I’ve discovered something interesting.
Many entrepreneurs do something a little different at this time of the year.
They begin to reflect!
One of the positive side-effects of another year ending, is it creates a reason for business owners to pause for a moment and evaluate how and where their business is going.
Too many business owners believe mistakenly that they cannot afford to slow down, or God forbid stop, to reflect on where they are going.
Instead, they choose to continue to grind away, moving blindly from one year into the next.
Their hope is that making it to another year will be the catalyst for a magical transformation in business fortunes.
At the risk of bursting some people’s bubbles, if you want a stream of new high value customers, clients or patients to come flooding in, it’s going to take more than the year on your wall calendar changing.
Whilst the end of the calendar year sees some business owners taking the time to pause and reflect, the sad fact is that most will begin 2018 with the same strategies they finished the previous year with, without using this time for some valuable reflection.
In all likelihood, business owners who fail to inspect their business habits and performance will experience, at best, the same results as last year – and more likely will actually experience a diminished return for their effort.
If you want some things to change in your business, YOU NEED TO STOP looking at the calendar and START LOOKING IN THE MIRROR. The change you are looking for starts with you. The question is: Are you ready?
One of the things that I regularly hear when our Members arrive at one of their closed-door Accelerators is a sigh of relief.
Marketers Club Members take a collective breath when they first arrive because they know they can stop, reflect and refocus.
You need to make sure you don’t limit yourselves to just the first few weeks of January to examine your sales and marketing strategies.
In the rapidly changing business world we live in today, if you wait until the end of the year to check if you’ve been heading in the right direction, then there is a good chance you’ll be so far off course you’ll be lost, with little chance of recovery.
Smart marketers are constantly reviewing what’s working and what’s not, and making the necessary adjustments as they go.
Life is about progress, about moving forward and striving towards your goals. But before you go racing into 2018, you might benefit by first checking that you’re headed in the right direction.
Let me ask you this.
In the lifetime that you have your car, whether that’s for one year or ten, what percentage of the time do you think you spend driving in reverse?
Any thoughts?
I’ve asked this question of audiences in the past and on one occasion got a very frightening response.
Usually people yell out things like 1%, 2% or maybe even as high as 5%, but at one event a lady yelled 25%.
I instantly had visions of her driving down the freeway backwards!
The answer by the way is slightly less than 1% (.09% for those that like precision).
The reality is that while we all spend the majority of our lives driving forward and focusing on where we want to go, we also need the capacity to review what we have been doing – to look in our rear vision mirror and back up.
While the ability to reverse may only be needed 1% of the time, most people would never even make it out of their drive-way in the morning without it.
In business we see people persisting with poor marketing strategies far too long. Persistence is an important quality in an entrepreneur, but being stubborn, rigid or too lazy to innovate your approach when you know your current strategy isn’t working, can be extremely costly.
My advice, take a deep breath and take some time to reflect on what you are doing and where you are heading in 2018. Give yourself permission to stop and think; ultimately, you’ll discover this is the fastest way to reach your goals.
At the Marketers Club we provide members with the opportunity to STOP, REFLECT and PLAN all throughout the year.
We ask them to reflect on three things.
What’s been working?
What hasn’t been working?
What’s Next?
These are three questions I’d encourage you to ask yourself regularly, but particularly now as the year draws to a close.
What have you implemented this year that has worked for you? And how will you build on it and enhance it in the new year?
What have you tried that hasn’t worked, that you will either adjust and try again or abandon? It’s important to inspect those strategies that have failed to deliver the desired result closely, to make sure you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
And finally, how will you innovate your approach next year? What are you planning to do differently that will help your marketing cut through and your profits increase?
These are all important questions to ask, but first you need to give yourself permission to STOP and reflect on where you’ve been and then start forming a plan for where you’d like to go.
If you’re struggling with your marketing and would like us to help in 2018, then request a complimentary marketing diagnostic consultation with a Marketers’ Club coach.
Every one of our coaches is a former or current client and a current business owner who’s “been there, done that”. They’ve faced the challenges you’re facing and have achieved success in their own business.
Our coaching team understand what it takes to succeed and are here to help you get the clarity you need to accelerate your progress, grow your income and design the business and lifestyle you want. Click here to make your booking.
Wishing you a bright and prosperous 2018 and beyond.
Paul and the Marketers Club team