Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

This video is one of my all-time favorites.

And if you're an entrepreneur, you'll immediately see why:

Have a great weekend - and then next week, get back to the business of changing the world!

1. Drink more water.
2. Watch less TV.
3. Action makes traction.
4. Try new things.
5. Hang in there. 
6. Get better daily.
7. Begin with enthusiasm. 
8. Finish with flair.
9. Celebrate small wins.
10. Eliminate wasted steps.
11. Aim higher sooner.
12. Never stop learning.
13. Start fresh today.
14. Write that letter. 
15. Practice deep listening.
16. Pay yourself first.
17. Seize the day.
18. Cashflow is king.
19. Life is good.
20. Eat more vegetables.
21. Thank your Mom.
22. Make others shine.
23. Ask me anything.
24. Think WAY bigger.
25. Focus your energies.
26. Now beats later.
27. Tweet more often.
28. Zig don't zag.
29. Marketing comes first.  
30. Hug your kids. 
31. Content before commerce.
32. Never sell alone. 
33. Don't get distracted.
34. Always ask "Why?"
35. Amp it up!
36. How doesn't matter.
37. Invite and engage.
38. You're already there. 
39. Make silly faces.
40. Get off email.
41. See the sunrise.
42. Simplify, eliminate, outsource.
43. Kiss your dog.
44. Fascinate to dominate.
45. Write it down. 
46. Keep on truckin'!
47. Love your clients.
48. Ask for help.
49. Value follows fee.
50. Never give up.
51. Decide, organize, act.
52. Sharpen your edge.
53. Lose some weight.
54. Hammer it out.
55. Doodle more often.
56. Drink hot coffee.
57. Expand your circles.
58. Consider crazy alternatives.
59. Chinese food rocks!
60. Use beautiful things.
61. Not so fast. 
62. Get a massage.
63. Unlock, unblock, unleash
64. Go for no. 
65. Blow 'em away.
66. More chocolate, please.
67. Fill your buckets. 
68. Don't shy away.
69. Give more generously.
70. Don't be scared.
71. Freshen it up. 
72. Go play outside. 
73. Thank your heroes.
74. Respond, don't react.
75. Sing real loud.
76. Schedule "me" time.
77. Bake a cake.
78. Live the dream.
79. Invest in yourself.
80. Fall in love. 
81. Seek the truth.
82. Avoid the obvious. 
83. Laminate your kudos.
84. Birds gotta fly. 
85. Fish gotta swim.
86. Potential ain't performance. 
87. Relationships are perishable. 
88. Kill your television.
89. Make that call. 
90. Hire the weirdo.
91. Speak more honestly.
92. Track your progress. 
93. Decisions drive momentum.
94. Take notes everywhere.
95. Look further ahead.
96. Stop playing small.
97. Sell the dream.
98. Deliver the goods. 
99. Never shortchange yourself.
100. You're so ready.
101. DO IT. Now!

Your business needs to FLOP.

Truly.

And no, this is NOT another one of those goofy semi-inspirational posts that tell you that all entrepreneurs need to FAIL before they succeed. 

FLOP is an acronym for one of the most powerful marketing concepts you can use to grow your business FAST and EXPONENTIALLY:

FLOP: Feature and Leverage Other People.

Marketing 101: If all you talk about is YOU - your company, your book, your blog, your brand, your programs, your products, your services... people will ignore you, tune you out, and dismiss you for the self-centered schmuck that you are. 

FACT: Experts promote other experts. 

