Biznik Blog

Why do New Year’s resolutions usually end in frustration and failure, leaving us feeling defeated?

Conventional wisdom says resolutions disappear like smoke up the chimney before we’ve consumed all the goodies that filled our mantelpiece stockings.

My theory: resolutions are no more than brave statements of what you wish you could accomplish. Regardless of good intentions, resolutions lack practical support born of real conviction.

It seems there’s a missing ingredient. Resolutions alone don’t work because meaningful improvement requires action. Find someone who ever made a resolution and actually accomplished it, and you’ll find someone who relied on specific effective actions to achieve their goal. They reached insight about what it would take, and then provided all the essentials, according to a rational plan. They moved beyond daydreaming and did something that made a real difference.

Business success happens when you see the end from the beginning and take all the necessary steps to arrive at your result. This is what a business plan, written or mental, is all about.

If anyone has ever done this, anyone can do it — including you. The secret of successful business is to follow 5 steps that create flow for your vision, planning, and execution.

1. Analyze and perceive your present. Understand the elements and dynamics of your initial situation.
2. Reach insight about what’s happening, and how – see your business as a system.
3. Translate desired improvements into goals and objectives.
4. Carry out a practical action plan that implements your desired changes.
5. Evaluate results periodically, make necessary adjustments, and continue execution.

In case you’re wondering, this approach is what you get when you crash General Systems Theory into classic scientific method and apply the result to business. It works for Fortune 50 companies. Scaled down, it works for you.

Why not start 2007 by honestly assessing your business potential? And then give your business the Christmas gift it missed – the essential steps to sustained profitable revenue.

Okay. Action! Based on a plan. A plan, based on perception, analysis, and insight.

“But, uh. . . where do I start?”

Statistics demonstrate that not one small business in 20 has effective marketing.

If your small business is typical, you can take action to turn it around and make it explode in 2007.

Revenue that generates profits is the first and most important focus of any healthy business. All else is about sustaining and conserving income, and minimizing expense.

Strong revenue results from reaching out to your customers effectively.

Then sufficient income makes possible everything else you want to accomplish.

Establish an information stream that proves relevance, credibility, and value. Show your customers how your product or service is relevant to their needs and wants, that you’re a credible source, and how you deliver solid value that exceeds cost. This is what they’re searching for, despite their jaded surface cynicism.

Inwardly, they’re dying for this. Provide it and they’ll reward you with a healthy, steady, growing revenue stream.

The following are marketing elements you may need to make your business revenue all it can be in 2007. Consider how these essentials fit with your business dynamics, and plan how you can acquire the right missing pieces.

Strategic marketing plan

Wait! Don’t despair.

If you find you have little effective marketing in place as the New Year breaks, now you see what to focus on, and that’s a good thing.

Now you can divide and conquer.

Hey, you’re a Biznik. You have resources. Just look around in this growing community you’ve joined. You’ll find amazingly capable people ready to provide all your business needs. For every essential element listed above, there is at least one Biznik eager to join your effort. In most cases you have multiple choices. Pick folks you like working with.

But whatever you do, don’t skimp on marketing. You can’t afford to go without it. No marketing, no business. Victim-stance people aren’t known for success. Except, perhaps, in litigation.

Be a courageous entrepreneur. Find ways to make it happen. Take out a mortgage. Get an SBA loan or write a grant. Find a provider who will barter, work on contingency, or accept residuals. Ask for payment terms over time. Sell some shares of stock privately. Factor your inventory. Co-venture with someone.

Last resort — get a day job. OK, maybe not.

You might take a class and learn to do some marketing yourself. What you can take on will be limited by your need to run the rest of your business. Talk to marketers, they are idea people who want to help. Incredibly useful Biznik seminars are regularly available on marketing topics at trivial cost.

No whining, either, until you understand how much things really cost. You may be shocked at how affordable modest marketing can be. It doesn’t take a corporate budget to launch self-sustaining small business revenue growth.

Any small business can fortify their marketing, in phases, for no more than a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per phase.

In other words, if all else fails in the ‘get funding’ approaches, you can break marketing improvements down into do-able pieces and bootstrap the whole effort.

And don’t forget that “marketing” and “communications” go together like “New Year’s” and “resolutions.” Good writing makes possible every phase of marketing planning and execution. And the quality and professionalism of the writing has a lot to do with your outcomes.

Marketing that works requires writing that persuades, at every point of contact with your customer. And writing that persuades requires marketing that works, if it is to accomplish much. Unless you’re a commercial writer with marketing expertise, plan to work with Biznik pros — marketers, media and web folks, and commercial writers.

With expert help, you can not only create your winning plan, but also take action that will make your good intentions for revenue real in 2007.

Why not make fixing your marketing the resolution you keep this year? Your bottom line will be proud.

Joseph Riden is a supporting member of Biznik, a commercial freelance writer, and frequent blog contributor. He serves business indies, sourcing many marketing essentials listed above. His website is www.jriden.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 26th, 2006 at 9:16 pm and is filed under News. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.