by Laura West
AUDIO
Here is your Miracle Marketing Message audio. This audio is designed to help you start your week with inspiration, reflection, positive intention and some smart marketing ideas!
Listen to: Don’t run your catamaran into the ship! Plan, Act, Pay Attention & Adjust!
ARTICLE
I love creative business planning. I always have. From creating business and marketing plans as a marketing director of a shopping center or creating hundreds of them over the years as VP of Marketing.
I love the process and the tools: calendars of all sizes (big wall calendars and small portable journal calendars) sticky notes, pens, markers… and most of all the ideas and possibilities, all the things that go with creative business planning.
Here’s what I have learned from decades of planning: you absolutely need a plan, without a doubt you need a plan. Then you got to take action based your plan.
Then here’s the real secret that no one talks about: you need to pay attention.
Pay attention to what happens. Once you take action and put your podcast, ebook, or new program out into the world, notice what is the feedback, do you need to boost the visibility, does the pricing feel right, is your energy still excited?
What new information is available now that you have taken action?
You can have the best, most amazing plans in place, but it’s not until you have taken action and put your project out into the world, be it a podcast, a book, a marketing plan, a new program or service, do you get real feedback as to if the plans are on track.
My first husband is a sailor. Our first date was a lovely sunset ride on Chesapeake Bay on his catamaran. Over the years what I noticed on that catamaran is that to get somewhere specific, you had to make a plan, head in that direction, and then make a series of adjustments depending on the current, the wind, the sudden changes in the wind, or even when a gigantic container ship came into the bay, it would block the wind and you had to come up with a whole new plan.
If you tried to just stay your course, you would end up in big trouble!
It’s the same in your business.
Create plans. Big, juicy, engaging plans that you are really, really excited about.
Commit to following through with those plans and take action.
But then pay attention.
And then make adjustments to your plans. (Hey, it’s a great reason to keep a fresh supply of sticky notes and markers nearby!). This will be how you actually get to where you want to go.
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