As a marketer and small business owner, I have to make a lot of decisions. Sometimes the decisions are easy, or easier, like should I have a website or not, or should I blog or not… actually, now that I think about it, those decisions weren’t really all that easy to make. When I stop and consider, no decision is easy for me. All decisions seem huge when I can’t control the outcomes. And when I am faced with too many decisions, the uncertainty factor overwhelms me into a pile of quivering jelly. Not pretty.
The tool I have found to navigate an uncertain world is research. Research helps me reduce uncertainty and have more confidence in my decisions. I may not be able to control outcomes (who can?), but if I do my research, I can have faith that I’m not just blindly shooting my marketing messages in the dark.
Some of my research clients are small business owners. I have seen them do an about-face on their marketing strategy after reviewing the results of their research studies. I have witnessed them saving significant amounts of time, money, and energy by abandoning one marketing strategy in favor of another.
Research is not magic, although it feels like it is sometimes. And it’s not a cure-all, much as I would like to claim it is. You still have to make decisions. But your research will give you confidence that you are on the right track as you navigate the uncertain world.
No Comments