marshall :) To some extent in can be meditative. Focusing is what meditation helps with and working on puzzles forces you to focus the mind. Within a business there are many puzzles to be figured out and they are never ending. Marketing is one of them. (Perhaps this is one of the reasons I enjoy business so much...) With the internet and all the information out there, online marketing is something that can help your business grow but it's like one of those 5,000 piece puzzles my mom used to work on... The available platforms and targets are endless. Facebook, instagram, Linkedin and Google are the obvious go-to platforms but which one is best for your business? Who are you targeting? What is their age? Are they male or female? What are they interested in? Where do they live? Then, what is your ad like? Do you use a video or a picture? What is the video or picture about? What is the title of the ad? What is the copy of the ad? What goes on the landing page? This is just the beginning of the puzzle. This is the organization. This is where you figure out what pieces go where. What works and what does not. You test, test and test again until you figure out what gives you the best return. If people are not clicking, why are they not clicking? Do you have the wrong interests? Or the wrong demographic? Or the wrong location? Perhaps the headline is not getting their attention? Perhaps the pictures or video is not grabbing them? If people are clicking, why are they clicking? Can we find more people like them? And when they do click, are they purchasing? If not, why did they stop? They were obviously interested... As you can see, this is no simple task (and perhaps less meditative than the puzzle I mentioned earlier...) We think that we can run our own ad campaign so we put something together with no real thought, choose some options that we "think" will work and then spend a few bucks. Then we wonder why we didn't sell anything and we say "online marketing does not work!" Personally, I see value in online marketing (done right) for YOUNION Mediation Studio. The goal, to get people into the space because I know their lives will be transformed. By not doing everything we can to get people in the door, we are doing them a disservice. That is why we brought on Riaz Sidi of Sidi.io to help us. And that is why we also had to have Riaz on Lean In with Casey Grey to share his story what he's helping us with. Even if you don't need marketing for anything, Riaz has an exciting story which brought him to where he is today. As a bonus, he's pretty funny too ;) If you are stressed out about your marketing, your two solutions are here! YOUNION Mediation Studio and Sidi.io |
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