Posted by Marie on March 11, 2012
This short, little book has developed a giant reputation for itself. I was expecting a very surface-based, common-sensed read.
Instead, the book impressed by getting me to think seriously about its assertion that mass marketing and the use of over-saturation to gain market share are things of the past.
The new in-road, says Purple Cow, is to win over the small number of dedicated and practical early users of your product or service. And you do that by targeting narrowly and specifically. Trying to appeal to the widest audience possible will only end in failure.
I’m not sure that I’m fully convinced of all this in the absolute, but I do believe that the premise is especially useful to small businesses and therefore worth the read.
Posted by Marie on January 8, 2012
Simple, effective, and brilliant. Courtesy of David Tanimura.
Posted by Marie on December 30, 2011
Previously:
The last three days have been pretty active. Today, let’s sit and dream a while.
Imagine your perfect business year. What happens? What are you doing? What is your company like? What does your company feel like?
Let’s wallow in that for a bit, shall we?
From that vision, can you draw three big-picture goals? A goal has three requirements that makes it different from a mere wish.
- A goal is measurable. You know if you have completed it or not.
- A goal is time specific. There are deadlines.
- A goal is achievable through incremental steps.
Stating good goals is harder than it seems but once you get there, you will have a prioritization plan for the year. Those goals can drive your decision-making. You’ll just keep asking, “Does this take me one step closer or one step farther away from my reaching my goal?” If the work is put in ahead of time, it’s amazing how easily the day-to-day, nitpicky details tend to fall into place.
Now picture yourself at the end of 2012 and feel the glow of your accomplishments. It can definitely be.
Happy year’s end, everyone! And all the best for the next one!
Posted by Marie on December 29, 2011
Previously:
I bet you are not ending 2011 the same way you began it. We live in a world of quick changes, and that is affecting both our business lives and our personal lives. We update our budgets. We update our goals. But our daily and weekly schedules are often overlooked.
As Julie Morgenstern says, time is like your closet. Thinking of time in a physical sense makes it easier to handle. When you add a garment to your closet, a certain amount of space is taken up. Nothing else can go there. And once the closet is filled up, everything else is overflow and creates a mess.
True, right? So start looking at your days, weeks, and year as a series of time blocks. What are you going to fit in those? Do you want to devote more energies into improving customer response times? Adding additional services? Getting a new logo? Or perhaps you want to simplify your processes. Maybe even take more time off.
All of that can be visualized with a working schedule. It does not have to be your hard-and-fast rule, but it can certainly keep you on track and avoid wasted hours.
When do you wake up? By what time are you at work? On what day do you send out invoices? Report sales tax? The act of plotting it all out really helps decision making and the process of realizing what is possible and what is not.
Give it a try and plot out a single day in your life. Then you’ll see what a difference a schedule can make in your productivity and sense of purpose.
Tomorrow, brainstorm and prioritize.
Posted by Marie on December 28, 2011
Yesterday was a great day to clean up your physical workspace. So today, let’s move on to the business technology.
How does your computer’s desktop look? You’ll feel just as wonderful looking at an uncluttered screen as you do sitting at an uncluttered desk.
- Go through your contacts in your phone(s), email(s), and database(s). Update and delete.
- Create subfolders named 2011 and drag all your completed projects into them. Now that blank space is ready to receive your 2012 work.
- Tackle that email! Delete, file, archive, and back up.
Tomorrow, reconfigure your schedule.
