If being the best in the industry were enough, 80 percent of small businesses wouldn’t fail.

The unfiltered truth is that, in order to build a thriving and profitable business, you must not only be the best at what you do, you must become the best at selling and marketing what you do.

[source: Bizjournals.com] This is a disappointing reality for business owners, especially those watching a sub-par competitor raking in new clients while they are struggling to make ends meet.

Here are four strategies that will accelerate your growth and increase your income — regardless of what others in your industry are doing:

1. Know the essence of what makes you the obvious choice for your chosen target market

There’s a lot of marketing gold in that sentence. First, you have a target market that you have chosen for yourself. Embrace them. Get to know them. Allow them to get to know you. And then, realize that the world doesn’t need another chiropractor, attorney, coach or essential oil salesman.

You must be able to state not what makes you better or different, but what makes you the obvious choice for your market.

2. Always call the market to action with an “easy yes”

Take a clue from www.hoflaw.com , a law firm offering monthly seminars for women going through divorce or fighting for custody. (To clarify: This is not a plug. I am in no way affiliated with the firm.) The seminar is free, but the firm also offers another “easy yes” on its website: a free copy of the book “The Women’s Custody Survival Guide.”

The key takeaway is to include an “easy yes” call to action with all of your marketing because an “easy yes” creates a prospect and starts a sales conversation.

3. Ruthlessly protect your time

We are all given the same 24 hours each day. The difference between a mediocre business and one that is kicking butt and taking names is the way in which that time is used. Those with mediocre businesses are permissive with their time, maintaining open-door policies in their office, tolerating distraction after distraction and being pulled in a million directions. The opposite of that is the business owner on a mission, eliminating distractions, staying focused and staying the course.

Plan and then protect your time for maximum productivity.

4. Create consistent content

Content — blogging, doing interviews, creating videos, using Periscope or some other livestream app — is critical to your success because each piece of content you create and publish carves a new path to your proverbial door, a new way to meet a new client.

Each piece of content arms your fans with something to share with their friends, family and co-workers and nurtures your prospects closer to a decision. But that’s not all: Content also demonstrates your expertise, increases social media reach and helps your website rank higher and get found easier.

Content will continue to be the currency of marketing. Get a content marketing plan together now.