The 2 Choices You Have for the New Year

Here’s how I see it:

You can either stick with what you’re doing, or you can start doing something new. Really the bigger question is: how successful was your bottom line last year? Compared to your 2012 goals?

How about last year vs. the prior year…..

As we entrepreneurs keep chugging along day after day, it often becomes hard to distinguish what business practices are working well for us- and by that I mean turning some solid ROI, vs. what we are doing because it’s what we do. Habit.

You know. The comfortable stuff.

It becomes even more confusing as so many of us (hopefully- if you’ve been paying attention) pump out more an more content, in the hopes of increasing traffic, creating a strong brand and building a following. Murkier. ROI definitely becomes more difficult to gauge unless we are paying close attention to our Google Analytics and are really drilling down to the traffic source. Sales Conversion is the bottom line after all, and yet these days the road to sales conversion can easily be a 7-8 step process.

 

Witness the exhausting life of todays’ sales cycle:

Step 1: Create a unique product/service

Step 2: Create an out of the box brand and content marketing campaign to align with your product/service

Step 3: Continuously strategize, and then expose and find new and receptive outlets to expose your brand and content to (ie: your ideal audience)

Step 4: Keep it up until you or your products/service/storefront are recognized as special and attention worthy and you’ve created trusting fans

Step 5: Build your list with these traffic strategies and create trusting fans

Step 6: Continue to create value for this list but in a non- obnoxious delete me sort of fashion

Step 7: Invite them to buy your service/product

Step 8: Wash, rinse, repeat

Exhausted yet? And yet, in todays world, this is what all of us, from high tech start up to medical practice to toy manufacturer to established brand must do to keep up. Because our competition is doing all that, trust me. Or they’re not and you could have the edge if you chose to grab it.

It’s either that or move over, Blockbuster and make room for me.

So again, I come back to your 2 choices. Are you aware of the traffic strategies that are working well for you? That are pointing you, albeit via a winding path, but a path never-the-less towards increasing your bottom line? Yes? Then

Plan A: Pat yourself on the back: You’ve created a marketing plan aimed at sales conversion

And keep on keeping on. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Truly, if the answer to the above question is yes, and your strategies are clearly goal driven and you can see the white light at the end of the tunnel then congratulations. You’re doing something, probably many things, right. No easy task. As I said before, it’s harder now to be able to gauge the success of a social media campaign, a blogging strategy, a content marketing campaign.

Do all those likes make a difference to your bottom line? Is brand awareness and engagement on Facebook and Twitter converting, eventually to the walk through the door? To the click? Do you know?

It’s a longer, fuzzier road now, and patience is key. Patience, persistence, engagement, trust. All these things matter to the longevity and stickiness of your clients and customers. If your strategy is comprised of good solid, valuable content marketing that converts after 6-7 touches then you are doing something right. Pay attention to that.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Or, are you having trouble seeing the forest through the trees? Are you not sure which traffic strategies are and which are not working? Are you flailing around with no movement on that P and L towards the P column? Then you need to move towards

Plan B: Shrink up into a pathetic little ball and commence to whine to your mother/husband/wife/best friend.

OR…..DO something about it. Get a Grip

But what Suzen….wah, wah, wah….I have no plan, nothing I do is working, it’s too overwhelming, I don’t have time, I don’t have money, my kids are all over me, yada, freaking yada, freaking yada.

Seriously—quit yer whining! We’ve all been there. Aren’t you a little sick of these excuses? Because that’s all they are. Sorry about the tough love but that’s the facts m’ams. and misters.

If you want something badly enough you will do something about it. Sometimes all it takes is a Xanax and an hour with a good therapist consultant to get you on the straight and narrow path to help you get clear, and if so you’ve come to the right place—I’ve just created that exact hour…one hour devoted to you where you can pick my brain and get some clarity. Often times that’s just what the doctor ordered, no more, no less, no hard sell.

I can help you get a grip for 2014. Pick my brain, please.

I did this in 2012 with a mentor I’d been thinking of working with and it made the difference between ending 2012 –my first full year in business as Omaginarium- in the black, rather than in the red. My first year in business. Pat-pat-pat.

The truth is I could congratulate myself ‘til the cows come home, but the fact is I would not have ended my year in the black had I not hired him to look at my vision and the steps I was taking to get to that vision. Sometimes all it takes is an outside professionals’ keen and objective eye. I ended up losing a strategy I had been beating to death to make work (it wasn’t) and instead digging head on into my content marketing plan. For me that meant my blog, my article writing and creating strategic alliances with the right people. I wouldn’t have come to that on my own.

Are you ready to hit the tarmac running for 2014? If so, come get a grip here.

Pick my fertile brain.