Marketing Plans: Your Roadmap to Success

Many of my clients feel a little lost when faced with developing a marketing strategy for their businesses. Here is a simple plan on how to get started written by my friend, colleague and marketing guru, Mary Hickman Kruszewski.

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A marketing plan is your roadmap for creating business revenue. It details the activities necessary to get the word out about your business, provides the tools you need to reach prospective customers, and helps you stay connected once you've built up your business. It may feel like a big task, but taking it step by step will help ensure you're focused in the right areas for revenue growth.

Who is Your Customer?
Identifying Your Target Market(s)

Start by identifying the various types of customers who will be interested in your business or who might recommend it to someone else. Are they wholesalers, retailers or end customers? And don't forget some of your best customers will come from those that may refer your business. Make a list of all of the potential targets for your product or service. Then rank those in order by those you believe have the greatest revenue potential. I'm not saying the others are not viable, but it is important to know where your bread and butter will be coming from, and target those customers first and foremost.

Making the Connection
Developing a Plan to Reach Your Prospects

Once you have your target market prioritized, consider HOW you are going to reach targets (Internet, advertising, mailings etc.). The best plan will include a variety of activities and timing. Furthermore, the type of customers your are targeting - say wholesalers but also end customers - will require different communication methods. Every business is unique so start thinking about how you can cast the largest net--that is, reaching multiple targets at the same time.
KNOW what your competition is doing and not doing. You can learn from them or perhaps exploit an opportunity that they have yet to discover. Knowing how they position themselves in the marketplace can help you determine your messaging to the world and better target your customers with the right marketing activities.

If You Had a Million Dollars
Setting Your Marketing Priorities and Budget

Now that you've identified the plethora of marketing activities available to you to reach your target markets, it's time for a reality check. EVERY ACTIVTY costs in some way, either your time or hard-earned dollars. Prioritize which activities are "doable" and "affordable". Split your list into must-dos and like-to-dos. Then begin researching and associating costs with each element of your plan. Focus clearly on those activities that will provide you the greatest reach to your target markets for the least amount of cost.

Timing is Everything
Setting Your Marketing Calendar

Setting a 3, 6 and 12 month plan for your marketing efforts is critical to keep your marketing efforts on track. You'll have a schedule for what activities need to be done each month. And remember to include planning time to complete each marketing task. If you plan to communicate news about an event you're holding in August, you'll most likely need the details of that event firmed up several months prior to the actual event.

Now That Business is Booming
Keeping Connected with Your Customers

Business is up and running; you're busy, busy, busy! So, how can you stay connected with previous clients and customers? Make it a habit to always get your clients' full mailing address, e-mail address and phone number. Create a database of information (birthdays, last purchase date, etc.)-- anything that will provide a reason to communicate with them on a consistent basis. The point is that you want a customer for LIFE. So building that database to stay connected is an important step in your marketing plan.

Getting Help
Finding the Right Resources

If your eyes are glazing over for the amount of work it takes to get your business out there, you are not alone! There are many companies and consultants out there who can tell you what and how to market your business (and even do it for you). If you choose to partner with a marketing resource, ensure they have your interests at heart. If you don't feel a connection with them, keep looking. Find someone who will work with your ideas and within the scope of your budget.

Mary Hickman Kruszewski, the founder of MHK Marketing Group, creates customized marketing solutions to help you grow your business. Now is the time to get your marketing efforts up and running! Contact Mary at info@mhksolutions.com for details or visit http://www.mhksolutions.com/ to learn more.

Are you setting yourself up for success or failure?

Whether you're just getting started in your new business venture or
are now a veteran of the entrepreneurial world, chances are you
could fall prey to the scary statistic that most start-up
businesses fail within their first year.

What is going to keep your business from becoming one of those
statistics? Are you setting yourself up for success or failure?

Wherever you are in your business, take a look at your
foundation. If you got into business and it took off quickly, you might have
overlooked some of the basic building blocks. Do you have the
appropriate legal structure for your company? Have you created
space in your life for this business (both literally and
figuratively)? Do you have a business plan that is easy to
understand by anyone who wants to do business with you? Do you have
the buy-in and support from your family to do this? Have you
arranged for the right help for your other responsibilities that
you can't/don't want to do anymore?

