The Best New Year’s Resolution for Your Marketing
It wouldn’t be a new year without New Years’ resolutions. We’ve made plenty of them in our time. We’ve promised ourselves we would lose weight or eat right or a whole host of other things. Some of these resolutions never survived beyond the New Years’ party we were attending at the time. Others bit the dust even before February rolled around.
If you’re serious about taking your business to the next level, here’s one New Years’ resolution you’ll want to keep. This year spend time working ON your business and not just IN your business.
It’s just one tiny little word, but it’s a word that makes a world of difference. Working IN your business means exactly that. You’re involved in the day-to-day operations, often up to your eyeballs solving problems as they arise and laser-focused on the minute little details of the moment.
Working ON your business involves the long range, big picture planning and strategic initiatives that get you where you want to go. It’s here that you plan things like where you want to be in five years or how to start out the new business year with a bang. It’s where you try to anticipate challenges before they arise and examine what new opportunities will become available.
Working ON your business often gets thrown by the wayside due to the crunch of immediate priorities and crisis management. You have a stack of invoices that need to be taken care of now. You have a network crash to deal with or a status meeting with an important client. In short as a business owner, there’s plenty enough to do as it is.
Don’t fall into that trap. Set aside a specific time period EVERY WEEK to work ON your business and your marketing. It could be a specific day, half a day, or just a couple of hours. Even 15 minutes could make a difference. It may be tough to find the time on a busy day, but don’t let that stop you. Write it in pen on your calendar and post it outside your door so you aren’t disturbed. Highlight it in red on your Google calendar. Set alerts. Choose a separate location if you have to. Shut off your phone, take a deep breath and get to work.
The benefits are obvious. Why run around putting out fires when you can make sure they never start? Why do things the same tired old way when there are new solutions right around the corner that could save you time and money?
You get the idea. Time is precious, so if 15 minutes of planning saves you an hour of work you’re ahead of the curve. This year, don’t just work IN your business, work ON it and watch it pay off!