Let’s be honest – as a business owner, you’re not always going to love every hat you have to wear. One of the most challenging tasks in getting a small business off the ground and making it successful is marketing, yet not everyone enjoys this piece of the puzzle, regardless of how important it is. The good news is it’s still possible to successfully market your business even if it’s not something you particularly enjoy doing. Here are a few tips to help make it a little easier for you.

Get an Accurate Picture – There is really no right or wrong way to market a business, and different people approach it using different methods and techniques. The first thing you need to do in order to get over your immense dislike of marketing is dispel the misconceptions and get a clear and accurate picture of what you need to do, how you can do it, and how much it will cost. When you remove the mystery, it is much less intimidating.

Pick Your Pleasure – Ask yourself if there are any marketing duties that you actually don’t mind. Perhaps spending some time on social media interacting with your clients and prospects is something you enjoy, or blogging, or measuring ROI. Whatever it is that you really like, identify and focus on it. Then, if possible, delegate the other duties to someone else in your office or hire a freelancer to do it for you. If that’s not an option, try tackling the tasks you like the least first and then leaving those that you don’t mind for last, to make it more tolerable.

Dive In – Once you have an idea of what strategy you are going to take, and how you plan to tackle it, it’s time to get started. There are plenty of resources online if you need some help, and many of them don’t cost a thing. For instance, here’s a list of 149 free internet marketing tools that you can tap into without having to worry about cost.

And there you have it! Now you have a game plan, a schedule of what needs to be done, who will do what and when, and a bunch of free tools to play with. You’ll see that once all the smoke and mirrors are removed and you get a clear picture of what you’re dealing with, marketing isn’t as bad as you may have made it out to be. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and market your business!