Marketing--One Baby Step at a Time

I recently started training for a triathlon—I know I can’t believe it either. The entire concept of swimming a half mile, biking 18 miles and running just over three was so overwhelming that when I was first introduced to the idea I dismissed it without a second thought. But then my friend shared with me the 12 week training schedule that broke down each discipline into daily workouts that slowly builds up your endurance and stamina so that by the day of the race you “can do it” I realized that this might just be do-able.

I attended a New England Women Business Owners (NEWBO) program where Curtis Bingham of Predictive Consulting Group presented “Three Keys to Beat the Recession: Smart Strategies to Thrive Regardless of the Economy”. As a follow up to the program he distributed his “50 Ways to Make the Phones Ring”. I don’t know about you, but this definitely peaked my interest. As the weight of the economy continues to bear down on all of us—marketing becomes daunting. While business was booming we didn’t have time to market, now that we have the time, we don’t know where to start and/or we don’t have a lot of funds to invest. So I saw the list as a great guide to jumpstarting my own “recession” marketing efforts—but at first glance the list was very overwhelming. Or was it?

The same concept of breaking down the “training” for the triathlon can be applied to our marketing efforts. Decide what marketing goals you would like to achieve in the next 12 weeks. For example:
--Get one article published
--Get 3 testimonials from existing clients
--Create a Facebook page for my business
--Establish a Twitter account
--Update ¼ of my web pages
--Send out three electronic publications (email blasts and/or enewsletters)

Draw up a matrix showing each work day for the next 12 weeks and establish the amount of time that you can spend on marketing each day. Then populate the matrix with bite sized tasks that you can do each day and begin to build the momentum and increase your marketing stamina.

See how much you can get done in just one week without breaking a sweat—imagine what you can accomplish in twelve. Good luck!