The Marketing Message Blog

Priorities— Your Way

In my previous post for the new year, I talked about asking the right questions. The second part of that is setting the right priorities.  I'm sure you've read about a million different ways to prioritize your work lists.  But there is a key part of that which is usually overlooked.  That's what I want to write about today— defining priorities your way.  That makes all the difference to a small business owner or anyone who has responsibility for the bottom line.  Let's look at the components of this. 

First you have to have a way to rank priorities.  I use this method but if you have a preferred method use that.

I determine whether it is: 1-Important and urgent; 2-Important not urgent; 3-Unimportant and urgent ; 4-Unimportant not urgent and I write the number next to the item on the list.  Then I put them in order by number and that should do it, right?  WRONG! 

What I haven't done is redefine what those categories mean to me at this moment in 2008. What is truly important?  Is it what your staff thinks?  Is it what your accountant thinks?  Or have you thought it through to the point where it really is what you think. The key to moving your business forward is acting on what you know to be important to you and your business and not what's standing outside your door at any given moment.  This is deceptively simple. You think you know what's important to you, but given the explosion of social media and new ways to think about business, have your really developed your priorities?

Capturing the Right Questions: A Plan

Now is a great time to formulate the questions you need answered to grow your business.  As the old saying goes, "everyone is an expert when you ask the right question."  It's important to note that you ask yourself questions as you go through your businessday.  For example: "Why are these products moving faster than those products?" "Why do I seem to get sales concentrated in the morning hours?"  Yet, if I asked you what questions you want answered about your business, you'd probably not be aware of any.  That's why you need to capture them!  They'll never get answered if you don't write them down.

As you go through the work day, resolve to make a list of all the questions you ask yourself.  Carry this list around and don't be lazy about adding to it.  At the end of the week, look at the list and see what patterns emerge.  Are you asking lots of questions about packaging?  How about returns?  Prepare a new list with all the questions grouped in categories and set up a time to answer them.  But, can you answer them?  If not, you need to figure out what tools to put in place to capture the information.  Once you get proficient at capturing and answering these questions you'll be on the road to really growing your business.

The Power of Focus

At this time of the year, when everyone is ramping up for holiday sales and promotions I am reminded that the ability to focus is the one thing that separates the very successful from the wannabees. Well-known life coach Nido Qubein is quoted as saying, "nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets."

I use a tool called Mind Maps to help me focus and plan.  You may have another tool that works for you.  The key to getting through all the clutter, emails, podcasts, videos and promotions that come your way is to simply decide what's important and only focus on that. 

Years ago I worked with a very successful entrepreneur who believed that his only skill was being able to concentrate on one goal while everyone else had a list of plans, strategies and objectives. He believed that if he accomplished that goal, all the others would fall into place. 

It may be counter-intuitive, but if you have a huge list of things to do, just pick the most important one and the rest will take care of themselves.

Taking Stock

It's Fall here in the U.S. and it's back to school and work.  The tempo picks up and everyone gets to look at their business with a fresh eye. Now is a good time to take a "big picture" look at your business goals. Are you meeting them? Have they changed significantly? Is your website content in line with what you're promoting now?

It's very likely that the answer is no. Everything related to the Web changes so fast that you could be hampering your business growth because you're not keeping up with what's going on around you. You don't want to be the gating factor to your own businesses growth. This month, make an effort to assess how likely you are to meet year end goals. There is still some time to effect change.

The 4-Hour Work Week

I don't usually recommend books whose titles include the word 'Rich', but I'll make an exception in this case.  Let me be one in a long line of many, who are recommending Timothy Ferriss' new book, "The Four Hour Work Week, Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich." 

It's a fun read with a serious message —Don't work just to keep busy and feel important!   We all know people who feel important because they are busy.  But are they?  They may be important in spite of the fact that they are harried with out-of-control schedules.

I've often thought that many of these people were bad time managers without specific goals.  Now thanks to Ferriss' book we can espouse that sentiment and rein in our 'crazy busy' behavior.

Thanks to Web 2.0, we can uncouple the workday from the hours of 9-5.  Most small business owners long for some breathing room so that they can simply THINK about their business.  Read Ferriss' book for some really great tips on how to redesign your business and your time.

When is Being Influential a Bad Thing?

According to the article in the NY Times, being influential can be a bad thing—at least when you're in a bad mood. Check out Sunny or Cloudy, Moods Cast an Influence in the Career Couch column by Phyllis Korkki.