• Experts are NOT insecure about shining the spotlight on others (Shawn Ellis for example)
• In fact, they THRIVE on it (like Damian Niolet)
• Experts ALWAYS work hard to feature and leverage other people (like my hero Tom Peters has done since 1999 with Tom's Cool Friends) 
• Experts are curators and pointers-out-of-cool-things (Another one of my heroes, Guy Kawasaki, built a business on this notion at Alltop.com)
• Experts post business book reviews of other experts' books
• Experts do research and interview other experts on their blog (like my BFF Stephanie Chandler does at BusinessInfoGuide)
• Experts recommend and refer other experts for client work, projects, and media interviews (like I teed up the awesome Derek Sivers for some nice coverage in Investors Business Daily by connecting him with uber-cool business journalist Amy Alexander)

More Examples:

1. As you may know, I'm in the process of publishing the DO IT! Marketing book with AMACOM. Notice I didn't say "my" book. Because it's really not just mine. In the writing process, I asked a dozen of the sharpest, most successful marketing experts I know to contribute a "success strategy sidebar." They did. Now my book is truly "our book." That's FLOP.

2. My pal, Avish Parashar, is not only a top-notch opening and closing keynote speaker... he's also a speaker marketing guru. Hmmm... competition? Nope. FLOP partner. He regularly shares my content with his newsletter readers and I do the same for him. He promotes my programs. I promote his. We're not only friends, we seek each others' professional advice and exchange referrals. That's what you might call FLOPPY.

3. My friend Carol Ritter writes for a Chamber blog and local paper. Her holiday column included these words: "My gifts to all the entrepreneurs and non-profits who are working so hard to be successful is the gift of resources. I work with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country; their ideas and success will inspire you and give you concrete ideas for 2013..." and she proceeded to list a great sales culture expert, a great video production company, a great marketing resource (from yours truly), and a great motivational speaker from North Carolina. There's FLOP in action again.

Grow up. Step up. Be a real expert and learn once and for all - it's not about YOU.

The more you FLOP, the more YOU will succeed.

What do you think? Use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and experiences on featuring and leveraging other people...

p.s. Can you find the 2 awesome clients, 2 great friends, 1 respected colleague and a semi-nude woman in the graphic above? Here's some help: 

New Orleans motivational speaker Marvin LeBlanc

Healthcare keynote speaker LeAnn Thieman

Conference Catalyst keynote speaker Thom Singer

Presentation skills expert Laurie Brown

Meetings technology speaker Corbin Ball

Lingerie models (nice holiday savings too)

FLOPPED again!

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Marketing Coach: Grow Your Business with Selective Access

There's an old marketing saying - create services around your products and productize your services. 

This is good advice because it works for big businesses like IBM and it works for smaller businesses - like yours. 

IBM used to be in the computer hardware business... They were struggling and almost went under in the early 1990's when IT hardware was becoming commoditized. Under new CEO Louis Gerstner, they decided they were in the business of solving business problems, not selling boxes. Within a few short years, their services and consulting revenue dwarfed their hardware sales.

For most small and solo professional service providers, our commodity is our time. Yet our value lies in our expertise.

So how YOU package, market and distribute your expertise become central to your lead-generating and revenue-generating success.

And the best way to do that is to implement a model I call "Selective Access."

Imagine you are running a 5-star restaurant. Your flagship offering is a 7-course gourmet dinner. You also offer lunch which is less fancy (and less expensive). And perhaps you have an up-scale catering or to-go division too.

Prices vary depending on the following four factors:

1. Quality and quantity of ingredients

2. Complexity of preparation

3. Level of service

4. Level of access to the dining environment

Put simply - dinner costs more than lunch which costs more than a snack to-go. 

In my own business, I offer 1-on-1 marketing mentoring (dinner), I run group marketing programs several times each year (lunch) and I work with a few people each month via 1-hour pinpoint sessions (just-enough, just-in-time power snacks!)

Plus I occasionally throw in a "happy meal" which is a free high-value session that's open to everyone. 

Now let's turn the spotlight on YOUR business. Think about - or grab a piece of paper and jot down - what the following looks like in your world: 

1. YOUR Flagship investable opportunity: 

2. YOUR Secondary investable opportunity: 

3. YOUR "To-go" offering (high-value, low-risk, fast, affordable)

4. YOUR FREE happy meal (think of this as a high-value "gift" you can offer to folks who might be good prospects.) 

YOU'RE INVITED: The next "happy meal" coming your way is Tuesday 10/30 at 2pm Eastern. It's a zero-cost high-impact Marketing Blueprint Session and you can read about it here. 

