There are a lot of things to consider when you’re building a business.
You know that.
Your mind is probably spinning all the time trying to keep things straight.
Sometimes it’s really fun as you take new ideas and try to flesh them out and make something great happen. Other times you’re dealing with fires, but either way it’s that excitement that comes with being an entrepreneur.
But one of the pitfalls of being an entrepreneur is that when your mind is busy all the time you can lose focus. And one area I notice where focus can wander is what you’re building as far as assets.
Assets For Your Business
An asset can be anything that has value especially for your business, but potentially for someone else. An asset is something that currently does or could bring you money in some way.
A couple of the main examples would be property the business has. Property has value. Another big one would be your employees. It’s weird to think of people as assets, but in most cases they are the most valuable aspect of businesses.
Technology is another one that can be a big asset.
Website And Content As Assets
Another type of asset most businesses have today is their website. The reason a website is an important asset is that it has the potential to bring in new customers.
Potential. That’s the key word in this discussion.
How much are you investing into your website?
That’s an important question for you and really for all entrepreneurs. The numbers keep adding up as far as people using the web to find information and to connect with businesses. The world has really shrunk thanks to the web and it’s a great thing for businesses. We now have access to an entire world of potential customers.
But the big way to reach those customers is with a website.
You can invest in your website in a number of ways. The first would be design. The design of your website should be a continuous project. You’ll likely have an initial phase of launching the website, but it’s never really “done”. You’ll want to schedule regular audits where you take time to really look at your site and use knowledge you’ve gained to make improvements.
I like to do an audit every 3-6 months. I look at design. I look at inquiries coming in and questions new customers are asking in the sales process and look for holes in the website. I’ll have design changes made and I’ll adjust the content.
That’s the second part of your investment in your website asset: content.
The more static content on your website is the content on the main pages. These pages contain the middle and end of the sales funnel discussion. You’ll have “met” your potential customer already and they’ll be learning about what you can offer them as they read your homepage, product page, about page, etc.
Prior to that content is the content that brings in new customers.
For many companies this is a blogging strategy.
A blogging strategy is really an engine that continues to add assets to your website. Unlike advertising, a published blog post (or similar content) is yours. It’s always on your site working to bring you new visitors and potential customers.
And blogging works like compounding investing. You get in a habit and over time you’ll build more and more traffic. It’ll start slow, but will pick up over time.
And it will always be there.
Building Assets For Others
This brings us to a little side point, but a very important point.
I’m not the biggest fan of Facebook, both in terms of personal and business life. I think social media is great for businesses when used properly, which I think is offering some of the content you’ve already built on your own site.
I’ve seen people say that building all or some of your content on Facebook and other social media sites as sharecropping or planting your crops on someone else’s farm.
I like those analogies. You’re doing all the work to build content, but you’re doing it all for Facebook. They own the content and you get the “right” to their audience. I get that it’s a tradeoff and that it can be worthwhile, but I would put the efforts behind the effort to build content on your own site.
Forward Thinking And Long-Term Asset Building
Investing in your own website and in content for your website is definitely a long-term strategy. It’s very similar to retirement planning and I like that comparison because both make sense, but you have to get your brain thinking long-term and about what you want in the future.
Each blog post, video, infographic, etc. is like a monthly contribution to your savings account. It won’t add up to much when you first begin, but you have to start somewhere if you want to get where you want to be. And you need the discipline to commit to a regular schedule and over time you’ll see more and more return, which in this case is traffic and new leads.
Conclusion
Many of the studies I read regarding businesses say that getting new leads is the most or one of the most important things they’re concerned with. Investing in your business assets like your website and its content can be the best investment you make in new leads for your business.
But it’s a long-term investment. You have to commit to that viewpoint, but if you do you’ll be setting yourself up for long-term success and you’ll always have those assets, website and content, that can bring you values in different ways.