It's not your imagination.  When you're in a bad mood or a good one, you influence those around you. Ms. Korkki notes, "in groups, people unconsciously tend to mimic the demeanor of those around them."   If you're a business owner, your negative tone could be sabotaging the creativity of your colleagues! 

When you are the chief promoter, strategy planner and content producer, you need to make sure you are leading your troops to victory. It's easy to obsess and focus on what's wrong to the exclusion of what you and others are doing right.   

The good news is, you can make negativity work for you when you have a killer deadline at hand.  Jennifer George at Rice University tells us that, "people in bad moods tend to be more realistic , more self critical and more attuned to detail."  So you can use a bad mood in a positive way if you work at it.  Nobody said management was easy.

Win Your Inner Creative Battles

I just finished Steven Pressfield's pocketbook called "The War of Art." (See Required Reading.)  This slim volume is very powerful and is a must-read for all small business owners. From hard-fought experience, he concludes that there is one thing that prevents people from achieving their dreams.  He calls it 'resistance.' 

You feel resistance as fear, envy, negative self-talk and 'helpful' comments from 'friends.'  Essentially, to overcome resistance, you need to follow your own intuition and fight against what you perceive as reasons not to.  I know upon reading this, that you will instantly think of five reasons why you shouldn't try a new business idea or product.  In fact, most of them are reasonable.  They may not be true, but they are reasonable. That's resistance.

Many small business owners lurch from fad to fad only to be disappointed when they realize that no one can dictate the one right 'magic bullet' for you.  You need to do the hard work of developing a strategy.  I use MindMaps to develop strategies for my small business clients.  I recommend this tactic to you. 

First, start by reading the book above and then sit down and create a MindMap of your business strategy.  The map will provide tangible evidence that your plan is right for you, regardless of what others say.  That's a good feeling when you're leading a parade of one.

How Info Products Unshackle the Free Agent

If you read Daniel Pink's great work, you know that he champions the role of the 'free agent.'  An article by Jeffrey Pfeffer in October 2006, Business 2.0 called, 'Why Free Agents Don't Feel Free' furthers this discussion.  It brings up what I believe to be an important point about how free agents, entrepreneurs and small business owners should approach their business.

If you trade hours for dollars, you are still limiting your ability to achieve a balanced lifestyle. Most business owners believe 'time is money' so they work very long hours in exchange for dollars. The missing ingredient is the ability to create passive revenue streams. Put another way, you have to create products that sell while you're not working.

I speak to many small business owners who don't want to create an info product because they believe it will be too much work. If you are an expert in your field, you live and breathe the content for an info product every day. And as for too much work, I think they are forgetting that they will be able to take time off while the product is working.

Think about what you can create. If you have an idea you want to share, don't hesitate to drop me a comment.

Collaboration is the hottest buzzword in business today

I enjoy a contrarian viewpoint especially when I agree with it.  Check out David H. Freedman's article, What's Next: The Idiocy of Crowds in the September, 2006 issue of Inc.  He points out that with the advent of Web 2.0 technology, everyone gets a chance to weigh-in on every issue a business faces.  (See "Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki.)  He believes that this can be counterproductive.  At its worst, it can lead to 'groupthink' which causes groups to be overly confident about their decisions.  This does not negate all the great ways we can utilize group consensus, but it should make us more cautious about how we apply it.

This is good news for small business owners who often have to make bold decisions without much feedback.  'Gut-think' (relying on the wisdom of our own gut) can sometimes take us to places we never dared wish for.  If you have a big business decision to make and you feel that you know the 'right answer', then trust that.  If you are wrong, at least you took the reins of your own life.

Does Your Business Card Lie?

What does your business card say you do?  How do you spend the majority of your time?   If the truth be told, you'd probably have to put 'answerer of emails' or 'the one who puts out fires.'  If that's the case, you probably need to sit down and figure out how much time you waste on things that don't support your goals.  The key is deciding how you really should be spending your time and do it.  If you want your business to grow, managing your time is the secret.

The title on my business card says "Marketing Strategist."  People often remark about it.  I think that's because it actually says what I do and no one expects that. I work at spending the majority of my time working with clients on their online strategy and the tactics to support them and my business.  It's easy to get drawn into reading every last email and filing everything perfectly.  When I answer emails I readily acknowledge that some of my time is being wasted and I'm making that choice.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was quoted as saying, "The mind once expanded to the dimensions of bigger ideas never returns to its original size."  Instead of feeling overwhelmed with unimportant tasks, you should stop and take the time to decide what you really need to spend your time doing and let everything else take care of itself.

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