Without the right foundation and systems for running your life and
your business in place, you, your family and your business will
suffer.

There are volumes of resources on the web to support you. If you
haven't done so already, check the Resources page on my website
(www.mombizcoach.com) for some help in these areas.

Your business is too important to allow it to fail. Get the support
you need and build a foundation that will allow your business to
flourish.

Where are you in your business? Are you just starting out, or are you ready
to start over, or somewhere in between? What best practices do you have
around your business foundation that you could share with other entrepreneurs?

To your prosperity!

Is failure the first step to success?

Surfing around on LinkedIn's Q&A board last night, a colleague of mine posed the question above. The answers he is receiving are really interesting, but I'm even more intrigued by the question itself: Is failure the first step to success?

I love the possibility that exists in this question. I think it all depends on who you are and how you define success. I once asked a client of mine what preconceived notions he had about failure, what judgments he held about it. He gave me a tremendously confident answer, saying that he believed failure was necessary to achieve success, was necessarily on the path to success, was to be expected if one were striving for success.

Totally true, I think. But...

What we discovered after a while is a certain pattern that he had. This pattern was sabotaging his efforts at success since he had internalized that failure was necessary for success. So what he had become successful at was indeed failure. He had several forays into different businesses that had all resulted in some form of failure rather than success. So, since it's natural to want to avoid failure (sometimes at all costs, meaning we never get off the couch and even try to do something we dream of), it is in some sense liberating and powerful to accept failure as part of the process that leads to/IS success. But we have to be careful that we don't set our focus on the actual failure, because if we do, that's exactly what we'll get.

My husband (then boyfriend, back in the day) said the most brilliant thing to me one day while we were mountain biking in the blazing summer heat in the North Georgia mountains. I was suffering from the heat and the exertion of the trail that was getting more and more technical as it climbed up what seemed to me thousands of feet. Then, as we started going downhill, I got scared I was going to crash as I barrelled down a narrow single-track that went between trees very close to the path and over rocks that jutted up everywhere. He told me: "Whatever you do, don't look at the rocks you're scared you're going to hit, because you will. Instead, focus on where you want to go, and your bike will follow where you look." That advice has stayed with me all these years, and makes so much sense to me in business. Are you focused on success, or are you focused on failure? Wherever your gazes lies, so follows your destiny.

Oh, those cycles

I've been paying a lot of attention to cycles lately.

No doubt this is related to Spring finally arriving here in Windsor after a long, grey, cold Winter. Now as I look out my window, I see green starting to blanket every flat surface. I'm enamored when I spot a mother goose walking along the side of an old country road with a row of fuzzy goslings quickly following her. The sun (oh yes, finally remembered the name of that large yellow thing in the sky that has been so long absent...) is up there, beaming down, and I have no question in my mind why ancient peoples (and perhaps modern ones, too) worship it.

I notice my moods and energy levels are often in synch with the seasons. I fight being slow, down and stuck in the Winter. I am bursting with energy and joy in the Spring. I am satisfied, easy-going in the Summer. And the quick chill in the Fall air gets me focused and poised for action.

For a long time I simply noticed this pattern, this cycle that I share with the seasons. But lately I've realized that this pattern has become a habit, one I fall victim to when I'm not paying attention. I can blame my feeling of powerlessness on the obvious circumstance of bad, frigid weather, or I can justify not getting things done because of the magnet of warm weather that keeps me outside all day long. This is a habit I've grown comfortable with, one I accept because it makes sense to me.

Spring being the season of rebirth and renewal, I think it's time to let go of this predictable cycle that zaps my power, occasionally for months at a time. Why not be powerful and purposeful every season, every month, everyday? With all this extra energy I have right now, I have begun building some support structures to keep me focused on what I want. I've started an amazing new coaching program with Rhonda Hess, founder of prosperouscoach.com. With her fabulous support, I'm finally taking the steps to grow my business while doing less work. I'm taking time each day to center on my goals and biggest commitments. And I'm learning (thanks to flylady.com) to take only Baby Steps in that direction, forsaking my "all or nothing" attitude that often gets me stuck in the mud.

