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Is Your Marketing Budget Working Smarter, Not Harder?

“I want to work smarter, not harder in 2012,” a friend resolved at an annual New Years Day party where guests reflect on the past year and state intentions for the new one.

Working smarter often involves working harder at first, but not harder on the same old stuff. Working smarter means putting systems in place that conserve time, energy and money. But that work often means asking hard questions. Otherwise we would set up resource-saving systems more often!

Which brings me to marketing budgets. It’s easy to squander time and money, two equally valuable assets. Read more

Take a first step. Figure out the rest later.

“Ship often. Ship lousy stuff, but ship. Ship constantly.” —Seth Godin

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Diving in head first not only goes against conventional wisdom, but it goes beyond most people’s comfort zones.

We’re always told to plan, to be level headed, to be prudent, to be structured. The only problem is that our fear, doubt, procrastination, worry, perfectionism, definitions of success (add as necessary) trick us into staying put. But we believe that our delay is really prudence. Read more

To Know Where You’re Going, Know Who You’re Walking Towards

It is always easier to do than to plan to do. We often have an internal knowing about where we’re going and what we want to accomplish, whether it’s a visionary decision or a single project. So we skip the meaningful questions that help us chart the best path.

But the hard questions that stop you in your tracks are also proof that you’re getting somewhere. They involve thinking critically about who you are and why you do what you do. They call to mind selling and marketing, which most of us avoid.

But most of all, we’re not clear about who we’re walking towards. Or we’re walking towards everyone and no one. Read more

Trust How the Dots Connect

Do you plan your every step, knowing the results you want and what the destination looks and feels like? Do you work and work at something even if it doesn’t feel quite right, or because you chose that path you feel you must persevere?

Or, instead, do you coast along and hope that something appealing will snag you, or that you’ll an opportunity will drop at your feet?

Personally, neither sounds appealing, at least not all the time.

But there’s another option — a hybrid of the two. It can take some of the heat off if you feel like you fall into either of those categories. Or especially if you bounce back and forth between the two. Read more

Selling it, kid style

I live in a neighborhood of budding young entrepreneurs, which might be due to the socio-economic status of the parents. But as I take my daily walks, I get the shake down from five-year-olds who can barely talk but who can, at least, point to their wares such as five-cent, hand-painted popsicle sticks. I need to start carrying change with me. It’s hard to say no to a girl in Juliette-inspired dress with a lisp and waving a wand.

Fortunately, there’s no organic lemonade. Stands are, if admirably solid, still lacking polish, making them more appealing than if they looked as though an over-achieving parent had slaved to craft a mini Starbucks.

These kids have a natural business savvy. Many of us business owners bang our heads trying to figure out how to convince someone to hire us or even what specifically we sell. We look for just the right persuasive words. We wait to till our message is perfect before putting it out into the world. Only perfect never comes.

The most basic things really work:

• Meeting people where they are

• Delivering good service

• Being enthusiastic about your product or service

• Having a niche (lemonade or rocks or popsicle sticks, not all three)

• Create incentives to keep them coming back

On the way back from the market one day, I came across three boys. “Rocks for sale!” the youngest one yelled as he ran around a tree. “Spend five dollars and you get a coupon!” he shrieked.

A coupon for what, I asked the little boy. A coupon for more rocks, of course.

These three boys had a relaxed moxie and an air of confidence about their product, of which I found myself almost envious. A particularly interesting fossilized shell would set me back $1.50. I offered a dollar and they accepted—a little too quickly; their only weak point. But then I found a bright pink polished beauty that was only fifty cents. Still, I offered the dollar.

“I guess that makes me a pretty stupid customer,” I said.

The bouncy little boy yelled a little too loudly, “No it doesn’t. It makes you a smart customer!” He couldn’t say why when I asked him, but his sureness won me over and I was satisfied with being a smart customer.

No wonder they’d managed to amass over forty dollars in a few days. Fortunately, I’m not trying to sell rocks because the competition is stiff down the street.