And while Rachel Ray and Emeril Lagasse would pinch and turn up their noses, the microwave is every single guy’s first option when it comes to heating almost anything, both edible and non.

So why can’t small business marketing and small business advertising be made more like instant gratification?

For decades, we’ve been told, “Oh, you can’t rush marketing and advertising. It has to be researched, and planned, and written out, and rewritten, and deliberated, and blah, blah, blah.”

I built my marketing and advertising career in a not-so-distant marketing world where everything was planned and written out in multiple pages, following expensive research and deliberate thought. I wrote one marketing plan for a Fortune 500 company that was 78 pages long for a new product line introduction. Marketing and advertising planning just a decade ago HAD to be more deliberate, because at that time all marketing and advertising programs took much longer to create. And competition moved much more slowly.

The Internet changed all that. Marketing heated up and speeded up. Experimentation. Execution. More Options. More Questions. More Answers. Hotter. Faster. Marketing at the speed of the microwave. Marketingmicrowave.

And business itself speeded up right along with it.

So why do so many so-called marketing experts today still start their clients by advocating time-consuming marketing research and in-depth business analysis and writing a plan? Because that’s how Procter & Gamble did it back in the 1920’s, and that was very successful through the 1970’s. It’s tough to argue against 50 years of success. Successful that is, until the Internet came along and screwed everything up for the followers of the P&G model. After the Internet arrived, most marketing plans became throwaways 3 months after they were written, because conditions began changing so fast.

Oh, and the other marketing gurus won’t tell you this little sidebar, but outside 3rd party marketing and advertising experts performing detailed research and writing and rewriting and rewriting marketing plans builds hours and hours and hours of fees to be billed to the client. Dirty laundry, but true.

Here’s an unsurprising news flash: neither you nor I have the luxury of TIME anymore to do all the “proper” P&G marketing research and marketing planning today. You’re too busy. I’m too busy. Our competitors are too busy. Our markets are moving too fast. We need instant answers and instant action and instant results and instant traffic NOW. TODAY. And if we do those things well, next year will take care of itself.

Should you ditch the marketing plan? NO. Your bank or lender will want one. Just keep it short, simple, flexible, and to the point.

What are the primary small business marketing and advertising concerns today?

These are the top 5 concerns that I hear from local and small businesses in meeting after meeting:

1. Traffic is getting harder than ever to draw because competition is more fierce than ever.

2. Traditional media like Yellow Pages and newspaper ads aren’t drawing traffic as well as they used to. In fact, some small businesses don’t know if traditional media are working any more or not.

3. At the same time, media prices rise even as their audiences fall. Why isn’t supply and demand working the way it’s supposed to here?

4. The Internet and online advertising seems to be working for some, but not for me.

5. I can’t spend much time or money on marketing. I have a business to run.

But then I ask this question: “If you could increase your traffic and sales, and you could spend less than your incremental gross margin to do so, and you put in a modest amount time and effort to make it work, would you do it? The answer is almost always “Of course”.

That’s what Marketingmicrowave.com does. We jointly and quickly discover strategies your small business could be doing, at modest cost, to deliver much better sales results and an improved profit, all as quickly as possible. And we start with self-help. What could be faster than that which you can do for yourself?

In fact, many small businesses find enough marketing self-help knowledge, tips, techniques, links, and advice on this website that THEY DON’T NEED TO CONTACT ME FOR PAID SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING AND ADVERTISIGN ADVICE. I provide this free small business marketing and small business advertising information because I know many small businesses are extremely busy, fiercely independent, and value every dollar they’ve earned. And if they can benefit from our free small business marketing and advertising information provided throughout this website, more power to them.

You’ll notice a huge difference between this small business marketing and advertising website compared to the dozens of others out there on the web. Others are trying to sell you their solutions. In fact, that’s almost all they talk about is their small business marketing and small business advertising solutions. Their solutions are in e-books they’re trying to sell you. Honestly, if you want an e-book based on their ideas, go to another website and buy one. I’m not here to sell you an e-book. I’m here to help you find and self-discover your own marketing and advertising solutions.

What about you? You don’t believe one size fits all, do you? But you probably aren't interested in re-inventing the wheel, either. Thaer has to be a happy middle ground. Right here.