Yay, Spring...

Delicate balance: mothers in business

As a mother of three children under six years old who owns her own company, I spend a lot of time doing one thing while thinking I "should" be doing another. Sometimes I'm building Legos with the kids and I'll remember I'm on deadline for something I'm writing. Other times I'm sitting at the computer responding to a client or doing research on my target audience, only to have a nagging feeling that I should be back downstairs drawing silly sketches or playing hide and seek with the kids.

And I know I'm not alone. Mothers in business, "mompreneurs", have particular challenges when it comes to the issue of balancing business and babies. Without question, priority #1 is my family. I chose to be a mother a while back and have no doubt that this is exactly who I am supposed to be. But my journey to become a mother who also has a fulfilling career has been a not-so-graceful dance between passion, commitment, ambition, guilt, joy and inspiration. Can we truly have it all?

I'm collecting thoughts, witticisms, rants and such from women who are the primary caretakers of their family and who own their own businesses or who want to return to work but feel conflicted about it. If this describes you, please post your comments here.

Some questions to ponder:
1) Why do you (want to) work?
2) What are your biggest challenges as a mother/business owner?
3) Does your husband/significant other support your choice to pursue a career?
4) Does your work satisfy you? If so, why?
5) What do you have to sacrifice to be a "mompreneur"?
6) What is the most gratifying part of your work?
7) What inspires you?
8) What do you hope to teach your children by being a mother/business owner?
9) What does "success" mean to you?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Man I love my job...

I just got off a coaching call with a longtime client of mine, and I am once again filled to the brim with power, energy, good feelings, positive thoughts. Coaching has a way of making things right in my world.

This job is unlike others I've had before. Working in academia and Corporate America satisfied my needs to learn, to keep challenging myself, to make money, to be acknowledged, to help others. But two things that are different when I coach are that in this career, 1) I get to make a difference, and 2) I get back much more than I give.

I am so inspired by the risks my clients are willing to take in order to fulfill on their commitments. Again and again, they are willing to be vulnerable, willing to be honest, to be uncomfortable, to be wrong. They are some of the most courageous people I have ever known.

At the end of each coaching session I usually assign a client some "practices" to create new habits or to move toward their goals. The idea for these practices come to me as I coach the client and are always specific to that person. Nonetheless, I find that I often adopt a few of my clients' practices for myself, allowing me to learn something new. Even as I coach and teach, I get to learn. I'm addicted to learning, and I feel so fortunate to have the mentors in my life that I've found in my clients.

Great Quote

“If we don't change our direction we're likely to end up where we're headed."

This Chinese proverb gives me so much to think about. It reminds me that no matter what I think I'm doing, I am making choices every minute of every day. And those choices are creating my present and my future. And if I pay attention to those choices I'm making (and to the ones I'm avoiding making), I can have a lot of say in what my future looks like and where I end up.

Love it.

The costs of coaching...or not

On a message board regarding mentoring, a businessman noticed what he considered to be a "paradox of coaching": that coaches and mentors seem to be most effective helping the already successful people "get better" or succeed even more, while those who are experiencing a crisis, a failure, or who truly need it the most probably can't afford high coaching fees. Is this truly a paradox?

I can't speak for all coaches out there, as there are many different coaching philosophies and flavors. But I can tell you what coaching is to me, who it helps and when it helps.

First of all, let's consider that "being successful" and "needing help" are both subjective phrases. Who needs "help", and what kind of help do they need? What does it mean to get better--is this to improve one's life and live one's dreams, or is it to recover from a health issue, a bad relationship, or a sudden, significant life change?

I believe that coaching is on the continuum of well-being and self-improvement. On one end is therapy, which is critical for resolving problems from the past in order to experience the present. On the other is coaching, which doesn't work when a pathology is present (e.g.: depression, alcoholism, abuse). Coaching works "from the future" so to speak, creating the life you want in the future right now in the present. It is clearly self-improvement. It is certainly striving for something better. It requires a willingness to study oneself critically and a readiness to change. But coaching is not necessarily "help" in the context of managing/surviving a crisis.

No doubt coaching can be quite expensive. But so can keeping the status quo. And there's probably nothing as expensive as merely surviving.

