If you’ve been having trouble emerging from your pandemic business cocoon, welcome to the club!
Lots of people are feeling the same way (including me). We’re having thoughts like: I don’t know where to start with marketing my business again. Or, I feel like I don’t know how to talk to people anymore. Or, I don’t want to leave my cave.
As I write this, 2020 is almost over. Hooray! And… it’s very likely that you didn’t accomplish all you set out to do this year. If you did meet your goals or even surpass them, you deserve extra credit. But if you didn’t, read on. (And join the club.)
What can I say — 2020 turned out to not be the year most of us were looking forward to. Which begs the question, what does success look like when things have changed so much?
Feeling overwhelmed lately? Yeah, me too. A few days ago, a tweet jumped off the screen at me: “Right now we basically feel a constant mental DDoS attack.” Exactly.
In his OneZero post linked to that tweet, Eric Ravenscraft explained: “Some of the biggest events in 2020 have demanded more of our time, more direct action, and have been more emotionally taxing than we’re used to.” For sure.
As the head of your small and mighty company, you know how difficult it can be to stay focused on your business when distractions are calling.
In this video, I share a few straight forward concepts to help redirect your attention — with a jazz quartet as our guide!
“I don’t have time to market my business.” It’s a common complaint from self-employed professionals. When you are the only one who can serve your clients, manage the business, keep up in your field, and perform all the sales and marketing functions, time becomes the most precious commodity you have. How can you find time for marketing with so many other important priorities?
You have many time management techniques at your disposal, of course. You can defer some tasks or delegate them to an assistant, chunk down big projects into smaller steps, and set aside blocks of time on your calendar for making calls, writing emails, or updating your social media channels. But perhaps you have already tried all those approaches and discovered that time is still scarce.
Productivity is a popular buzzword these days. There’s an assumption that being productive is a good thing, and in fact if you’re going to stay in business, you will need to be productive. But what does that really mean, especially when it comes to your marketing?
There’s a phenomenon I think of as pseudo-productivity: when you’re getting things done-ish. These are things that keep you busy, maybe even fill up your calendar, yet they’re not actually productive. Real productivity means you’re getting things done that move your business forward, like getting the word out about your offerings, or creating a solid foundation for your ability to serve your clients.
I have a dream for us self-employed professionals. I picture us all making simple marketing and sales plans, working our plans consistently, and as a result, landing all the clients we need. But in order for my dream to come true, we’re going to have to stop letting ourselves be pulled off track by the tempting lure of silver bullet solutions.
The lure of the silver bullet
Maybe you know the ones I mean. There’s always some flavor-of-the-month approach to sales and marketing that you’re hearing about.
There are days when you wake up ready to go, eager to get the word out about your offerings, and then there are other days when, well… you’re just not feeling as eager, or clear, or motivated, or… *sigh*
Is there anything you can you do on those days when it feels harder to do the marketing you really — truly! — want to (and need) to do? Yes, of course there is. Enter…
Fun!
As the holiday season approaches, it can be overwhelming to think about what needs to be done before the end of the year. For you personally, there are often extra family and social obligations. Adding your business marketing to-dos on top of that can create an even bigger sense of obligation and overwhelm.
Luckily, there’s something you can do about that.
When getting your end-of-year marketing done, try these tips to make your life easier and create space for those things that are most important, personally and professionally.