Hope you'll join us on 10/30. 

1. Tweet more regularly about resources, tools and ideas that link back to your website. Use tools like Hootsuite, TweetAdder and Buffer.

2. Create short 2-3 minute videos on YouTube and make sure to add titles near the beginning and end of the video inviting viewers to get more resources from your website.

3. Also make sure to optimize your videos' titles, descriptions, tags and use your full url (meaning include the http:// part!) as the first line of your video description so people see it right away without needing to scroll down. Example: Business Card Kung Fu

4. Get to know Pinterest. It is the fastest growing social media site in history and it's also a lot of fun. Visit my free marketing resources page and grab a fresh hot copy of "How to Use Pinterest for Business." Example: http://pinterest.com/marketingexpert/  

5. Slideshare: You know you've got 'em - PowerPoints. PDF's. All kinds of goodies probably littering your hard drive and you're not take advantage of ANY of 'em as marketing assets. But sure enough, you can start a free Slideshare account, upload your favorite 5-6 PPT or PDF documents, optimize the tags, titles and descriptions, and BAM - more web traffic for you. Example: http://www.slideshare.net/doitmarketing

6. Build an about.me page that collects all your important web links and can serve as an online "business card" or switchboard to connect folks to all your social media accounts in one handy place. Example: http://about.me/doitmarketing

7. Build a brand reputation profile on BrandYourself.com. It's a great way to monitor your online reputation AND build Google juice so you are more visible, more findable and more credible to folks searching for your type of product, service or expertise. Example: http://bobgarlick.brandyourself.com/

8. Boost the impact and SEO value of your LinkedIn profile. My pal, LinkedIn guru Viveka Von Rosen has 12 kickass tips for you on 12 Ways to Spice Up Your LinkedIn Profile. Hint: You also totally need to pick up Viveka's book LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day.

9. Blog, baby, blog... Research from our partners at Hubspot proves that businesses that blog twice a week generate 60% more traffic and leads than businesses that blog once a week or less. Not every blog needs to be a novel. Short is good. Medium is good. Long is good. Not blogging regularly is bad. Ya dig?

10. Infographics. Love 'em or hate 'em - they're hotter than a Vegas sidewalk in August. How can you present a simple, visual, and valuable piece of content that your readers, prospects and customers would really appreciate? Example: 12 Home Page Must-Haves. 

11. Post to relevant LinkedIn groups. LinkedIn is THE social network for business. But all I see in your message stream is who you connected with yesterday, who you endorsed as a great accountant, and that you changed your photo (which is great because that brown tie wasn't helping you). Post LINKS to your great content. Post provocative, interesting questions. Post answers in relevant Q&A Discussions. 

12. Don't ignore PR: Do everything you can to put yourself in a position to be quoted, interviewed, linked to, and featured in relevant blogs, articles, publications and newsletters aimed at your target market. If you're not sure where to begin, start with PRLeads.com and PressReleaseSender.com

13. According to my pal Jay Baer of Convince and Convert, text is going away. Everything online is moving to pictures and video. If that's true (and trust Jay - it is), then your two new best friends will be... 

14. Flickr.com: Post pictures of you, your clients, your projects, your meetings, your team, your best work. Don't be shy - Flickr is a great place to strut your stuff in an immediately impactful way. A picture is worth a thousand words, yadda yadda. Here's a great example from my pal Scott Ginsberg.

15. Animoto.com: Video, baby, video. Turn your photos, video clips, and music into stunning video masterpieces to share with everyone. Fast, free, and shockingly easy! You can use these for yourself, your products, your services, your programs and your ideas. You can also export your creations to YouTube and optimize them further there (See point #3 above.) Example: Top 10 Differences Between Girls and Bodacious Women.

