How many naturally gifted athletes do you know? How many natural business people? Marketing is relevant in this context – are you a marketing natural?
There are always people who seem to have natural gifts.
In sports these are the players who rarely seem to struggle to play the game. Baseball has a lot of examples, as does soccer, tennis and pretty much any athletic endeavour. The same is true in business – you have probably heard the description “natural salesman” freely applied.
In marketing there are many skills that can be learned to make you more effective. However many marketing tools and tactics require specific activities that may initially appear to fall into the territory of natural gifts – public speaking and presentations, networking and making small talk, being able to “work a room”, writing interesting and entertaining articles.
But it isn’t that simple
Of course there are activities that come more naturally to some than others. If you are of the mindset that everything is a given and you can’t learn some of these things though, you are potentially missing out. Take presenting for example.
I know this is one of the things that people generally fear the most but YOU CAN LEARN TO BE AN EFFECTIVE SPEAKER. There are courses, there are places to practice. It takes time but you can become a very good speaker by maximising what you do have and bringing your personality to it.
That is one example but again, it has sporting parallels. Many of the most successful athletes are the ones who work the hardest, the ones who stay for extra practice, work on new skills, try new things, are continually learning. There are countless “naturals” who fall short of their potential for want of applying themselves in this way.
As in most things, you have a choice. In marketing your small business choose what you think are the best ways to get the word out about your business EVEN IF THAT IS UNCOMFORTABLE in terms of the demands it makes on you. Committing to learning these skills and/or finding support who can help you may even turn out to be fun!
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