Anything worth having requires some amount of sacrifice. Want to write the great American novel? Be prepared to sacrifice a good chunk of your free time in order to make it happen. Ready to be a parent? Say goodbye to a good night’s sleep for a few years. Similarly, building a successful business requires hard work and sacrifice in order to develop a strategy that will help you grow.

The hard part is determining what you want to focus on and what gets cut. If you’re starting a home care business, for example, you may envision a business that caters not only to the elderly, but also to new moms who need child care or housekeeping assistance, pet owners in need of pet care, etc. You may want to include home modifications into your list of services or even offer massage treatments to clients. These are all great ideas and all have their place in the home care universe, but are they all right for your agency?

Many new agencies elect to offer more services because they assume having more offerings will bring in more revenue. That can be true in certain cases, but ask yourself: Will you be stretching your resources too thin by trying to be everything to everyone? The answer is likely, yes. Having lofty goals is great, but understanding the heart of your business is far more important than trying to check off every item on your business bucket list. This is why one of the first steps in your business strategy has to be determining your focus. What are you most passionate about? What area will bring you the most clients, and thus the most profitability?

Growing a strong, healthy business takes a lot of time and money. That old gem, “You’ve got to spend money to make money,” is an old gem for a reason, after all. You’ve got to market your business in order to continue your growth, but marketing is all too often the area that many companies choose to sacrifice. Many view marketing today as a DIY endeavor that can be done in-house with minimal time and effort, but your marketing is such a vital aspect of your business, do you really want a hastily slapped together website and a stack of photocopied flyers to represent your brand?

According to the 2015 Private Duty Benchmarking Survey, Internet marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, social media, et al, combined with print marketing in the form of ads, direct mail postcards, and brochures, were the top revenue generators for home care agencies in 2014, yet many agencies still choose to sacrifice marketing when making budget cuts. The fact is that quality marketing materials, consistent SEO work, branding, and online content marketing not only make agencies look professional, they also help them get seen by a larger audience and help lead more potential clients to the agencies’ doorsteps.

One reason many agencies sacrifice quality marketing is time constraints. Running a successful business is time consuming, and few agency owners have the time to manage caregivers, clients, and scheduling on top of marketing. With corecubed as your aging care marketing partners, though, you never need to sacrifice your time or marketing plan. Take a look at how we’ve helped dozens of aging care clients stand out in this crowded marketplace and get the results they’re looking for, or contact our team to learn more about our services.