Marketing or management, you (must) choose
When you decide to start your own business, if you’re planning to succeed you’re committing to learn one of two skills: marketing or management.
If you’re planning to keep small and be a solopreneur/microbusiness (which means you can get started without investing anything), you’re choosing to learn how to market and sell yourself.
If you’re planning to scale your business and you have start-up cash, you’re choosing to learn how to manage a team, and you can pay them to do your marketing (although most successful businesses are launched by someone who learns to love both marketing and management).
You get to choose marketing, or management, or both.
Choosing neither means choosing to live in Struggletown.
I think lots of people choose to go into business without truly accepting the ramifications of this decision. Lots of people choose to start a business to experience ‘freedom’, but if you find management or marketing (or both) constricting, you’re never going to find the freedom you’re looking for.
The first business I launched was in manufacturing, we made racing go karts. Despite having zero experience in management and very limited exposure to marketing and sales, I started my own business after taking a loan from “the bank of mum”.
I had an amazing time and I don’t regret a moment of it, but suffice to say it turned out that management is not my forte, and subsequently Phoenix Race Karts was not my ticket to freedom. Six or seven years into the experiment I had learned my lesson, and as the world entered the GFC I pivoted the business into an online shop in the same industry (I’m such a hipster, I was pivoting way before it was cool).
I let all my staff go, ended the lease on the factory, set up a miniature distribution centre in my basement, and got on a first-name basis with the local Star Track Express driver, Nick.
This time I was making a much more conscious decision about my business. I had learned that management is not a skill I have a lot of natural affinity for, and this time I was making a considered choice to get good at marketing. My plan was to be the most successful online shop in the kart racing space.
I did lots of reading. I went back to uni. I tried lots of strategies. I got pretty good at it!
The shop grew steadily for about five years and eventually, once my love—affair with kart racing waned, I sold it to the biggest player in the Australian karting game for a decent sum of money. Turns out I’m a marketer, not a manager.
What are you?