16. Don't ignore email marketing. One of the most common reasons you may be losing web traffic is simply because people who know you and like you have forgotten about how awesome you are. Email marketing reminds them. Not sure where to begin? Start with a Constant Contact free trial. 

17. Never Stop Marketing. That's both a mantra and the website of my pal Jeremy Epstein. But my point is... Never stop experimenting. Never stop testing. And only KEEP what works for you and generates results. You can safely toss the rest.

Go about your marketing with a sense of positive skepticism. Just because someone else says a strategy or tactic is great, doesn't mean it's great for YOU. There is no cookie cutter. You are no cookie.  

If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to read two closely related ones: 

Marketing Coach: "You Never Know" Will Kill You

Business Coach: 7 Keys to Help You Focus on Strategy Not Tactics

What do you think? 

Use the COMMENTS section below to share your insights, advice and recommendations...

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

One of my marketing coaching clients asked me last week, "David, are there rules for writing copy? I've written a ton of material about what we do and I never know what's going to work..."

This is like asking, "Are there rules for romance?" YES, as a matter of fact there are. Check out http://1001waystoberomantic.com/

Are there rules for writing marketing copy? Hell yes. My go-to guy on this is the incredible Bob Bly. Check out http://bly.com/

And the best book on the subject is The Copywriter's Handbook.

But I'll do you one better - you don't even need to buy a book.

Here are 17 rough and ready rules that will make you a better copywriter in 10 minutes or less.

Zero guarantee of completeness. Your mileage may vary. Proceed at your own risk...

1. Write like you speak.

2. Speak like a person, not a marketing moron or a sales robot.

3. As you write, ask yourself - if this next sentence is the last thing they read, is it worth writing or do I have something more important they need to know? (You can write a 3-page sales letter this way that will sell like crazy!!)

4. Use short paragraphs.

5. Use action words, not learning words (nobody wants to learn, find out, or get information... they want to BUILD, BOOST, CREATE, INCREASE, SLASH, REDUCE, ELIMINATE)

6. If you start to sound like a late-night infomercial, stop. Ease it back just about 10% - that's where you need to be. 70% substance with 30% sizzle. Articulate your value, your outcomes and your benefits assertively - not aggressively.

7. Take them on a journey - your copy should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

8. The four most powerful words in marketing are:
  a. YOU
  b. YOUR
  c. BECAUSE
  d. SO THAT

9. It is TOTALLY impossible to overuse testimonials and third-party social proof. Do you have 100 written testimonials? Great - find a way to use them. Do you have 50+ video testimonials? Ditto. Do you have two fistfulls of scanned in endorsement letters on letterhead? Post them. (Examples of each are here for you.)

10. Engage, engage, engage... appeal to the senses. Make the experience of working with you as 3-dimensional as you can. What does it smell like? Taste like? What's the overall experience when people walk in to your store? Hire your accounting firm? Bring you in as their architect?

11. What frustrates the hell out of your prospects and clients? Talk about that - show that you understand their heartaches, headaches, pains and frustrations at the deepest levels.

12. Your copy needs to convey TWO and only two ideas:
  a. You know what they are up against
  b. You can fix it

13. Stop selling YOUR crap and start solving THEIR problems. Yes, even before they buy.

14. Call to action is key. What's the very NEXT step you want them to take? Is there a free offer? A bonus gift to download? A free assessment? A no-strings phone consultation?

15. Make sure your call to action is a GIVE and not a GET. An example of a GET is "Click here and a member of our sales team will contact you within 24 hours." Stupidest damn thing I've ever seen. Useless.

16. Show them how to go from ZERO to HERO. Paint the picture of the current gap - the missing piece - the shortfall - the misfires - the problems - the glitches. THEN show them success stories, solutions, fixes, wins PLUS the specific ways that people who bought from you are better off, richer, smarter, happier, sexier - or all five.

