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What You Need to Know About Digital Marketing

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There’s a lot of talk about digital marketing right now, and you’ve probably used the term yourself, but what is it, exactly, and how can it help you grow your business?

It’s helpful first to distinguish between traditional marketing and digital marketing.

Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

At their core, they’re both marketing: the act of moving goods and services from the producer to the consumer, and it can encompass all stages of the process including market research, product conception, advertising/messaging, product delivery and post-purchase activities such as reviews and referrals.

Before there was digital marketing, there was only one kind of marketing – what we now call traditional marketing.

But with the advent of the internet, the new methods for marketing necessitated a way to distinguish those methods that use the internet and its associated electronic devices and those which do not, and that is the defining difference between the two:

Traditional Marketing uses conventional methods such as printed materials, broadcast (television and radio), postal mail and telephone calls.

Digital Marketing uses online approaches in a variety of forms, such as websites, email, text messages, social media, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, referral marketing and sophisticated automation and tracking.

But wait, there’s more…

Digital marketing not only uses these various online techniques, it uses them together to create an interconnected process of engaging, tracking, measuring and optimizing the consumer’s interaction with a particular brand or company.

So even though both types are ‘marketing,’ digital marketing takes marketing to a higher tier of effectiveness, providing opportunities to engage with consumers on their terms.

And that’s where things really get exciting, because digital marketing makes it possible to create relationships with those consumers, long before they become customers.

These relationships develop out of familiarity and trust and are built because you as the marketer are able to put yourself and your product and offer help where those consumers are spending their time online: participating on social media channels, using search engines, clicking ads, reading emails, browsing websites and watching videos.

Digital Marketing Helps Consumers Find You

In some cases, the consumer is actively looking for your product by using search engines. They may not know you exist yet, but by searching for a solution to a problem or an answer to a question they have, they learn you exist when your ‘digital assets’ appear in the search results.

These assets could be content marketing pieces such as blog posts, social media pages or posts, videos, infographics, reviews left by previous customers, downloadable resources or online tools such as quizzes.

By using paid ads within the search engines and by optimizing your website content for search, you can increase the likelihood that your ads and content will show up early in their search.

Digital Marketing Helps You Find Consumers

In other cases, consumers aren’t looking for you, but if you understand the persona of your ideal customer, you can look for them and ‘show up’ where they are.

Using the advertising capability of social media platforms, for example, you can target and offer helpful content to people who match the characteristics of your targeted prospects.

And it only gets better from there…

Once these consumers begin interacting with your digital assets, you can start identifying them, tracking their behavior and ‘showing up’ more frequently where they are spending time.

For example, they may give you their email address in exchange for a downloadable resource, or they may ‘like’ your page on Facebook.

From this point, you can use email marketing, retargeting, permission-based texting and phone calls, chat bots, video marketing, free offers, and a whole host of other ‘digital marketing’ tactics to build a trusting, help-based relationship with these consumers.

But you won’t be using these tactics blindly.

As Edwards Deming, Grandfather of the Lean Startup, said…

“In God we trust; all others must bring data”

One of the main strengths of digital marketing is the ability to measure the performance of your efforts across the channels you use.

You don’t have to guess whether your marketing is effective or profitable, because you can use KPIs or Key Performance Indicators to determine what is working and what is not.

These KPIs vary depending on what is important to you and the kind of marketing you are doing.  They could be YouTube channel subscribers, email open and click rates, time spent on website pages, number of opt-ins on a landing page, likes or shares on social media posts, paid and organic traffic hits, mobile vs desktop views and of course, return on investment for all methods.

Based on the metrics you measure, you can constantly ‘course correct’ to create an ongoing, effective digital marketing strategy.

A Smart Way to Achieve Your Marketing Objectives

When used effectively, digital marketing is a smart way to achieve your marketing objectives by creating awareness of your product for your target market, establishing a trusting relationship with them, tracking their engagement with your brand, and then turning them into customers and raving fans.

