Entrepreneurs: Focus on Helping, Not Hoping, in Your Marketing

Change your mindset on marketing to become more successful

There are a lot of entrepreneurs who are competing for people’s attention and dollar. They are doing everything they can to stand out and stay ahead of the trends. Yet, most of them hope one day they will make it big, scale and grow fast, or get acquired by a big company with a big payout.

Don’t hope for success, help for success.

If you want to take your small business to the next level, it boils down to your mindset.

Be helpful, not hopeful.

Don’t hope for success, work strategically toward achieving your goals this year by developing a marketing strategy.

“Entrepreneurship is a personal growth engine disguised as a business pursuit.” — James Clear, an author and entrepreneur

To better understand the difference between hope marketing and help marketing, it’s best to start with a story about an entrepreneur who is living proof that being helpful, not being hopeful, makes a big difference.

Kevin Shen Is Living Proof That Hope Marketing Doesn’t Work

Kevin Shen is an entrepreneur who founded a YouTube brand to produce positive videos. He has over 21,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. He quit his lucrative startup job to create YouTube videos because he wanted to show people they matter, and he believes that is what the world needs more of.

Even though he was a successful YouTube creator, his business wasn’t taking off like he wanted and needed it to. As you can see in this video below, he stopped producing videos because he was believing in hope marketing. During his break, he had an epiphany that he needed to shift from hope marketing to helpful marketing.

According to Kevin, “The most underrated superpower is just being generously helpful.” He believes that a rising tide lifts all boats.

He came back to launch a YouTube Dream Studio Course that helps people make their home filming setup look like a Hollywood production. The course is made for YouTube beginners and intermediate YouTube creators who are looking for advice on how to better develop their home studio for YouTube videos. He believes in being helpful and creating something that the world is asking of you.

What’s Hope Marketing?

Hope marketing is all about hoping for the best. Hoping that the best will come one day. You lob an idea out there.

You hope you get social media likes and comments
You hope to get views of website pages, articles, and videos
You hope to gain email and YouTube subscribers
You hope you make more sales

You believe in your products and services, and you hope enough for good things to happen to your business. If you hope enough, good things will happen.

Hope marketing doesn’t work because it doesn’t have a strategy. Have a strategy behind your marketing. Hope marketing is just dreaming. You hope the marketing actions you are taking are going to achieve the results you want.

Hope is not marketing

Hope marketing is a way of approaching marketing that is old-school in its thinking. It’s the “spray and pray” approach to marketing. You believe that if you send out enough social media posts, create enough content, and talk to many people, something will stick on the wall.

Many people believe in karma. That if you do good things, you hope good things will happen. Many entrepreneurs hope for the best and use hope marketing.

Business strategy needs to align to marketing strategy

You started a business because you were passionate about something. You did research to start your business. You perhaps created a business strategy.

Does that business strategy align with your marketing strategy? For example, let’s say you bought commercial real estate to start a restaurant. Are you going to hope that people pass by your restaurant and come in and dine with you?

Digital ads are not the only answer

If you are struggling with your business, perhaps you are thinking of buying more Google Ads. One of my friends is an entrepreneur, and he has done this. He performs a little research, and he hopes that people will see his ads.

You may be like my friend and get some results this way. However, you won’t be able to grow and scale your business. You may land some customers or clients with hope marketing, but you won’t make enough money to achieve true success.

My friend hopes someone will see his ads, visit his website, and buy his products and services. Buying ads is not a marketing strategy. It’s a hope that people will eventually buy something from you.

The importance of planning

“Unless a commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” ― Peter F. Drucker, author and educator

Don’t put in a small effort hoping good things will happen. Research your audience and competition, and take advantage of digital marketing tactics like search engines, content marketing, and email marketing. Don’t sit back and hope your business will grow when you can do something productive and grow your business by creating a strategy.

Don’t make the excuse that you have always done it this way, and it has gotten you this far so you don’t need to change. This is not a good answer. Thus, if your business relies on hope marketing, what’s the alternative?

What’s Help Marketing?

You started your business because you are passionate about what you are doing. You are proud of what you are doing. Help marketing is all about being… helpful in everything you do.

Helping other people doesn’t just make others feel good — it also makes you feel good. When you treat your customers like your best friends and help them, they will connect with you more. It’s important to build your influence first before you go for the sale.

The power of being helpful

Help marketing is all about how your business can be more helpful. Think about the time you engaged with another company and someone was helpful at that business.

Did it make you want to buy from them?
Did it make it more appealing that they wanted to help?
Did you like that they answered your questions?

If you really think about it, being helpful is sales. When you are helpful, good things happen to you.

Reciprocity or the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit is how the world goes round. It doesn’t have to be a win-lose situation. It can be a win-win.

Write about your competition

Do what Marcus Sheridan did and write about your competition. Marcus is best known for his revolutionary marketing strategy of answering his customers’ questions. He answered his customers’ questions, and he wrote about his competition a lot.

Go out there, start caring about your customers and competitors, and answering their questions with your content. It’s the little things that make a big difference. People will want to buy from you if you are helpful.

Think of the last time you helped someone, or they helped you. Did you have positive feelings? We buy from people, not companies. We buy from companies who are helpful.

Being helpful is the difference maker

If we have to choose between two companies — the one who is helpful vs. the one who is not, most people will choose the helpful company. Research shows that 97% of customers are “very” or “extremely” likely to tell friends and family about a good customer experience. This is especially true with women, who spend more time than men making purchasing decisions for their families.

Being helpful has benefits beyond your customers and prospects. It also helps in hiring people. People love working for companies that are helpful. They put more in, give more, and care more.

Bringing It All Together

To get ahead with your business, develop a marketing strategy, and work hard to put it in place. The marketing strategy requires dedication. To take your business to the next level, help, don’t hope.

“If we always help one another, no one would need luck” — Sophocles, an ancient Greek dramatist

Entrepreneurs: Stop acting with hope and start helping with action. Build your momentum with marketing because a good to great transformation at your company takes time. It’s easier to flow than to push against friction.

When you have a helping, not hoping mindset, you’ll see a night and day difference.

“The best way to serve your interests is to serve the best interests of other people.” — Kevin Shen

Move from an inward-centered view of “I hope I get this or that” to an outward-center view of “I want to help others.” If you are struggling with your business, change your mindset from hope to helping because it makes all the difference in the world.

You’ll see the world in a different way. Don’t hope for success, help for success.