Sometimes it's helpful to consider the following questions:
- How much is the stress of your job costing you?
- How much income are you wasting by not achieving the promotion you desire / finding the right career right now?
- How much will you pay in healthcare and insurance for not being able to stay on track with healthy eating and fitness goals?
- How much money will you waste when your start-up business goes belly up?

These are just a few examples of questions that directly impact the bottom line. This is to say nothing of the other "costs" (emotional, physical, family, friends, etc.) associated with these issues.

There are many governmental programs, including therapy, job/career counseling, debt counseling, etc. available to those who make a few bad choices and wind up in serious financial crisis. Coaching does not replace these.

If you are satisfied with your life the way it is, coaching won't help. If you sense that there is more to the life that you are currently living, but you aren't sure what that looks like or how to get there, a coach might be a great partner.

How can we teach young people to make good decisions?

Good decision-making is a skill that I consider critical to a happy/successful life. Here is a method I teach to my clients (and eventually to my own little people):

When faced with a moment of choice, ask yourself the following questions.
1. What would I choose according to my personal values (honesty/financial security/loyalty/compassion, etc.)?
2. What is my ultimate goal in this situation (be promoted, support another, expand my leadership, etc.)?
3. What am I committed to (quality family time, exceeding the project goal, meeting the timeline, better health, etc.)?
4. Imagine yourself 1/2/5/20 years from now. What choice will you make today that will move you toward where you want to be in the future?

Oh yeah, and here's the fun part: answering all of these questions thoughtfully before making your decision may not keep you from making a bad one. Indeed, so much of learning these life skills is experiential in nature. "Good" as a quality only exists in its comparison to other qualities like "bad," "better," or "best." It is both expected and required that we all make a few mistakes in order to learn to do things differently. Nonetheless, it seems to me that a decision made in alignment with one's personal values, commitments, goals and future vision will be perfect. And after that perfect choice will be opportunity for another choice, and yet another...

Finally, beneath all of this "how-to" advice on making decisions is one crucial element. As we make choices, we will certainly be judged by others. We'll make good choices, bad choices, and we'll avoid making choices, ignoring the issue with every hope that it will just go away (Of course, that is still making a choice.). The key to success, happiness, power, etc. is owning the choices we make. If you make the best decision, OWN IT. Take responsibility for it and celebrate yourself. Allow others to celebrate with you. When you make a bad decision, OWN IT. Take responsibility for it without looking to lay blame on circumstances or the actions of others. Look for what was missing, consider what your commitment is, and make a powerful choice next time.

In my mind, this philosophy of personal responsibility is one of the most significant gifts we can give to our young people. AND one of the most powerful.

What is compassion?

Earlier today I was reading through some posts on a networking site I subscribe to, and one of the participants posted this question.

For me, compassion has two parts that make it whole. First is compassion for oneself. Can you make mistakes, fail miserably, really mess things up and take responsibility for it? There is no one to blame; you simply own what happens to you. At the same time, can you forgive yourself and allow your mistakes, your humanity, and accept these mistakes as part of a process of learning, growing, and living? If you have compassion for yourself, then you can have compassion for others. There is no need to judge others from a distance and from a feeling of superiority. You recognize that they, like you, make mistakes, mess up, fail on occasion as part of living their life. If we practice compassion for others, we allow ourselves to be related to others and accept them on their own terms, wherever they are at the moment.

I've noticed that when I find myself getting aggravated by the actions of others, or when I'm holding a grudge against someone for something that rubbed me the wrong way, it's always related to my being aggravated or angry with myself. This correlation always exists. When I have a moment of clarity and realize this, I ask myself what it is I'm really mad about. If I'm snapping at my kids for asking for a third afternoon snack in two hours, sometimes I realize that I'm angry about my own needs not being met. I lose my compassion for their needs because I can't allow myself my own. If I can forgive myself for my crankiness, I can forgive them for their sweet selfishness and all lack of reason :). If I can have compassion for my own selfishness, my own irrational thinking, the times I "lose it" and qualify for the Bad Parent of the Year Award, then I can forgive others and allow them their imperfections, no matter their age and level of maturity.