How to Measure Offline Marketing

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As a small business owner, you likely allocate a large portion of your marketing budget to online methods such as Facebook, blogging, Google ads, email marketing and YouTube.  And with the ability to track engagement, consumption, shares and sales, it’s easy to get an accurate picture of how effective your digital marketing efforts are.

But as powerful as internet marketing is, there is still a place for offline marketing. People haven’t stopped responding to ‘real world’ methods of advertising such as fliers, newspapers, billboards and business cards.

The trick is to find a way to track the effectiveness of these offline efforts.

For decades, measuring the success of offline marketing campaigns was difficult at best, because there was no easy way to determine the effectiveness of any particular ad or media spot. But it’s possible now to combine digital tracking with ‘old school’ marketing tactics and enjoy the best of both worlds.

Here are a few ways you can use digital tracking to measure your offline marketing results:

1. UTM Codes

UTM is an abbreviation for “Urchin Traffic Monitor.”  It is a little piece of code that you can add to the end of your URLs that tells you how people found you.

When combined with vanity URLs and forwarding/redirects, UTM codes are powerful ways to measure the response between say, a flier or a particular radio spot.

For example, you might direct your radio listeners to wwwfreesample.com but forward that URL to yet another landing page, and in the forwarding URL, add in the UTM tracking parameters.

So the forwarding URL might look like this: www.yourwebsite/sample/?utm_source=radio1&utm_medium=offline&utm_campaign=free_sample

which would transfer the following information to Google Analytics:

Source: Radio1
Medium: Offline
Campaign:  Free sample

This method allows you to capture and transfer the needed tracking information without adding a long string of information to the URL that your prospects are typing into their browsers.

For a deeper dive into using UTM codes for offline campaigns, click here.

2. Coupon Codes

If you’re making a special offer in your campaign, using coupon codes is another great way to segment your customers.  The idea is similar to using UTM codes: just create a different code for each channel, and you’ll be able to easily track which channel is generating the most conversions.

3. QR Codes

This method requires a bit more tech savviness, so use this method if you think your audience is up for it.  When your prospect scans your QR code, you can automatically trigger trackable actions.  Consider adding QR codes to postcards, fliers and event ‘swag.’

4. Multiple Landing Pages

One of the simplest ways to track offline campaigns is to create a different landing page (or website) for each offline channel. Once your visitors land on your pages, you can track them with analytics and convert them with an offer on the page.  Just be sure to keep the URLs short and easy to remember and type. If the URL is long or complicated, you’ll lose people quickly. A link shortening tool such as bitly can help with this.

5. Different Phone Numbers

Create multiple, unique phone numbers for your company that all funnel to your main phone line.  By associating each unique number with a particular marketing promotion, you’ll have easy-to-interpret performance metrics.

6. Custom Email Addresses

If your call-to-action is a request for your prospect to email you, you can track response based on the email address used.

7. Keyword Texting

Include keyword text and phone number calls-to-action with your offline marketing materials.

Most people have their phones close at hand, so it’s quick and easy for them to text a keyword to your phone number to opt-in. You can follow up with a request for more info (name and email address), and then track the campaign based on the keyword and/or phone number variations that you have in place.

Just keep the keywords short, and if possible, let them know ahead of time what they will experience after they text the keyword to your number.

With the ability to track offline initiatives, there’s no need to miss out on the potential benefits of this method of marketing. It takes some planning, but it’s worth the benefit of attracting new leads and converting them to delighted customers.

Digital Marketing Trends for 2019

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If you own a business, you cannot ignore digital marketing. Whether your company is strictly brick and mortar, completely online or a combination of both, digital marketing is likely the most effective means of connecting with your prospects, building an audience and creating revenue and referrals.

