Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

Johann Wolfgang once said, “To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.” This quote perfectly summarizes the challenge that many marketers face in trying to achieve their goals. While it’s easy to come up with ideas and think about what we want to accomplish, it’s often difficult to turn those ideas into action.

When it comes to marketing, there are many different approaches that business owners can take. 

Some only give marketing a half-hearted effort, while others simply wing it without much of a plan. 

There are those who get stage fright and avoid marketing altogether, while others give it away with no overall strategy in mind. 

AND THEN  there are those who make excuses or say they can’t.

But the most successful ones are those and then there are those who take a more strategic approach, planning and taking calculated action to ensure that their marketing efforts are productive and effective.

The 7 Common Mistakes Most Business Owners Make

Dale Beaumont identified seven common mistakes that businesses make when it comes to marketing. By understanding these mistakes and taking steps to avoid them, you can set your business up for a more productive marketing year. 

• Not taking it seriously – If you treat marketing as an afterthought or something that you can do when you have spare time, you’re unlikely to see the results you want. To have a productive marketing year, you need to take it seriously and make it a priority.
• Delegating responsibilities to others – While it’s important to have a team to support your marketing efforts, you should still take ownership of your business’s marketing strategy. You can’t delegate it entirely to others and expect to achieve the results you want.
• Treating marketing as a quick promotion not a system – Marketing isn’t something you can do once and then forget about. It needs to be an ongoing system that you work on consistently.
• Not having a clearly defined written marketing plan – Without a clear plan in place, your marketing efforts can lack focus and direction. You need to have a written plan that outlines your goals, target audience, messaging, and tactics.
• Not investing time to learn the skills required – Marketing is constantly evolving, and it’s essential to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices. You need to invest time to learn the skills required to be successful in marketing.
• Not having someone to advise you and help you execute the plan – While it’s important to take ownership of your marketing strategy, it’s also helpful to have someone who can advise you and provide support in executing your plan. This could be a mentor, coach, or marketing consultant.
• Not being consistent – Consistency is key when it comes to marketing. You need to be consistent in your messaging, tactics, and frequency of communication to build trust and rapport with your audience. This requires effective time management, systems, and organisation.

That being said, you can avoid these mistakes and get a revolutionary year by following the Rs of a revolutionary business year. You can design your system for a productive and revolutionary marketing year by following the 10 R’s for a Revolutionary year. 

The 3rs Of A Revolutionary Year

These R’s are designed to help you take a more strategic and intentional approach to marketing, and to ensure that your efforts are focused and productive.

• Rebalance: Awareness, acknowledgement and action
• Review Reports: data analysis across all your systems eg. website, social media and email marketing
• Recover: Backup you content (website and social media)
• Relook: Is your About and description still relevant?  Test your urls still work. Where did the best customers come from? Perhaps a customer survey. Look at your income and relook at all expenses. 
• Reorganize: Declutter on and offline files, content, admin etc 
• Rest: Rejuvenate. Plan holidays and time out to play
• Refresh: Your off and online eg. Your office and your social banners. Change is as good as a holiday. 
• Revenue: Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually etc
• Release: Negative thinking and self-doubt
• Respond: Take calculated action

Your Planning Guideline

Use this planning guideline to plan your most productive and profitable year:

1. Wheel of life: This is paramount for helping you to be a better functioning business owner. Rate yourself from 1-10 in your finance, personal growth, health, friends, family relationships, recreation, spirituality and career. Then consider how you got there and what you are going to do to improve that. 
2. Personal Resolutions: What activities would you want to start immediately or do more of? What activities do you enjoy doing that you want to continue doing? Which activities would you like to stop?
3. Professional: What activities would you want to start immediately or do more of? What activities do you enjoy doing that you want to continue doing? Which activities would you like to stop?
4. SMART Goals: Create at least 3 specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time focused goals for your professional and personal self. Then create an action plan for each goal statement.
5. Your year overview: Considering your personal and professional goals, in different colours, mark out important days eg. Holidays, public holidays, events (and don’t forget their travel, preparation and follow up time), Financial reviews (even bookkeeping days like EOFY), Special promotions like boxing day, black Friday, Training days (like your VIP Monday) etc. 
6. Income Producing Activities: What are your 3-6 top product offerings to focus on and what are the actions you’ll take to make it profitable
7. Plan your annual income: How many hours in the year will you be working? And, how much do you want to make in the year? How much do you need to earn per week to make it? 
8. Focus on your annual income: Display an income tracker with your desired income. Record each weeks income and monitor how you are going in achieving that goal. 

The last piece of this planning and productivity puzzle is to empower your willpower to action and sustain this all year long. With that, the strength to sustain the ups and downs that come with managing your business day in and out whilst living a soul-satisfying existence. 

Keep an eye out for this training titled Future Planning and Performance for business marketing

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