Season’s Greetings!

As you plan and prepare for your holiday celebrations, I want to wish you and yours a magical time with your loved ones, and good health and prosperity for the coming year. While shopping and gift wrapping are foremost on your mind, I want to remind you (if you haven’t already done so) to set aside some time to review your business’ performance and evaluate your marketing plan so you have a true picture of the year’s highs and lows.

As a small business owner, myself, I sometimes am not able to see my business with an open mind and an unbiased eye because I am so invested in it. It’s personal to me. There have been times when I couldn’t face up to a poor decision (or two) that I made. But, in order for my business to improve, I have to grab a magnifying glass and take a good hard look at it – warts and all!  

So, grab your microscope or magnifying glass, and take few minutes to get a close up view of your business over this year. You can start by answering these two questions:

1. What marketing tactic (the one you were so sure was going to be the next big thing) performed poorly or even failed?
   This is the one most of us will struggle with. You may find it hard to accept that that one – or maybe more than one – of your marketing tactics did not perform as expected. First of all, that’s okay. I am all about experimenting and trying new things, but you can’t beat a dead horse. If something didn’t work – toss it – and don’t look back! There’s no use in crying over spilled milk, and we all have done our share of spilling. Move on, but make sure you learned something about why it didn’t work. Marketing is mostly science, but it’s also can be finicky. You may tried something too late, or it just wasn’t the tactic for your product or service. If you want to review why something didn’t perform as anticipated, let’s look at it together, and dissect the meaning behind the results – or the lack thereof – so you can move past it and on to something better!
   
   
2. What marketing tactic(s) was successful?
   This is the easier one to answer. If you feel proud of a decision you made that yield you results beyond your expectations then go ahead and take a sec to bask in your glory, just don’t stay there to long!  If you had success with one or more of your strategies, keep doing what you are doing, and perhaps consider investing more into that tactic. Whether it’s more frequency, bigger scope or adding on to it. Keep the momentum going! If you need help expanding on what you already know is working, give me a call and let’s see how we can grow the strategy for even bigger and better results.
   
   

There is so much that goes on when running your own business, and things can feel overwhelming especially when you have a whole personal life you are living in the midst of it. But, hopefully, you can take the lessons you learn from both your successes and failures, and make the most of them. If you find that you don’t have a neutral eye to see your company clearly, let me help.

Once again, happy holidays, and to a bright 2022!