Taking your own medicine
It’s nose to the grindstone time. I’m actually taking my own advice and writing a legit business and marketing plan. It’s something I advise clients to do all the time. Heck, they pay me to do much of it for them. Yet do I successfully manage to do it for myself?
To date? No.
But now it’s time for all that to change. The reason?
Well, if I’m to be honest, the first year of Happonen Communications in 2006 we were really focused on basic establishment elements. You know, the logistics. Where would we get our office? What about a website? Oh, and all those pesky business licenses and permits.
By 2007 we were keenly tuned into what most businesses would call “sales.” Income stream is typically what many businesses list as their reason for not investing time in a business and marketing plan. They claim to be too busy drumming up business, and then servicing that business, to successfully complete a document as formidable as a business plan. Ignoring, of course, how such a document may assist them in focusing on their strengths and thus growing their business more efficiently.
Last year, we were “too busy” servicing the clients we pursued in 2007 and growing our reach by bringing Johannes on-board full time to provide much-needed multimedia tools and creative counsel.
And just as we started to figure it all out, the economy took a nose dive and we began watching clients systematically cut their marketing budgets…or close their doors all together.
I could kick myself. After three years, our business has evolved significantly. And we need to wrap our arms around it if we are ever to find success identifying and achieving growth goals.
We in the MarCom world often fall victim to a bit of the “cobblers kids have no shoes” syndrome. We’re great at talking about other people’s business, identifying their most compelling stories, and garnering attention from the right audiences to grow sales. But we fail to devote that same attention to our own kind. It’s a crime.
So I’m embedded in planning. Better late than never, I suppose. Actually, I’m rather enjoying it. In many ways, I’m attempting to step outside of the business and try to see it from the perspective of the client. And because I’m so personally wrapped up in the business, in many ways attempting to understand it from the perspective of how outsiders view it is much like attempting to understand how others view me. Hmmm…I wonder if there’s a Facebook quiz for this? If my business were a flower it would be….a thorny rose? a dainty daisy? a venus fly-trap?
I digress already. Back to work.