But to stay competitive, you’ll need to be aware of the anticipated marketing trends for the new year, so we’ve pulled together some of the top strategies to keep an eye on for 2019. The good news is that all of these are within easy reach of small business owners, so read through the list, and choose a few to enhance your 2019 marketing plan.

  1. Trust

Establishing a trusting relationship with consumers isn’t necessarily a novel idea – or is it? Sadly, it is becoming increasingly rare.  With the explosion of fake news, data breaches and spam issues, people more and more want to do business with people they can trust.

So, be trustworthy and transparent. Use whatever means you can to show you are real, that you have their best interest at heart and that you can be trusted. This can be done through email, video, social media, testimonials, and guarantees.

  1. Social Stories

When combined with the FOMO (fear of missing out) phenomenon, social stories are positioned to be one of the top ways to engage your audience in 2019.

They’re already exploding in popularity, up 842 percent since 2016, and thanks to their disappearing nature, there is an urgency to consume them. If you’re not already using stories, experiment with them to determine how best to use them in your marketing.

  1. Chatbots

Artificial intelligence meets small business in chatbots, and they keep popping up – because they work and because they appeal to large segments of the population.

Some people want to talk to a live person, but not everyone does, and chatbots can save time and be a real enhancement of customer service.  Combine this method of communication with the option of also connecting with a live person at your company, and you’ll have the best of both worlds, appealing to every visitor.

  1. Vertical Video

Vertical video used to be anathema – the demand was for wide-screen, horizontal videos.  But the trend is changing fast.  According to this report there are several reasons why vertical is the way to go, including the fact that most of us are on our phones when we watch videos (and the natural position to hold our phones is vertically), it can produce more views and more engagement and it allows the viewer to focus more easily on the content with fewer distractions.

  1. Email Marketing Automation + Personalization

Even with all the new trends and techniques on the block, marketing automation is still high on the list of effective digital marketing strategies. What’s working?  The more personalized you can make your email marketing, the better it will perform. People like to be ‘known.’ They like targeted suggestions based on previous history.  So use this to your full advantage.

If you’re already using a marketing automation software such as Infusionsoft, be sure you’re taking full advantage of it to personalize your follow up.  Use retargeting on social media, browsing habits, purchase history and email engagement to create a personalized experience for your audience.

Are you noticing other trends in digital marketing?  Share in the comments below!

Are You Asking for Customer Feedback?

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After you’ve created your product or service and have made sales, how do you know if your clients are satisfied with their experiences with your business?

The only way your business can grow is by creating happy customers, and the only way to know if they are happy is to ask them. When you ask for and then use customer feedback correctly, it can be a major source of improvement for your product or service.

How to use feedback

Their positive comments will let you know what’s working.  You’ll learn the specifics about your product that appeal to your customer base, and these are the features and benefits you can highlight in future marketing materials. If you pay attention to the language they use to describe what they like about your product, you can use that language to speak directly to potential customers in sales and promotional copy.

Learning what your customers like will also provide insight into future products and services that you can create.  If a particular aspect is appealing, look for ways to expand or scale that feature into additional offerings.

But positive comments are only half the value you receive when asking for feedback; the negative feedback is just as important.

You’ll never be able to please everybody all the time, so you should expect to receive some negative feedback, and when you do, use it to your advantage: it lets you know what is not working and shows you where you can improve.

Is there a problem with the product itself?  Maybe your customer service team is not performing up to your standards.  Perhaps the market is trending in a different direction and your offerings need to be updated.

The temptation to take negative feedback personally is strong, but if you can resist the urge and instead view the comments as instructional, you may find you have an invaluable resource teaching you exactly what needs to be changed for your company to grow.

How to ask for feedback

When it comes to asking for feedback, we recommend being specific so you have data to work with when you receive responses back.

For example, a five star rating option is fine, as long as you’re asking for a rating on a specific aspect.  Rather than asking, “How would you rate our product?” ask, “How would you rate the speed of delivery of the product?” or “How would you rate the team communication?”

