Just one Spark is all you need.
Just one spark is all you need, in lighting a campfire or marketing your business.
Strike it once. Hold it steady. After that, you have no excuse for your fire to go out, or for people to fail to find you. It's not the match. It's your preparation. It's down to you.
When I was young, I was taught a lesson that's proved hugely beneficial throughout my life. I thought I was learning to light a fire to cook my food. I was being taught something much greater.
I was in the Scouts, and we used to go for backwoodsman's weekends in Mow Cop woods. Two knives, one for wood, one for food. A sleeping bag. Some food. You had to build your own shelter. That was it. One rule, drilled into us: one match. Get it right, and you don't need a second.
The big lesson was this: get the order right, and get prepared. Nobody told me this is how you market a business, but it was.
You get it in the right order, or you get nothing. And you get it prepared: wood, tinder, logs, matches, whatever you need, gathered and ready before you strike anything. Not halfway through, scrambling round the woods for one more stick while your spark's dying in your hand.
You've already got the spark
Most business owners have got exactly that — a small flame, an opportunity, a relationship, an opening. And they're smothering it before it's ever had the chance to become anything.
Everything now is about keeping the flame going, the relationship, the opportunity. Not with one grand gesture. With small things, done again and again: a message read, a reply sent, a bit of trust earned, until there's enough heat for the big ask.
Just as with lighting a fire, you have to reach out to people in the right order, with the right fuel. You've got the spark. I'll leave you to work out where yours is.
Because there are only four ways anyone ever finds you. And most people are trying to light all four at once, in the wrong order, with a log where the tinder should be.
Tinder — the people you know
Past clients, old contacts, people you've already done business with.
You reach out first — there's no barrier; the connections already there. It should be the easiest fire you ever light, and for most people it's the one they neglect completely.
Kindling — the people who know you
They know who you are — through your content, a referral, word of mouth — even if you've never met them. Someone who's been reading your posts for months and finally reaches out.
Fuel — the people attracted to you
Strangers, drawn in by content, search, word of mouth, without you chasing anyone.
This is proper fuel wood — split logs. It won't catch from a match. It needs the fire under it to be burning well first.
The massive green log — the people you have to advertise to
Total strangers. Cold calls, cold emails, cold DMs, adverts, people who've never heard of you, and you're the one going to them.
Damp elm, straight off the woodpile. It's the hardest thing to light, and it's usually the first thing people reach for because it feels like "proper marketing." That's exactly backwards.
Don't put the big log on too soon
Here's the bit that actually matters. Slat a massive log on too soon and you put the whole thing out.
The reason why most marketing fails is exactly this. The people they already know barely get a look in, one flame, unattended, and they've gone straight for the big, thick elm log of cold outreach. No wonder it goes out.
Be Prepared. That's the Scout motto. And it's the whole of this bit. Your referral asks, your past-client check-ins, your content, your outreach list, all built in the quiet weeks, not scrambled together the week you're desperate for cash.
This was a lesson I learned early. You always need more tinder, more small twigs, more fuel than you think you will. And there's no use wandering off to gather more once your fire's already going out by then, it's always too late. Same with your list of the people you know and the people who know you, always bigger than feels necessary, built long before you actually need it.
Even the dampest log will burn eventually...
...if the fire underneath it is big enough.
Cold outreach isn't a lost cause. It just needs plenty of heat behind it — much more than people ever think it will. Track record, warm relationships already alight — that's the proof the fire is real. And you've got that, before you even ask a stranger to come and warm their backside by your fire, or put their steak over the embers.
So don't chase the bigger flame. Just look after the fire you've already got.
The people you know first. Let it catch properly. Then the people who know you. Then the people attracted to you. The green log — the advertising — goes on last, and only once there's real heat to put it on.
One spark is always enough.
Full stop.
If you're prepared.
Not sure where your own fire is going wrong?
If you're standing over your own fire wondering why it won't catch (I mean, marketing) — this is exactly what the Diagnostic sorts out.
We work out exactly where your next customer's coming from, and what order to lay the fuel in.
If you're tired of trying different marketing ideas, starting again and wondering where your next customer is coming from, book your Diagnostic.
One gap. One fix. Thirty days.
If you're tired of trying different marketing ideas, starting again and wondering where your next customer is coming from, book your Diagnostic.
One gap. One fix. Thirty days.
You don't need to keep reinventing the wheel
Sometimes you don't need more ideas.
You need to look at what you've already got, work out what's missing, and put things in the right order.
That's what we do.
Ready to find out where your next customer is coming from? BOOK YOUR DIAGNOSTIC
I’d definitely make both of those proper buttons on the website, with the same booking link behind them.
Or, if you'd prefer to talk first, get in touch with Magnitude.
Call: 01902 214323Email: patrick@magnitude.biz
One spark is all you need.
You just need to be prepared.
Comments