17. Your copy should deliver three things at the end - the acronym is giving your prospects a big HUG:
  a. (H)ope - to improve their condition
  b. (U)rgency - to solve their problem
  c. (G)ameplan - to start exploring your solution

You can do this - it's a lot easier than you think. (H)

In fact, if writing copy is a challenge, you may want to join our next SIMPLE MARKETING SUCCESS 10-week program which starts September 26. Early bird savings are still on - but not for much longer! (U)

If a group program is not a fit for you, I totally understand. Let's start with a no-strings, no-BS  Marketing Assessment. We'll talk for 20 minutes and you'll get 2-3 ideas you can use right away to grow your business whether we decide there's a next step or not. (G)

There - you've just been hugged. See what I mean?

What do YOU think? Share YOUR advice and experiences with writing marketing copy for YOUR business in the COMMENTS area below...

Once or twice a month, I get interviewed, featured or quoted by other experts, the news media, or my mom. (Hi Mom!) 

How can you do the same?

You won't get coverage from my mom but you WILL get major media from PRLeads.com like I do. Try it - it's your best deal for public relations bar none.

But that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is... Balls.

Nerve.

Moxie.

Stepping up and asking for what you want. 

Just like my new friend Damian Niolet did when he asked me for an interview.

Damian could easily have succumbed to negative self-talk like "Oh, this David Newman character is a big deal and he'll never agree to an interview. I'm just a guy studying marketing who has a meager 50 Twitter followers. He's not going to waste his time talking to me..." and so on. 

Good news for Damian - he did not sabotage himself with any such nonsense. 

He asked. I said yes. We did an interview that totally kicked ass and - frankly - was a hell of a lot better than anything I've given to The New York Times, Philadelphia Business Journal (Hi Craig!) or FastCompany.com.

Here's the interview.

Listen online or grab a copy to download. 

Why is this interview valuable to you?

First, because Damian prepared thoughtful questions I've never been asked before. (Like the ethical code of marketing? Or how marketing affects our society? Wow... nice!) So the content will help you market smarter and generate more leads, better prospects and bigger sales. 

Secondly, this interview shows you how YOU may want to use interviewing as a marketing strategy yourself. Either purely for research OR to build relationships with your prospects and colleagues OR as a content development strategy to enrich your blog and establish yourself as an authority in your field. 

For your reference - and to make it easier to follow along if you listen in - here is the list of 15 questions Damian prepared for our conversation...

See if YOU can develop a list of smart, detailed and occasionally surprising questions like these for YOUR next interview: 

1. Can you provide a brief overview of your experience, to include education?  (Leading up to your marketing experience, unless you knew from the start you wanted to work in marketing, in which case you can speak to your experience working for other marketing firms)
2. What drove you to enter the world of marketing? (Your passion for marketing; Leading up to starting Do It! Marketing)
3. What drove you to start up Do It! Marketing? (Why and when)
4. What was the most difficult part of the start-up process? (How)
5. Did you have a marketing strategy from the start?  How did it evolve?
6. What is your view/opinion of how marketing has changed in the last 15-20 years?
7. Has social networking always been a big part of your strategy? (Dependent on when Do It! Marketing was founded)
8. What is the very first bit of advice you’d give to a client to get them started?
9. What is the very most important bit of advice you’d give to a client for whom you are building a marketing strategy?
10. What would you say to those who suggest that using social networks in a passive mode (as a conversation tool only) is time wasted because it does not necessarily focus on leads?
11. Is there a medium, other than social networks, you believe to be invaluable?
12. What company do you believe exemplifies marketing at its best?
13. Is there an ethical code within marketing?  Is this code debatable? 
14. The manner in which marketing is practice undoubtedly influences society at large.  Do you believe the marketing practices in America over the last 50+ years have had a positive or negative impact on society?
15. What will marketing look like in the future?  Are there near-term changes we can expect?  Is there another revolution on the distant horizon?

