Need Marketing Clarity? Get Out Of Your Head

I just got off the phone with my accountant.

For some people, chatting with their accountant is a super-stressful event. But not for me. My accountant (Eva Rosenberg, in case you’re wondering,) is fantastic. I. Love. Her.

Why? She can take the most complex situation, break it down into bite-sized chunks and show me how to proceed. It may be about how to structure my finances. Or how to handle a tax situation. We even discuss new business ideas (which is what we talked about today.) If I’m confused, stressed out or overwhelmed, chatting with Eva always helps.

It’s because she gives me clarity.

How would a little marketing clarity help you?

I say this not to geek out about my accountant, but to show how having a second opinion can bring you a lot of mental freedom. For instance…

– Do you know that your site needs optimization help, but you’re not sure what to do next?

– Are you faced with a sticky business situation and you’re not sure how to proceed?

– Do you feel like your site isn’t quite clicking with your customers and you’re wondering what needs to be changed?

– Is your company completely overwhelmed with Google’s latest changes?

It’s easy for us to get bogged down by 1,000 details and not take action. We worry about Google. We worry about business. We think about our landing pages and our optimization. Yet, we do nothing to fix them.

Why? It’s because we’re overwhelmed. We’re in our own heads all the time. We handle non-essential tasks like answering email and zone out in front of the television at night.

(There’s no judgement here. I’m the same way. I’ve thrown myself into watching old Sopranos episodes rather than think about my problems.)

We don’t realize that we can’t come up with the answer by ourselves. We’re too close to it. We’re stuck. That’s why good companies can make extremely bad SEO mistakes (like having the same Title on every page.) It’s not that the answer isn’t staring us in the face. It’s just that we don’t see it.

In fact, I just received an email that said this:

“We are now fearful with the acceleration of search engines and changes they make, most of [the information we know] is probably obsolete. Is this a correct assumption? We are getting minimal traffic to our site and trying to decide if we just give up or devote the time necessary to turn it into something of substance.”

Ouch. Not only do you want to feel sorry for this person, you want to shake them and say, “Don’t give up. Do something! It’s not too late.”

But when you’re overwhelmed, it’s hard to have that clarity. Very hard.

Need clarity? Don’t overwhelm. Do this instead.

If you’re in this position, the first step is acceptance. Yes, you’re smart. Yes, you’re good. Yes, you work with a fantastic team of people who are experts at what they do. But that doesn’t mean that you’re going to come up with all of the answers all of the time. It just means that you’ll be able to recognize good advice and act on it faster than most.

What does help is reaching out and talking to an expert. That means being completely transparent, sharing your situation and asking them for advice. “Advice” may mean some quick tips. Or it may mean an ongoing relationship to keep you accountable. The key is bringing in an outsider and asking him/her for help.

“But Heather,”  you may say. “That costs money and we don’t have the budget for something like that.”

I get that reaction. I do. Even big companies are stingy with their budgets. They figure they already have a bunch of smart people working there, so why should they get an outside opinion?

It all boils down to clarity. If you can pay a little bit of money and know that your business would be transformed – why wouldn’t you take that leap?

If you’re still concerned about cost, break it down by ROI. Say you spend $2,500 to fix your site’s visibility issues and drive more traffic to your site.

If your average sale is $200, that means you’ll just need to drive 12.5 new sales. That’s it.

Suddenly, the price for clarity seems extremely inexpensive. And that doesn’t even factor in the amount of mental energy you’ll have back. Heck, you may even sleep better at night!

Isn’t it time to get out of your head and give yourself the clarity you deserve? You can put that mental energy into other things that deserve it. Like finding out what happens to Tony Soprano in season three…

Photo thanks: ID 23357559 © Kantapat | Dreamstime.com