Starting a conversation with an open-ended question is also a powerful way to get useful feedback.  Rather than asking a yes/no question (Was your experience positive?), ask a question that requires more detail (What could we have done better?).

When asking for feedback, you may also want to offer an incentive for their responses – such as a coupon or another valuable gift.  This is especially helpful if your customer base has a poor participation rate.

How to respond to feedback

Finally, interact with those who give you feedback.  Responding to both the positive and the negative comments lets them know you value their opinion and that their time has not been wasted.

Look for ways to right any wrongs for those who have had a negative experience and for those who are happy with your company, it’s a perfect time to express your gratitude and to ask for referrals.

Writing Tips for Effective Content Marketing

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Writing great copy is essential for any successful business.  Even with the current emphasis on video and podcasting, the written word is still one of the most powerful ways to attract and engage your ideal prospects.

And now, more than ever, marketing copy has to be compelling and carefully crafted, because we’re all experiencing ‘information overload.’ It is estimated that most Americans have exposure to approximately 4,000 – 10,1000 advertisements each day. Because of this ‘content’ saturation, we’ve developed an unconscious, sophisticated screening process for what we pay attention to and engage with, and what we ignore.

And we ignore a lot.

But if your content is thoughtfully created, keeping top-of-mind the needs, interests and desires of your niche market, you can make it through their ‘content filter’ and get their attention. Your ideal prospects have grown weary of generalized, boiled chicken content; they need instead real value, real problems solved, real questions answered.

Here then we will look at a few techniques you can use to create high quality content that is easily consumed, stands out, gets read and shared, and ultimately drives your prospects to profitable action.

Don’t Make SEO Your First Priority

The first and most important thing to do when writing content you want to be seen and read is to write for the reader and to write in a way that feels natural and creates the best reading experience.

You don’t need to ignore SEO. It’s important to consider optimal length, keywords and metadata. But those features should enhance your content, not dictate it.

Let Them Know You Know Them

Getting intimately familiar with your ideal customer is always time well spent.

  • How old are they?
  • What is their occupation?
  • What are their challenges?
  • What goals do they have?
  • What keeps them up at night?
  • What are they searching for?

Knowing the answers to these questions will inform the kind of content you write and the language you use, and when your prospects read it, they will instantly be drawn in. This blog post by Digital Marketer has more tips on creating a customer avatar and offers a free worksheet to help you collect and organize the information.

Be Useful

Your readers have allowed your content through their filters, so reward them. Give them what they are searching for, answer their questions, give them solutions and be sure to include a relevant call to action so they can pursue deeper engagement with you.

Link Authoritative Resources

Linking out to authoritative resources demonstrates that you have your reader’s best interests at heart and that you’ve done your research. Whatever your niche market is, they will recognize the names of key industry leader names and brands, creating an immediate sense of trust and connection with you.

Make it Entertaining

Don’t forget to make your content entertaining though. While you want to be considered an authoritative resource in your own right, this shouldn’t come at the expense of readability. Make sure your content is entertaining and your headlines grab attention.

Presentation is Key: Break Up Your Content

As with cooking, presentation is important for content marketing. This isn’t the place to practice those awesome 5 paragraph essay skills you perfected in English 101. Content Marketing has its own key features that make it easy for readers to get in, get what they want and get out.

For example, notice how this article is broken into segments with separate headings. This prevents it from looking dense and it ensures that your reader can quickly get the information they’re looking for.

White space is also a good idea:  short sentences and paragraphs, bullets, and carefully positioned graphics also increase the chances that the reader will spend more time with your content.

Consider the User Experience

If your readers have to work hard to consume your content on their device, they will click away. We’ve all had the experience of trying to read non-mobile responsive content on a mobile device. The scrolling, pinching and chasing necessary to see all the content is enough to make the most patient person give up and move on.

When creating content, check the presentation on different sized devices before publishing. It’s a simple step with a big payoff.