Catch up with the rest of Damian's blog and keep your eye on this guy. He's gonna do BIG things. 

p.s. We still have a few open spaces for the Simple Marketing Success 10-Week Virtual Bootcamp experience. The program is open by application only. Let me know you're interested (email or call me 610.716.5984) and I'll forward you the application materials and program guidelines right away. We start the program September 26, 2012.

I love business books.

It's a bit of an addiction really.

Some are good, some are so-so, and once in a while a great one comes along.

This is about a great one - Rules of the Hunt by Michael Dalton Johnson. Michael is the founder, publisher and editor of SalesDog.com which is THE go-to resource online for salespeople, sales management and sales success.

Let's cut to the chase and get you fully up to speed - first a video book review, then an in-depth 35-minute audio interview with Michael. (The audio also contains "The Magic Email" that was a featured story a few weeks ago in the SalesDog.com newsletter. It has a 100% success rate to get you back in touch with prospects who have gone dark on you. You'll love it!)

Here's my video book review:

And then I invited Michael to chat with me about some of the key ideas in the book.

Listen in here.

NOTE: The audio will take a minute or two to load in your browser. If you prefer, you can download the digital audio file: RIGHT-click on this link and choose "Save Target As..." or "Save Link As..." or "Save File As..." and save the file to your desktop.

Here's to closing out your week with MORE Leads, BETTER Prospects and BIGGER Sales.

WOOF!!!

How to use Direct Mail effectively...

My friend Jose Palomino from ValueProp.com recently did some web research and collected these dozen or so smart tips from the two resources linked below on increasing your results from your direct mail campaigns. 

Consider this a direct mail crash course for small business owners, entrepreneurs and indepent professionals. 

A. Write a letter? Cheap and inexpensive, but how?

• Your letters should sound as if they were written by a human being.
• One-to-one and conversational is usually best. Forget corporatese, it’s snooze-inducing.
• Try a live stamp, even better, try two live stamps.
• Try to find common ground. One of my favorite first lines is “I don’t know how you feel about (whatever), but I …”
• Test a lot of different approaches and lengths.
• Offer something they can get only by responding to your letter.
• Ask for the order and make it easy to reply.

B.  Direct Mail Tips

• Use only direct response direct mail campaigns – Direct response refers to what the name implies; all mailings should have a ‘call to action’ or request a direct response.  There is nothing that sabotages a direct mail campaign more than to not give the recipient a ‘call to action’.  Tell them what to do next . . . . call, write, pick up the phone, etc.
• Make Your Mail Peer-To-Peer Personal - Consider sending a personalized direct mail letter "written" by your CEO, CFO, CIO, etc. on his or her corporate stationery to his or her counterpart. Play up the commonalities both people share, the business and professional challenges they face that only someone in their position truly understands. I call it "honcho-to-honcho" marketing and it can be very effective. For example, one organization had success with a simple peer-to-peer letter bearing its CEO's name, personal telephone number and a brief description of what the company offers.
• Follow a formula when writing copy - there are a number of formulas that you can use to produce effective copy, but the easiest one out there and probably the simplest to use is the tried and true AIDA formula.  AIDA is an acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. If you follow this formula when writing your copy, you will produce better copy.
• Test your copy – always test your mailings with a small number of mailings before sending out “the” campaign.  A simple method to accomplishing a test is the A/B split test.  This is where you have a small sample size of say 200.  You mail 100 hundred of your target market a mailing with one headline; and the other 100 a mailing with a different headline to see which mailing will get a better response.  An important note for you to remember.  If you use the A/B split testing method, you can only change one element of your direct mail piece at a time so that you can determine what factor made one piece more effective than the other.  The three parts of your mailing you may want to test include the headline, the call to action or the P.S.

There you have it - all you need to know to kick some serious ass with direct mail.

Is creating a series of sales letters or direct mail postcards one of your to-do items that you've been putting off for WAY too long?

p.s. Crafting some solid direct mail pieces may be one of several things you might want to get DONE during our next DO IT DAY.

