If you run a small business you’re likely making decisions all the time. If it’s not what product to develop it’s where to publicize your business. Or perhaps you’re considering hiring a virtual assistant or looking for a joint venture partner. Either way, you’re business is forcing you to make choices all day long.

But to be successful, you’re ultimately not the decision maker. And if you want to be successful, you shouldn’t be.

I know what you’re thinking (other than this Dawud cat is crazy), “Then who makes the decisions if I don’t?”

Your market does, of course.

You can sit back everyday, all day and make decisions about where to steer your business. Sure you decide what emails to respond too, what phone calls to take, and where to put your marketing efforts. You decide to develop this product or refine that service or to build this relationship or that one.

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Want To Increase Sales? There’s almost limitless methods for doing so. And all those methods boil down to one thing:

Be in front of your audience when they need you.

That’s it. That’s the key to increasing your sales. Think about it, when you’re at a restaurant, do you care with the bathroom is? Not til you need it, right? Or an ATM. You likely pass dozens of them every day and don’t notice them, right? But what happens when you’re out of cash? Every ATM comes into focus. What’s more, you might scurry to find one.

So many small business owners don’t consider this when they market their business. They work hard on their vision and business plan. Then they focus on their offer and how best to communicate that offer to a target market. Ideally, they’re wanting to position themselves as an expert in a select niche market.

But no one cares that you’re an expert until they need an expert. In other words, no one cares that you can solve a set a problems until they are faced with those set of problems. Then, they go out and look for a solution.

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A number of the clients I work with blog. Either they want to get started and need to learn how or they’re already blogging and want to make a greater impact with their blog.

But one thing is similar between almost every client…they somehow see their blog as their business. I’m not sure where this developed exactly, but I see this all over the web as well. Perhaps there’s a misunderstanding between those who have made money blogging and those who want too.

But a blog is not a business. Blogging, in it’s own right, is no more a business than your gasoline is a car. Sure, the car and gasoline are forever linked, even dependent on each other, but you’re not going to step inside a can of gas and make it to the grocery store.

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According to some, email marketing is dead because of beefed up spam filters. Others say that interruption marketing - where you’re life is interrupted by some marketing pitch has reached the end of its effectiveness. Email marketing is definitely a part of interruption marketing.

But what’s the truth? Have we reached a point where we should dump our email lists and find other channels to market through? Or is email marketing still as viable as it always has been?

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You know I love word of mouth marketing. I find it to be one of the purest, simplest and most rewarding ways of getting my business known.

But did you know that word of mouth marketing can be illegal?

According to Andy Sernovitz there’s a new bill (pdf) being introduced in the U.K. which will make some marketing practices illegal. The bill is meant to stop false and misleading marketing practices. Of course, word of mouth marketing could easily fit into that category if marketers were deceptive about their campaigns.

So what makes word of mouth marketing illegal?

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There are lots of keys to creating a successful business. Yet the one that I’ve found to be most important - and often most lacking in small businesses is positioning.

There’s lots of definitions of positioning because the term is often used along side branding. The definition that I gravitate to is:

Positioning is the space that you wish to occupy in your target audience’s mind, relative to your competitors.

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Are you investing in your business?

I’m not just talking about time. Of course you’re investing time, right? If you’re not, then you’re likely not very successful.

But what about money? Are you investing money into your business?

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of small and medium-size business owners. Some have been startups with funding while others have had large marketing and PR budgets.

But I’m not talking about those businesses. I’m talking about small business owners. I’m talking about corporate trainers, business and marketing coaches, personal development experts and other service providers. I’m talking about clients whose businesses are generating less than $150,000 per year. In other words - small businesses. [ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]