Creating steady growth for your business is not rocket science. It boils down to a few essential components.
- A solid plan
- A narrow focus
- Consistent business development activities
- Accountability
- Tracking the data
When creating your marketing plan, start small. Hone in on a niche or an area of expertise. Don’t try to conquer everything at once but begin by marketing one area and then expanding from there. If your reach is too big at the start, you’ll chip a little away at everything but accomplish nothing.
Define your mission, vision, and purpose if you haven’t already. Your purpose should always include providing value and fulfilling a need for your clients.
Set clear goals about what you want to accomplish from a growth standpoint. What is your revenue goal for the year, how many new clients do you want to bring on? By figuring out the endpoint, you can determine what you need to do to get there.
Create the action items in your plan to build awareness for your niche and develop yourself as a thought leader. You can do this by organizations you’re involved with, networking, speaking engagements, content creation shared through your blog and social media, and communicating consistently to clients through email marketing campaigns.
Your goal should be to create awareness of what you do, educate, build a referral network, and it should go without saying to do an excellent job for your clients.
An important reminder – find someone to be your accountability partner. This is a CRITICAL component, whether that person is a colleague, employee, mentor, or coach. Without an accountability partner, it’s easy to fall off track with your actionable items. For many people, marketing and business development is not what you got into your career to do. You want to focus on being an attorney, CPA, or financial advisor. You don’t want to spend time on how people can find you.
This is not marketing-related but is a recent accountability example for me. I have a “small” goal to go to a Pilates class once a week. This week I wanted to fall off the wagon because of the amount of work I had on my plate. I had already talked myself out of going. That morning, I got a text from a friend saying she had signed up for the class. She asked if I wanted to join her. I wanted to say no, but I reluctantly said yes. If it weren’t for her text, I wouldn’t have gone because of the excuses I had made for myself. After the class, I was so glad that I went.
The same goes for an accountability partner for your marketing efforts. It’s easy to make excuses not to do your actionable marketing items as small as they may be. If you have someone keeping you accountable, you will likely keep chipping away at your goals rather than making excuses and not accomplishing them. Small steps lead to significant results.
Once you are a few months into implementing your plan, look at the traction you’ve made.
Evaluate what has worked so far and what has not. Your strategy should be data-driven. If something isn’t working, stop doing it. Change your strategy. There’s no point in spending your time or money on something that’s not working. However, remember that many of these efforts don’t come to fruition right away. A growth strategy can take time, so be sure to consider that.
So, there you have it! Not rocket science, right? Anyone can create steady growth for their business. All that is needed is a plan, a narrow focus, consistency, accountability, and data!