Use these techniques to audit your current content and create more effective content in the future, so you will stand out from the competing messages and get the attention of your ideal customers.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

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Whether you’re writing a blog post, creating a social media post or putting together an email series, you need images.   Why?  Because we’re naturally drawn to visual content.

Here are some interesting stats:

  • 90% of the information sent to the human brain is visual, and we process images 60,000 times faster than we process text.1
  • Eye-tracking studies show that when looking at a website, people spend 10% more time looking at visuals than they do reading text. 2

Plus, using visual content in your marketing collateral can increase interest in your content and improve engagement via clicks and shares – which is the point of your content in the first place!

Where to find images royalty_free_images

Now that we’ve established the importance of using images in marketing, the next consideration is where to find images.

There are plenty of paid sites that offer image downloads for a fee (such as 123rf and Shutterstock), and there are times when these sites might be the only place you can find exactly what you want.

But there are plenty of other sites that offer royalty-free images.  Royalty-free means that you are able to use the image without paying a royalty or license fee.

Here is a list of websites where you can find great royalty-free images:

  1. Unsplash
  2. Pixabay
  3. Stocksnap.io
  4. Free Images
  5. AllTheFreeStock
  6. Free Digital Photos

Finally, if you want to customize your photo by adding text or graphics, Canva or PicMonkey are great services that make it easy.

A final note – before using or editing any photo from the web, even from a site offering free images, double check the copyright restrictions to make sure you are in the clear.

 

1 http://www.t-sciences.com/news/humans-process-visual-data-better

2 https://piktochart.com/blog/visual-marketing-statistics/

5 Ways to Improve Email Deliverability

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As a small business owner, you put a lot of effort into creating the emails you send to your subscribers each week.  Writing emails is no small task, as each part of the email plays a critical role in whether your reader stays engaged.  From the subject line to the closing call to action, a well-crafted email is a piece of marketing art.

But what happens when you press the send button?

Does your email reach the inbox of your audience?  Maybe, maybe not.  It depends on your email deliverability – which refers to how well your emails are being delivered without being marked as spam or bouncing.

It’s a shame to spend all that time and energy creating the perfect email if it doesn’t reach the inboxes of the majority of your list, so let’s look at 5 ways to improve your email deliverability:

  1. Authenticate your emails. This lowers the chance that you will be mistaken as a spammer by spam filters, and it makes it harder for hackers to send email on your behalf. Setting up your Sender Policy Framework records (SPF) and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) protocol is a great first step to improving your email deliverability. Check with your web developer or email marketing platform for instructions to get your email authenticated.
  2. Get Positive Engagement. Email providers notice how your recipients are interacting with the emails you send. If they interact in positive ways (such as opening, scrolling, clicking, replying to, or forwarding), your deliverability can be enhanced.  But negative interaction (such as being marked as spam or not opening) can reduce your deliverability. Pay attention to how your audience is engaging with your emails so you can make improvements where necessary.
  3. Don’t use spammy words in your subject lines. Certain words in your subject lines may land you automatically in the spam filter, or at the very least cause your readers to hit the spam or delete button. Email providers are getting more intelligent all the time, so just using a word like “FREE” isn’t a guarantee that you’ll get flagged as spam, but it’s worth being intentional about your phrasing. Click here for a list of words to be aware of and use cautiously.
  4. Clean your list regularly. If you’re sending to bad email addresses and uninterested recipients, your send credibility will go downhill fast. There’s just no benefit to emailing to this portion of your list. Get rid of the dead weight and lighten your list by filtering out hard bounces, invalid email addresses, and the unengaged.
  5. Segment. The people on your list are there for a reason, and they’re not all there for the same reason. Sort your list by identifying why they connected with you, and then send each group of people emails that correspond to their interest.  You’ll increase engagement, lower spam complaints and build better relationships with your list.