Ultimately, the marketing solutions for your small business have to be yours. And, in many cases, you don’t need me, or anyone else for that matter, to tell you what they are. You know your business much better than I or any other so-called experts do. But I found that I can provide you with the most powerful free tool by which you can empower yourself to help your own small business marketing and sales grow quickly.

And Now What Is That Powerful Self-Help Tool That’s So Wonderful? I’m thrilled that you asked. After getting the daylights grilled out of me by CEO’s and Senior VP’s of Fortune 500 companies, I discovered they were using the power of powerful questions to learn almost everything of substance that they needed to know from me. My presentations were one thing; my answer to probing, rapid-fire, and sometimes brutally uncomfortable questions prompted by my presentation was another.

So I learned to ask small business marketing and advertising questions. Lots and lots of small business marketing and advertising questions. You’ll find more small business marketing and advertising questions on this website that perhaps any other on the Internet. Why so many questions? The Japanese discovered that if you asked a question once, and then followed the answer up with the question “WHY?” four to five times following each answer to the preceding “WHY?”, you’ll drill yourself right down to the core problem almost every time. Try it yourself, especially when questioning your children.

Here’s a famous quotation that I take to heart and live by every day:

A wise man's question contains half the answer.
- Solomon Ibn Gabriel

Now, whether I’m a wise man or not, that’s up to you to decide. But after spending 30+ years in the marketing, sales, and management trenches of huge and small businesses alike, I’ve learned to ask some pretty good small business marketing and advertising questions. I’ve also had to answer all of them, many times over. And what I’ve found is that, as people answer a series of simple, thoughtful, orderly, but direct questions with easy quick answers, very soon the bigger and more important answer(s) they seek often begin to appear in their own minds long before I begin to spell them out.

Believe me, that’s a huge time and money saver for both of us. Because the more you start to get an idea of what I, as a marketing, sales, and management person would naturally ask you about your small business to help you overcome your marketing and advertising issues, the more you’ll start to truly appreciate what your possibilities and probabilities can become.

Skeptical? Well, there’s only one quick and free way to find out more if this small business self help marketing and advertising website is right for you, and unlike most others I WILL NOT ask you here for your name and email address before divulging the “big secret”.

The master small business questionnaire that started this marketing website can be clicked here. It contains about 70 marketing questions that every small business should be able to answer with simple check offs in less than ten minutes. In fact, if it takes you much longer than 10 minutes to answer this questionnaire, you’ll begin to get a clear idea of the kinds of subjects you need to begin considering for the long term health of your small business.

Again, it’s all quick and free. These are the marketing questions you can and should be asking yourself if you’re serious about growing your small business. If after you finish you begin to see the answers coming to you in a sort-of pattern, and you’re confident in your ability to begin implementing, then congratulations, we’ve made great progress together and you’re well on your way. Glad we could help you. And it didn’t cost you a cent. Tell all your fellow business owners what a great small business marketing and advertising bargain you found right here at marketingmicrowave.com. Seriously, this website could always handle more traffic. And I’m not beyond asking for it.

But don’t feel discouraged if you don’t begin to see the answers. Not everyone does. In fact, I’ve found that most small businesses are great at knowing how to handle the operational side of their small businesses. But they’ve never been fully exposed to the enormous range of what’s “out there” in the world of small business marketing and small business advertising that can help them achieve a much greater level of success. To some, in fact, marketing, advertising, and Internet terminology can be downright confusing. And how does one narrow it all down to what might work best, for the least cost, for your own small business? And can you do it yourself, or must you hire a consultant to make it all work?

For those folks, I have another free and simple answer. Fill out the questionnaire with “x’s” where appropriate, adding your business name and type of business. Save a copy, or copy and paste into a text file. Then attach it to an email you’ll send to jreynolds@marketingmicrowave.com.

I’ll analyze your results, and you’ll tell me the best way for us to communicate (email or phone) in your email. You’ll get one hour’s worth of consulting time from me (a $149.00 value) absolutely free. You’re not obligated to do or pay for anything beyond that, unless you want me to take any agreed next steps. Next steps are as individual as each business, because I’ve found no two businesses are alike.

So what’ve you got to lose, except some of your most pressing small business marketing and advertising challenges? We’re happy to help.