Is everyone a marketer, no matter what business they’re in? That’s one of the questions I wondered while delving into David Siteman Garland’s new book, Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business.
Garland goes through the myriad of ways entrepreneurs and small businesses can get an edge using today’s common techniques: Creating sharable and spreadable content, using PR and social media to ‘become a trusted resource,’ using online video, expanding personal networks, etc. It’s all good information, and a great starter resource.
Here’s a bit of the conundrum: All the techniques he covers may be smarter, faster, and cheaper, but ithey’re also incredibly time-consuming. Garland is one of many authors preaching that businesses and their owners have a purpose and a passion and then take to the streets (and the Internet) to inform and engage the world. I don’t disagree. But I do wonder how much time and effort can be spent on marketing by someone who is not an instinctive marketer but does have a passion for running a business, meeting a payroll, and ensuring the bills get paid and that the product or service gets to market. I’ve met some great business owners who understood on an intellectual level that they needed marketing, but didn’t know how to go about it. In other words, not everyone is Gary Vee.
The world is full of small businesses that have great stories to tell–if their owners want to tell them. I wonder if time-starved business owners will be able to tell their stories or if Smarter, Faster, Cheaper is a better fit for the people who advise these business owners. I imagine that the AdPulp audience is full of the latter type of people, so Garland’s book is a good read.
Special thanks to Wiley who provided me with a review copy.