The payoff for being intentional about these suggestions should be better email deliverability and even better ROI on your email marketing efforts.  You work hard on your business and marketing; let’s get more of those emails into inboxes where they belong.

Moving Outside Your Comfort Zone

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A couple of weeks ago, I did something I’ve never done before. I went horseback riding through an obstacle course. It was a 3-mile course and 23 obstacles were set up.

My friends and I thought, “No problem. We’ll be able to breeze through this and maybe do it a second or third time.”

Three and-a-half hours later when we arrived back to our trailers, we were exhausted!!

Read more of the sordid tale below (hint – it involves PVC pipes and comfort zones), but first here’s a preview video 🙂

During the obstacle course, it was mentally exhausting to think about what we needed to do to get our horses to do what we wanted.

For me personally, the long PVC pipes were our downfall. And they were in about 8 of the obstacles. Anna Marie (my horse) decided that those PVC pipes were going to eat her alive, and she was going to get away from them as fast as she could.

Now, imagine this… I’m holding the PVC pipe in one hand, have the reins in the other, and I’m trying to get her to stop moving sideways at 100 miles per hour (okay, it probably wasn’t that fast, but it seemed like it!). I’m sure it was quite the sight!

Our other big challenge was just walking up to fences or barrels, for example, so that I could get something from the side of them.

I get back home and decide I’ll be prepared next time (if there is a next time!). I found a long PVC pipe I could use, and I had plenty of things I could step up to sideways. The weather straightened up enough this week that I could finally start practicing.

And do you know what that crazy horse did wrong?

Absolutely nothing!

She could have cared less about the PVC pipe. The video is me swinging it back and forth over her head 30 seconds after picking it up.

And we maneuvered me right up to anything I wanted her to.

I was telling my husband and he said, “Well, of course. She’s at home and comfortable here. Try taking that PVC pipe with you when you go riding again and see what happens.”

People are the same way. When we’re in our comfortable environments, we rock it! But when we get plopped down into a situation we’re not comfortable, we may fall apart. This is normal and not a problem if it happens occasionally. To be a successful entrepreneur, however, we need to learn to make peace with a certain level of ‘discomfort’ outside our comfort zone.

Moving outside our comfort zone in business isn’t easy. There is a reason it is called a comfort zone. It’s where things are familiar, you know what to expect, there aren’t many surprises and you are secure.

This isn’t a bad place to be, unless you stay there.

Entrepreneurs who never move outside their comfort zones become static, stop growing and eventually become irrelevant.

The only time we grow is when we challenge ourselves, become a little uncomfortable, learn new things and develop both personally and professionally.  Yes, it is hard and requires that you face some fears.  But the payoff is new skills, richer opportunities, more confidence and often a better bottom line!

Face Your Fear

Susan Jeffers wrote a book with a title that sums up the comfort zone fear factor.  The book is called, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.” And this is one of the best ways to deal with the fear that comes when we move away from what is familiar:  acknowledge the fear and then move forward, knowing that it will get easier.

Equip Yourself

Moving into the unknown is easier when you are prepared. Regardless of what your new venture is, equip yourself with whatever knowledge and familiarity that you can beforehand. Granted, you can’t prepare for everything, but do the best you can with what you have. Just make sure you don’t get stuck in the planning and prep stage and never actually start!

Keep Going

Everything is hard before it is easy. What is uncomfortable today will eventually become part of your comfort zone, so you will need to step outside again.  This ensures you never become static and irrelevant, but you continue growing and developing, moving closer to your goals.

4 Tips to Boost Your Business with Referrals

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I was talking to a business owner who has built a very successful business completely by referral. One person has referred half a million dollars’ worth of business to her! But she recently had someone tell her that building a business by referral is dead – that she needed to be doing online marketing, social media, blogging, etc.

