We’ve all heard–and probably offered up our own–resolutions for the New Year.Hearing a few friends talk about the desire to drop 15-20 lbs. got me thinking about how and why people struggle with weight loss and the similar struggles related to marketing a business.
At first blush, both dieting and marketing seem pretty simple to accomplish. With dieting you burn more calories than you consume while actively trying to build more muscle than fat. And to be successful with marketing is about communicating your value to prospective clients and helping them see why you are the best choice.
Ah, but it isn’t that simple is it? No, there’s an element to human nature that seemingly prevents us from doing what is obvious, but not easy. It’s clear to most people that losing a bit of weight would be beneficial; and it’s clear to business owners that they need to market their services. But why do most people fall short of their goal?
I see three core components to the dieting/marketing paradox:
- Courage to take action now. It’s very easy to read and study the various ways to grow a business. It’s also easy to slip into a dreamy world of marketing theory where you can discuss everything until the cows come home. Unfortunately, business doesn’t work on theory alone. You must put the books and magazines down and start interacting with prospective clients. You MUST take action. The time for excuses and perfection are long gone. It’s much better to do something now than to wait for some non-existent perfect moment to arrive to officially launch everything. Take action NOW. Tweak and take action again.
- Marketing is a game best played with a scalpel, not a shotgun. To take control of your business growth, you must have focus and a long term outlook. Random tactics executed at random times is a surefire way to waste a lot of precious time, energy and money. Most business owners and independent professionals will admit that marketing is a critical component of their business; yet most are also blindly cruising along and bouncing along without a plan of action. Pick two or three marketing strategies that you will enjoy implementing; build a solid plan of action around each plan; and work your plans. Do so with focus, clarity, consistency and purpose. Good marketing is about establishing and constantly reinforcing ONE key message. Any more than that and you’ll just confuse the audience.
- Stop chasing fads. There are hundreds of thousands of advertising, PR, events, web, and sponsorship (and more) opportunities waiting to happily take your budget dollars. Some work; most leave a lot to be desired. If you are not an early adopter of marketing technology, stick with what works for you. Marketing via the internet is here to stay, but if you cannot get excited about incorporating a tool like Twitter into your daily regimen, don’t worry about it–as long as you’re working a couple of other strategies successfully. You owe it to yourself to keep up with trends; but you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck by becoming better and more efficient at proven strategies like networking and publishing.
When you compare the “feast and famine” approach to business and the “yo-yo” approach to dieting, you’ll see that there are a lot similarities. Ultimately, you’ll probably continue on that vicious cycle until you have a burning desire for improvement.
You can lose 20lbs AND you can grow your business; but you must zero in on why it’s important to you, what success looks like to you, and build/work the plan to get you there.
Here’s to a great New Year!
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