If you own a company you want to have a successful small business, but the days come and go and you find yourself wondering how to be successful. The key isn't doing more of the "right" stuff. The key is seizing the "right" moments - or letting them seize you.
Have you seen the movie “Boyhood?” Critics are saying it’s making cinematic history. It was filmed over 12 years with the same cast. You watch them age naturally and experience life right before your eyes. It definitely struck a chord with me, so much so that I started to think about how the lessons it taught were even applicable to inbound marketing.
Check out the synopses and trailer:
Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, this film is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason, who literally grows up on screen before our eyes. This drama charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other film has before. Snapshots of adolescence from road trips and family dinners to birthdays and graduations and all the moments in between become transcendent, set to a soundtrack spanning the years from Coldplay's Yellow to Arcade Fire's Deep Blue. The film is both a nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting. It's impossible not to watch Mason and his family without thinking about our own journey.
(IMDb.com)
After my husband and I saw the film, I asked him the same question I always do: “What did you think?” He said he appreciated the concept behind it, but he kept waiting for something to happen. Then it occurred to me: that’s the whole point of the movie! We go through life waiting for something to happen when IT IS happening.
We often experience the same kind of thinking with our inbound marketing clients. They want something to happen with their marketing strategy, but they don’t really have a strategy. Then they hear the new cool term “inbound marketing” and think it’s going to help them become a successful small business right away, but they just keep waiting for something to happen. Well, that’s part of the process. Depending on the efforts you put in, it’s going to be a good 6 months to a year before you see some major progress. But that doesn’t mean you don’t celebrate small successes along the way.
Spoiler alert: The last few scenes of the film sum up the movie and life really, perfectly. In one scene, Mason is heading off to college. As he’s leaving and goes to say good-bye, he finds his mom crying at the kitchen table. When he asks her what’s wrong, she says: “I just thought there would be more,” referring to her life and how all of the sudden her baby is going to college.
An owner of a successful small business sets measurable goals along the way so they don’t reach retirement and find themselves thinking, “I just thought there would be more.” The key to finding that “more” is creating a Passion & Provision Company. Learn more about what that looks like here. At Half a Bubble Out we just happen to be doing that in the field of traditional and inbound marketing. But maybe for you it’s telecommunications, or plumbing services, or the wine industry, or podiatry. The point is that passion and provision creates an environment where you are creating that “more” and not missing the important milestones along the way.
In the final scene of the film, Mason is sitting outside with a new friend he just met as he was moving into the dorms. As they sit and reflect she says, “You know how people always say ‘Seize the Moment…’ Mason interrupts her and passionately chimes in, “Yeah! I don’t think that’s right though, because the moments are always seizing you – it’s always right now.”
Powerful stuff! What are you doing right now to have a successful small business? You can let the day to day moments seize you without you knowing it and miss them altogether. Or you can let the everyday moments seize you and use them to their full potential. Writing that blog you’ve been dreading. Meeting with that client you don’t think has the budget. Hiring the less experienced person just because you like them. Making wise financial decisions. Taking that call because the person sounds interesting.
If you’re still reading this blog, you’re in one of those seize-able moments now. You can choose to learn more about how an inbound marketing strategy creates a successful small business, or you can click the back button and try searching for the next big thing. But you just might miss it.
There CAN be more for your business. Download the free ebook below or contact us at Half a Bubble Out to learn what an inbound marketing strategy looks like for your small business.
