It’s very easy to overthink things, especially when involved in a small business via a competitive space – alluding to digital marketing and other web services. Also, I’ve been guilty of overanalyzing, which is likely causing those who know me to laugh out-loud who’re reading this. Okay…so I overanalyze a lot, or overanalyzed a lot (past tense).
While sitting here wondering what to write, I decided instead to do what I’ve been doing a lot of lately while putting in hours upon hours with GoEdison: I simply started. First, allow me to introduce myself: I’m James Davis – co-founder and COO of GoEdison. I have a foundation in the financial world, but what I’ve always wanted to do was start something. I’ve analyzed a lot – not simply because of my personality – but because it’s what I was taught to do: analyze, step back, analyze, then analyze again before sending off to get analyzed.
Those days are over.
It’s the age of doing. Things move way too fast now to analyze why they’re moving fast. There’s something to be said for dotting the “I’s” and crossing the “T’s” – but the key is to simplify, prioritize and execute, and communicate it all constantly. In other words, work smarter not harder.
We’ve constantly been evolving our approach, refining our systems, and enhancing our messaging. I’m proud to say we’ve been obsessively scanning our operations for anything inefficient or unnecessary, and trying to adopt new things that make us more lean and effective where possible.
Our phrase is Be Bold.
To practice what we preach, we’ve decided to reveal our decision to halt our aggressive marketing as the result of a very good problem: we’re growing “too fast.” Did we bite off more than we can chew? No. However, we were growing faster than we could accurately perceive our reality because the reality would change before we were finished taking it all in. So, by sustaining the true competitive advantage we hold in our competitive arena – virtue, genuineness, and honestly – we decided to digest our current reality and delve deeper into our relationships with our clients.
What can we do better? What should we stop doing? What should we start doing?
These questions are never answered, they’re simply revisited periodically, and we want to revisit them again – not because we’re struggling (quite the opposite), but we believe if there’s a way to maximize results for our clients, we owe it to them to do it rather than overanalyze reasons not to for the sake of growing. So, that’s what we’re doing; we’re focusing on our clients even more than we already do.
It would be very easy to continue to surf the wave of growth and enjoy the momentum as it reels-in more business, but we’re thinking long-term. The growth will inevitably come, but too many marketing agencies lose their passion for the client and chase the almighty dollar after tasting the success of a formula that’s working – losing the passion of their mission statement, which – for us – is relationships and our community. We believe we’re instruments for our community’s success, and the success of small business as a whole, which we believe to be the engine of our economy. We believe we’re an investment – not an expense.
It’s humbling to be trusted with a company’s marketing budget, which has become a reality more and more – sometimes trusted entirely to be a company’s “marketing hub.” The trust we’re given isn’t something we take lightly, and we never will. The brand of GoEdison represents one of trust and results first; the success and/or revenue is a byproduct.
We thank our readers and fellow small business advocates for continuing to pursue their dreams and believe in the dreams that are always within reach if we work together to keep them alive. We believe a new age of opportunity is upon us; it’s not going to look the same, but it’s around the corner if we adapt and never lose focus of the true objective. We believe in pursuing dreams, passion, and following vision; the rest is a byproduct, which happens to be success.
Thank you again!
Be Bold. – James (Jimbo) Davis, COO, GoEdison.