Today, I’d like to share a profoundly important marketing and business development idea with you, which is often ignored.
What makes it “profoundly important”? It’s literally (not figuratively) essential if you want to build a successful business and a very bright financial future!
I need to start by asking you something: How many of the marketing tasks you worked on last week, were due last week? Your answer to that question is important. It’s a great snapshot of how long term (or short term) your current horizon is.
The next 6 months, 12 months and 36+ months
It’s natural to focus on making your next sale or getting your next customer enquiry. It’s really important, too. However, it’s profoundly important to come up for air and look to your future. To work on the foundations of your marketing and business development, which will determine your success over the next 6 months, 12 months and 36+ months.
This might include answering key questions like.
- How can you meaningfully increase the number of sales you make, in the next 6 months, 12 months and 36 months or more?
- And how can you increase the profitability of those sales?
- What could you be doing in order to significantly improve your customer retention rate and the number of customer referrals you receive?
- What valuable, new product or service could you be working on, for your current and future customers?
- Who are the useful people you need to introduce yourself to now, so you’ll have an existing relationship with them in your medium and longer term? There is a direct link between how well connected you are, and how successful your business will be. There’s more information on this here, (in the 3rd marketing tip).
Today’s important tasks absolutely need to be worked on. But the only way to build a spectacularly bright future, is to work today with your future in mind. To regularly invest your time, thinking, planning and imagination on where you want to be. And to resist the temptation of being so wrapped up in today’s business challenges, that you have too few foundations in place, for the future success and rewards you deserve.