I am a big proponent of having outside eyes review your business to look for ways to improve your strategies and processes. As a business owner you are simply too close to the trees to see the forest.

I review marketing for clients and I provide feedback that helps them get results; however I am frequently a victim of my own business-owner blindness. About one and one half years ago I had one of those “This is so obvious! How did I miss it?” moments.

I bought a domain name to advertise for a new email opt-in freebie I created. I did not build a new website for it; I forwarded the URL to a landing page I created. I had done this (or a variation) for clients many times.

I use a free website account from Weebly.com. My website address is MyBusinessTweets.weebly.com. I could pay for an upgrade and use a custom URL (that would remove the weebly part) but I have not. At first, I did not have the money. I did not have a regular, pay-me-every-month client until my fourth month in business and now it does not matter to me if a potential client thinks less of me because I use a free website. The people I want to work with understand that done is better than perfect.

Here is the “obvious” part. I bought MyBusinessTweets.com almost two years before my “obvious” moment. My Business Tweets was going to be the name of a Twitter guide I started and then abandoned halfway through when Twitter changed their format and rendered my screen shots obsolete. When I started my business I chose that unused name for my business, but the URL connection never got made in my head until a year later.

So for the first slightly more than a year the website listed on my business cards was MyBusinessTweets.weebly.com. When I was interviewed I spelled out that whole URL. That is no longer the case. I logged in to GoDaddy and forwarded MyBusinessTweets.com to MyBusinessTweets.weebly.com. Now potential customers are less likely to make errors entering my website when they hear me on a podcast or radio interview.

If I had been my client I would have noticed that “obvious” oversight right away and recommended I change it, but I could not see the forest for the trees in my own business. If you have the budget to hire a coach to help you improve your strategies and processes, do it. If you are cash poor in your business ask a fellow business owner that has strengths in your weak areas to mutually brainstorm businesses with you. Chances are you will both get action ideas to improve your businesses.

Until next time…

Have a great day,
Susanne

If you feel you are spinning your marketing wheels, join me for a Marketing strategy session.

We all have times when we feel inadequate. Even me and I have enough confidence for twenty people! Somehow or another I managed to get slammed with extra work in October and had five new, large projects that should have been completed in October. Four of those were client projects. How many were finished?

Zero. Nada. Zilch. Not even one! I have been feeling like the biggest loser in the world the past few weeks.

Today that has all changed. Did I finally finish all those projects?

Nope.

I finished one project. I did a great job on it (if I do say so myself) and I am taking the time to celebrate. Celebrating this one victory has improved my outlook for the other four (late) projects.

I fully expect to have two more of the projects finished before the end of this weekend. Yes, I am working the weekend because clients are counting on me and I let myself get stretched too thin.

I had to keep telling clients I could not deliver in as timely a manner as I had planned. Every project was taking longer than I had anticipated and I had to hear the disappointment in my client’s voices when I said it would be at least another week again… and again.

What do you do when you find yourself in an impossible situation? Do you put on your “big kid” underpants and take responsibility for your contribution to the predicament? Do you retreat, tell yourself you are a loser and quit?

We have bad days (or weeks), but not everything is bad on those days. Celebrate your little victories and your celebrations will energize you toward larger victories.

Until next time…

Have a great day,
Susanne


If you feel you are spinning your marketing wheels, join me for a Marketing strategy session.