Traditionally, summer is pretty slow when it comes to business. What if you looked at summer as your very own Think Tank time – sort of like a summer camp retreat for your business? It’s an excellent time to slow down; get off the hamster wheel and do some visioning on the second half of your business year. Here are a few ideas:
Remember those oral reports we had to do as kids: What I did for Summer Vacation? Somehow mine always involved explaining how I broke the latest bone. (Just say “NO” to camping! Girl Scouts can be dangerous! Para-military cookie pushers….)
Now,
we’re all grown up and don’t have summer camp to look forward to. That’s a plus for me.
Traditionally, summer is pretty slow when it comes to business. What if you looked at summer as your very own Think Tank time – sort of like a summer camp retreat for your business? It’s an excellent time to slow down; get off the hamster wheel and do some visioning on the second half of your business year. Here are a few ideas:
Conduct an audit on:
Website: Really read your content. Does it say what your target market needs to say? Do you need some repositioning? Do some polls. Get some feed back. Refine. Refocus. Re do. Here’s some more website refinement tips:
• Link Popularity Analysis How many links are pointing to your web site and how effective are they?
• Search Engine Friendly Analysis How well designed is your web site for the search engines?
• Web Site Analytics Review How well does your web site function for converting visitors to buyers/leads?
• Keyword Research What keywords is your web site currently ranking for?
• Competitor’s Comparative Review How do you stack up to your competitors?
• Summary of Web Site Audit The web site audit will have revealed some areas for improvement on your web site. This is your task list.
Marketing: Are you marketing? What are you doing? Do you have an over-riding goal? Here are some suggestions:
Focus on building your list. Lead generation is the most important goal for marketing. Why? That’s where all of your work comes from. It allows you to grow your relationships with potential clients. It allows you to display your unique expertise. Your very targeted niched list is where your business lives or dies. You need three things in place for your marketing to be effective.
• A professional-looking website. Even if it’s just the landing page, an about you page, a service/product page, and a contact page.
• An email sign up form. Have one on every single page.
• A gift for signing up. This might be a short checklist, a 3- to 5-page report – remember to include the next step you want them to take like to call you or whatever
Second, you need to program in your marketing tasks into every day so that they’re consistent. 30 minutes a day is plenty to start making a difference. Here are some tasks to consider:
• Weekly email newsletter. It can be just a tip, but be sure that you’re in front of that list with something valuable every week
• Blog. Repurpose your newsletter material to your blog – no brainer
• Article posting. Post the article or tip from your newsletter to other places around the web – get exposure
• Social networking. Post your blog link, new article link, status updates to your social media profiles on FaceBook, Linked In, Twitter, Biznik – whatever
• Speak up. Think about doing some talks in front of your target market. There are tons of business groups, MeetUps, chambers – they want experts come talk – so go talk
• Joint Venture. Get to know other experts that offer services to your target market. Brainstorm ways to work together.
• Direct Mail. Send some postcards – to old clients, new clients, your list, people you’d like to partner with…
• Offline events. Plan on attending some conferences, events, lunch and learns, whatever…
Instead of thinking of marketing as this weird unnatural set of tasks – shift your thinking to it being energy. The more energy you create, the more energy comes back to you. Last tip – automate whatever you can.
Income Streams: I’m doing a free webinar about the Income Matrix next month. We’ve been teaching that at the Self-Employed Academy for a year now and it’s very powerful. It’s a method of strategically planning your income streams so that they help create stable revenue whatever is going on in the economy.
Here’s a few things to consider while you’re basking by the pool:
• How can you get away from selling hours for dollars?
• How can you repurpose what you’ve already done and already know into an event or product
• How can you leverage the people you know to create those events or products
Your Target Market: Lastly, take a look at your target market. Are they snapping up what you’re offering? If not, maybe they’re not the right target. OR maybe you’re not delivering the solutions they need. Spend this time to really fine tune your niche. If you’re trying to sell services to people who cannot afford it, you’re wasting your time. Upgrade and repackage.
I hope these tips help. Let me know how you do – I’ll want an oral report in September.
