Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 199 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love to you take a screen shot and share it on your socials and tag me in it.  How cool would that be!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/199

Before I get started on today’s episode – how did you go with last week’s episode? Amanda had some great financial advice for us, didn’t she?  Love her passion for numbers!  If you aren’t paying yourself something from your business – did you go and implement a strategy so you could or just did it?  I’d love to know.

Anyway, on to today’s episode.  Today I am talking about doing business differently.

This conversation has come out of having many and varied conversations, DMs, and emails back and forth, lately with colleagues, friends, clients – just various small business owners.

The crust of all the conversations has been “if nothing changes, nothing changes” – or the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

So that’s really what I want to chat about today.

Changing things up – doing business differently – to get a different result.  But also, looking outside the square to help you reach your goals.

So, let’s look at this in two sections – doing things differently – and then changing things to get change. 

The first and most obvious question here is What are your business goals?  Because changing for the sake of changing and doing things differently just for the heck of it – is NOT  what we are talking about today.

We are talking about doing things differently to help us achieve our goals and/or the result we want from that campaign, or strategy etc.

Let’s say you are an e-commerce business owner and you want to grow your online presence, increase your brand awareness and sell more products – especially on say Instagram – but you hate reels.  Think they are stupid and frankly hate video altogether and don’t do any of it.

Then in my opinion, as it stands today, with social media being where it is – turning up day after day, week after week, and not embracing what’s trending, working, bringing in the audience, is just ridiculous.  It’s exactly the definition of insanity. 

You aren’t prepared to do anything different but you want a different result.

Not going to happen.

If what you are doing now isn’t working for your business, then do something different.  Doesn’t mean that you can’t do what you are doing now – but it does mean that it’s time to change something up to get a different result.

If you’re not in e-commerce but perhaps you are a leadership coach who needs more bookings or an Accountant who needs more clients – and what you are doing right now – your marketing right now – isn’t working for you – then change it up!

It seems so so simple – and it probably is when someone points it out to you!  But the reality is that no one of us is immune to this – we all get stuck in our ways, doing the doing and forget sometimes to see if what we are doing is working – or not working.  And by working I mean helping us reach our goals.

So, if nothing changes, nothing changes – let’s move to part 2 of my conversation with myself here – doing business differently to grow.

Let me give you my latest example of doing business differently.  It involves my other business – Spend With Us – www.spendwithus.com.au

So, one of our biggest goals with that business was to create more brand awareness of who we are and what we are trying to achieve for rural and regional small businesses.

Our goal is to become the Amazon of rural and regional Australian marketplaces.

One of the biggest strategies we came up with, to create brand awareness and trust in the marketplace, for 2022 – was the first-ever Australian Rural Business Awards.

There are NO awards specifically for rural and regional small businesses – unbelievable hey?  So, we created them.

Yes, they were A LOT of work and yes, it was a massive strategy for us to undertake and the payoff – we haven’t seen it all yet, as we are just 2 weeks post event.

But when looking at our strategy to create brand awareness, we could have done many many things – things that others are doing, but we wanted to do something different.

Something that set us apart from our competition and introduced us as the market leaders.

I don’t want to sound harsh that we had a strategy behind wanting to celebrate rural and regional small businesses – we 2 million per cent wanted to highlight the absolute talent that exists in rural and regional Australia and put more businesses in the media and highlight their amazing business – but, we are a business – so, of course, there was a strategy behind it.  It wasn’t a profit driven strategy, but it was a brand creating strategy.

Now I’m not suggesting you go out and create something this big, but I am suggesting that you take a look at your goals and take a look at your now marketing plan or strategy and see if the two are working together or in different directions or are not working at all!

Perhaps doing business differently for you looks like –

• Writing those blogs you keep promising yourself you will do
• Start to show up more online in videos showcasing you, your product, and your services
• Starting a podcast to show your expertise, build your brand and extend your network
• Open that TikTok account or that Pinterest account you know you need but keep putting off
• Write/Design/Construct that course to sell
• Implement that new email marketing program (that’s mine – that’s my big goal for the second half of 2022)
• Hire that VA to help systemise your business or take some things off your plate
• Hire that business strategy coach (me!) to help you take your business to the next level like you’ve been dreaming and keep you accountable as you go

The list goes on and on – what is it for you – what do you need to do differently to help you reach your goals.  Remember not all goals are financial – although most will lead you to a financial outcome eventually!

If you feel like your business is in a slump, not moving where you want it to or you are thinking (as I am) far out its JULY and I haven’t ……  (insert what you haven’t achieved that you thought you would by now) – then this episode has been timely for you.

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

If you want a different result – do something different.

Different might not yield the perfect result, but it will give you a different result and you can work – test – measure from there.

Reach out for the help you need to do things differently to get the result you need.

Follow different people online, listen to some different podcasts (but this one too of course!), employ a VA, contract a coach/mentor, ask your other business friends for help – just take some action towards different.

Join me – won’t you –  as I do some different things heading into the second half of the year!  I’d love to you follow along and help where I can.

Let’s continue the chat in my Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group – you can join on Facebook if you haven’t already. 

Oh, and talking about my Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group – I have some amazing guests coming in there to do lives with me this year.  I am super excited by this.  From finance experts to PR and marketing experts (besides me) to Law experts – they are all coming on to give you their time and do some Q&As with the group.

Another amazing reason to come and join that community!

But that’s it for another episode of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 200 – WTAF!

But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!