Which makes me a terrible business person

I was a terrible business owner. At least from a capitalist viewpoint. My ‘mission statement’ was basically, “I make great beer. If you like great beer, you should try it!”.

Seriously. That was it. Yes, we had a facebook page to share business hours and event information, but my business partner did all of that. We spent almost nothing on marketing, advertising, and social media.

In the early days, before everyone else and their mother opened a craft brewery near us, this word-of-mouth plan was more than enough.

We couldn’t keep up with demand. As the production side of the market compensated, our business leveled off to about 25% of early sales. Which wasn’t exactly profitable, but we could make it work by squeezing the expense side of the ledger.

And MAYBE we could have increased sales by marketing, advertising, or spending money to make money. But none of that seemed sustainable to me. And when we tried different campaigns, there was no way to assess whether they were working. In any meaningful way. And we had no budget for ‘real’ marketing.

And, like I said, I’m not a great business person. I didn’t see whatever wisdom I’m supposed to see relating marketing expenses with increased sales. I was too resistant and philosophically opposed to seek solutions. Moreover, there were too many options, none of which supplied any sort of measure of a return.

In other words, I viewed any marketing expenses to be money down the drain with no guarantee they would result in increased sales.

And there’s a solid chance I was right. My future vision for the business was spending a lot more money on a big risk of elevated sales. And I needed that money to pay the bills I had.

And the upside to all of this is that the business was doing ok. With zero marketing expenses, my clientele were all highly invested in the business. They felt some ownership in the place and treated it well. During big events where we attracted out-of-town patrons, many of them treated our place like crap. They weren’t invested in our little mom-and-pop, and expected big budget services and ameneties. They didn’t understand what we were trying to do.

I called it the ‘drunk effect’.

When we did try to ‘grow’, we ended up spending more money cleaning up the messes.

When crowds pushed our capacity and ability, we got sloppy, too, and couldn’t deliver the level of quality service and products commensurate with our brand.

In short, the business was better when it was smaller. That we weren’t able to really make any money is sort of an aside. Sure, someone much smarter and more business savvy than I could have probably grown the business to a profitable level. But at what cost? What would have changed? Maybe nothing. But the evidence I collected suggests otherwise.

With respect to my blog, I have the same expectations that people seeking content like mine will find me. That’s how the brewery worked. Especially early on when there weren’t many breweries to be found. And, I know, there are like 47 Trillion blogs and podcasts out there. But *I* am able to find content that meshes precisely with my needs, so I assume (probably naively) that other like-minded folks will do the same thing.

So, is it unreasonable to remain analog in an increasingly digital world? Is it possible that people will find each other the ‘old fashioned way’? Do we all have to continue this dance of oneupmanship to shine our lights bright enough to be seen? And, if so, then doesn’t it just become about the lights and not about the content?

In summary, is it possible to find community in this crowded world that isn’t dependent upon, and influenced by, marketing?

Can we exist outside the realm of advertising? Do we all have to spend some percentage of our energy and finances just being aware of each other? And, if all that is true, what does it mean for the content? What sort of distraction has this become? And who does it really benefit? What is that saying about the tail wagging the dog?

Thank you for entertaining my ignorance.