As new business owners, we're focusing on putting one foot in front of the other - unless dancing to the "random acts of marketing" tune, that is. With limited resources, we learn from YouTube tutorials, business books, and the advice of fellow bootstrappers. We can't spend a lot of money or time when trying to break through barriers, so we find shortcuts that let us keep moving forward (and sometimes sideways).
You have to stay scrappy when you're building a new business. Someday, we'll look back and pat ourselves on the back for how far we've come even with our initially limited resources. Being scrappy doesn't equate to just blindly pushing forward and jumping every which way the advice blows. You have to find the right people and processes and "trust but verify".
Does the advice pass your common sense test? Do you feel comfortable implementing in? I don't care how effective cold calling two dozen people a day could be for my business, I'm not going to do it.
Know and appreciate your strengths, as well as your limitations.
As you're getting going in your business, focus on People first, and then Processes.
Find your people: peers, customers, and trusted advisors and experts who have either been where you are now or have a specific expertise.
Once you get your first customers (congrats!), it's time to look at your Processes. We'll cover those in a future blog post.