Check it out - it may be exactly the boost of accountability you've been looking for to help you make significant progress in ANY part of your business - all in one super-focused day! 

As a marketing coach for business owners, entrepreneurs and solo professionals, I'm often asked some variation of the following questions:

• What's more important - a focused marketing plan or consistent marketing activity?
• Do I need to change my marketing strategy? 
• What should I be doing more of - and less of - to get more clients? 
• How do I know the kind of marketing that will work for what I offer? 
• How can I stop spinning my wheels and do a FEW simple things consistently to generate leads, prospects and sales?

Here's my answer in very sophisticated and technical marketing lingo:

"Wow, man... I dunno."

Now before you dismiss me as a complete marketing moron, let me put that insightful statement into some context for you.

If you don't know where you are, who you're marketing to, what they want, what they're willing to pay for, and how to position yourself as the "Ah - at last!!" solution they've been looking for, then all these questions will do is: 

• Confuse you
• Scare you
• Piss you off

And the bottom line is that it's tough to be a successful entrepreneur when you're running around confused, scared and pissed off all the time. 

So stop it. 

The first thing you need to decide is - which do YOU need more of? A revised and refocused master plan? Or some healthy ass-kicking to DO what you ALREADY know you need to do?

Follow the Teddy Roosevelt principle of "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." What does that mean?

That means you need to STOP GETTING READY TO GET READY until...

• You get your next professional certification...
• You finish writing your book...
• Your kids are a little older...
• You build your updated website...
• You have a few more clients...
• You start making more money...

Hello?

Can you SMELL the stinky pile of rotten excuses suffocating you with their disgusting stench?

DO YOU NEED A ROCK SOLID MARKETING/BUSINESS STRATEGY? 

The short answer is a screaming YES with racing stripes and flames coming out the tailpipes.

Do you need a 60-page marketing/business plan with charts and graphs and financial projections for the next 5 years? No you do not. 

You need some flip charts, markers, paper, plenty of wall space and at least half a day to map out: 

• Your business and marketing objectives and strategies
• Your current and future revenue streams
• Your thought leadership strategies (speaking, publishing, social media)
• Your business systems and processes
• Your current and future staffing and outsourcing game plan
• Simple templates and scripts to operationalize your plan
• Your pricing structure including new ways to monetize your expertise
• Your marketing action plan with daily, weekly and monthly tasks 

I do this with my clients all the time - it's called a VIP Coaching Day and the process and the output look something like the flipcharts and action notes you'll see smack in the middle of this page.

DO YOU NEED TO FOCUS ON AND EXECUTE YOUR ACTION ITEMS?

The short answer is a screaming YES with racing stripes and flames coming out the tailpipes.

Do you need a 1,000% laser focus with a non-stop implementation mindset? No you do not. That's not realistic and it's never going to happen. 

You need a calendar, just a little bit of focus, some serious accountability for a short period of time, and your to-do list (which probably contains some long-overdue "big ideas" which you've simply never gotten around to doing even though they might be the exact things you need to FINISH so that you get out of your rut, find your groove and grow your business significantly!)

What kinds of to-do items might you tackle on such a focused day of implementation?

• Rewrite the home page of your website
• Record a series of videos or audios that showcase your services
• Do some writing to better articulate your fabulousness
• Create a few simple tools to help you generate more leads
• Clean up your office or empty your inbox to streamline your daily work
• Develop (or refresh) your consulting or service/project offerings
• Optimize your social media profiles so that more prospects find (and contact!) you
• Draft the outline for your book, product, or signature program
• Map out your proactive referral and networking strategy (who, what, where, when)

I do this with my clients all the time too. It's called a DO IT DAY and you can find out more about them here. Sign up for the next one - I'd be honored to do a little ass-kicking with YOU over a single focused day... and cheer you on as you cross the finish line on what YOU need to get done. 

What do you think? Use the COMMENTS area below to talk about your experiences with strategy vs. implementation for YOUR business...