A quick reminder to all of us.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a copywriter like me, or a speaker, or an accountant, or a carpet cleaner – we’re all in the same boat.

We are all in the business of marketing ourselves.

Which means that, as we head into 2020, we need to shift our focus a bit more.

You can’t easily, on a long-term basis, just outsource your marketing, say you’re ticking the ‘marketing box’ and carry on as you’ve always done.

Things are becoming more and more competitive, and there are a million reasons for someone NOT to buy from you.

And marketing agencies, social media gurus, and heck – even copywriters, who claim to be in the marketing biz, often fail to deliver anything that will help to reduce this competition gap.

Content is great.

Social updates are nice.

But, if they don’t deliver you results, sales, leads – SOMETHING, they don’t mean shit.

And why is it? It’s because they/we often don’t have real skin in the game.

At the end of the day, most of us get paid before the results get delivered.

I’ve got one close client who, while he focuses on what he does, he still keeps a firm hand on his marketing rudder. Despite occasional lulls in productivity, due to our long relationship, we both desperately want the other to succeed – this is skin in the game, a reason, an incentive for continued improvement.

Which sums up why every business owner, large and small, must put more effort into the marketing game for themselves.

You’re not in the business of being a carpet cleaner, you’re in the business of marketing yourself as a carpet cleaner – because, without good marketing, you won’t have customers, and without the customers and their grubby carpets – you aren’t a carpet cleaner.

So, in 2020, let’s devote more time to marketing ourselves, to create an ongoing stream of clients, so that, feast or famine, we’ll always be swamped with work.