SBA Consultation Insights

Consultation Summaries:

Browse the titles below. If one sounds familiar, read it.

1. Marketing a New Business When Your Timing Is Terrible - A business launched weeks before COVID, experienced a brief boom, then collapsed. Three patterns from one consultation about what actually went wrong.
2. The Website Comes Before Everything Else - An e-commerce founder with a unique product and waiting distribution contacts had been stuck for months. The obstacle was not what she expected.
3. The Perfectionism Trap That Prevents Launch - A service provider had been building and trashing websites for years. The obstacle was not skill. It was an unrealistic standard that guaranteed nothing would ever be published.
4. Describing Services Instead of Solving Problems - A shared workspace business had excellent design, professional photography, and comprehensive descriptions. Occupancy remained low. The messaging spoke about the business instead of the customer's actual need.
5. Two Audiences, One Confused Message - A B2B service provider built impressive technology but struggled to attract customers. The website spoke to everyone at once, which meant it persuaded no one specifically.
6. The Tagline She Loved Was Selling the Wrong Service - A freelance consultant loved her clever tagline so much she almost missed that it spoke to the wrong audience entirely. The business that would actually scale required a different message.
7. Competing Against Unlimited Budgets With Zero Dollars - A technical founder with deep expertise entered a market where competitors spend 90% of revenue on advertising. He had no budget to match them. The only option was a different game entirely.
8. One Blog Post Becomes Five Marketing Assets - A mission-driven business owner dreaded the idea of maintaining a blog. When she understood what a blog actually was, it became the engine that powered everything else.
9. The Product That Made You Famous Is Still Your Best Asset - A family food business wanted to abandon their signature product because it was too labor-intensive. The math said otherwise. What built the reputation should remain the lead offer.
10. Your Actual Differentiators Are Buried Under Generic Claims - An education services business had earned the trust of the local school district. Their website never mentioned it in a way that mattered. The real competitive advantages were invisible.
11. Marketing on a Budget Means Converting Time Into Visibility - When you can't outspend competitors, you out-think them. A product business owner discovered that remarketing, authentic content, and strategic partnerships could replace expensive ad campaigns.
12. Competing Against National Brands With Local Presence - A professional services provider pivoting to a specialized niche faced well-funded national competitors. The answer wasn't outspending them. It was out-personalizing them.
13. When Your Market Doesn't Know It Needs You - A franchise owner discovered that his real challenge wasn't competition. It was convincing prospects they had a problem worth solving in the first place.
14. When Referrals Work Too Well - An architecture firm had grown entirely through relationships. Their website reflected that assumption, and it was costing them opportunities they never knew existed.