Two phrases that we say so often in life.
I know I should go to the gym three times a week. I tell myself I don’t have time.
And yet there’s time for chilling out.
Which tells you more about my priorities probably, rather than my lack of time.
The same applies to blogging and social media for businesses, especially small and medium sized ones. And for sure there are 101 other things to be doing when you’re running a small business.
The question is where do you make your priorities?
When I work with people, there are some key questions that I like to explore with them before we even get to creating stories:
- What’s the dream?
- How much more business can you cope with?
Quite simply, there is no point in investing lots into creating a blog and lots of social posts if you’re doing as many hours as you want, it’s providing the living that you want and your lifestyle is as important as the business.
A business designed around priorities (and they don’t have to be “make the most money in the shortest possible time”)
I remember a superb restaurant in Fowey that had queues of people waiting (long before not booking was a thing), concentrated on burgers and fish, and was only open 6 months of the year.
Of course, they could have made more money by being open for 12 months. But Fowey is a very seasonal place, so it probably wouldn’t have made double, although costs would have doubled. It also wouldn’t have allowed the owners to head off for the ski season, which was their dream at the time.
They could have made more people aware of the restaurant and want to eat there. But wait times would have gone up. Or people got turned away. Or the quality of the cooking went down as they cut corners to speed up service.
And then reviews would start to mention the negatives more than the positives. A long established business could start to wobble, particularly in a tough and fickle market like the restaurant trade.
Or their priorities might change, the ski season might no longer hold the attraction and expansion might be the thing.
And then you make a new plan.
So answering those two questions is not a forever thing, it’s for where you and your business are right now. That’s the starting point for deciding what content do you want to put out there, to tell what story or stories, and to which people.
By doing that you’ll also have had a thought about where telling your story sits in your business priorities.
And when something becomes one of your priorities, it’s amazing how you manage to find the time for it.
What’s your business priority? And where does storytelling sit relative to that? I’d love to know.