Clearly, my friend isn’t alone in her success: generating referrals is still a proven way to build a lucrative business.  Certainly there are other ways as well; online marketing is a powerful force (especially when combined with referrals).  And depending on the business model, one or the other may be more or less effective.

For example, my friend is interested in adding an evergreen/recurring income stream to her business, which will be fueled with online marketing. But rather than abandon the referrals, she will adjust her model to include both strategies.

My philosophy is, if it’s working, why not nurture that more? The key is to understand how to generate referrals in your business; there are some fundamental practices to have in place to tap into this profitable method of business building.

We’ve rounded up the best of the best tips for generating referrals. Read through the following list to identify where you can make changes in your business to make referral generation a strong income producer, along with (not in place of) online marketing.

1.  We’ll start with the obvious: Ask. In fact, Forbes insists that you should ask constantly.  It’s easy to forget to ask, and some business owners are shy, making it even more difficult.  But if you don’t ask, you miss out on a staggering number of potential customers.

When should you ask?  Kern Lewis, contributing Forbes writer, says you should ask, “In the midst of delivering excellent service, and regularly thereafter.”

Which leads us to the next tip…

2.  Give them a reason to refer you. “People won’t give you referrals unless you deserve them” (Ray Silverstein, Entrepreneur.com). If your products and services aren’t dazzling people, they will not be inclined to speak favorably about you to others.

However, if you are intentional about your relationship with your customers, being empathetic, efficient, and trustworthy, they will want to help you (by sending business your way).

Do a quick audit of your current customer relations process by asking yourself these questions: “What does my customer expect of me?  Am I delivering that?”  The idea is to determine what they consider excellence, and then give it to them.

3.  Make it easy for your clients to refer you. You can do this by providing a template they can use to pass along information about your business.

Hubspot offers a sample email template here, but you can easily write your own to send to your clients.  All it takes is a few sentences that your client can quickly personalize and email out to their friends and business partners.  The idea is to do the heavy lifting for them, making it more likely that they will actually carry through with the referral.

4.  Finally, offer an incentive. There’s no shame in offering something in return for profitable referrals. Some incentive ideas from Duct Tape Marketing include a discount, upgrade or something free. Test out different offerings on your current client base to determine which idea works the best.

Using referral generation to add additional income to your business doesn’t have to be a mystery; use these 4 tips to do it right.

Avoid this Entrepreneurial Mistake: Running Full Speed Ahead

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A few weeks ago I was talking to my business coach and we got on the subject of horseback riding — when and how I got interested in it.

I’ve always loved horses, but did not get my first horse until 13 years ago, and that was Gypsy who is retired now, but I still have her.

Anyway, our conversation got me thinking about my experiences around horseback riding and I thought about my very first time on a trail ride and on a horse that wasn’t being led by someone else! It was late winter/early spring in Indiana, and I was a pre-teen (I think). The horses hadn’t been ridden all winter and were very fresh and excited to be out of the barn!

We were riding along nicely in an open field when the horse I was riding took off full speed ahead — running and heading towards the edge of the woods. He did not want to slow down, and I didn’t know enough to get him slowed down. All I could do was hang on and duck (to keep from getting knocked off by a low hanging branch)!

One of the adults riding caught up to us, grabbed my reigns and got us stopped. We then made the plan that I would stay behind everybody else to keep my horse from running away again!

As entrepreneurs, we often find ourselves running full speed ahead — hanging on and ducking — with no strategy in place.

Have you ever gotten what you thought was a brilliant idea for a new program offering? Of course you have! And then did you proceed full speed ahead creating the program? Maybe!

Sometimes you end up spending all that time, energy and money creating a program that your target market doesn’t want. You have zero sales. And now you have a program that nobody is interested in.

Is it that nobody is interested or was the messaging wrong? How do you know?

Before creating your next latest and greatest program, go talk to your list. Talk to your existing clients and get their feedback on the struggles they’re having and the solutions they’re looking for. What would appeal to them?

Continue talking to others who are not your clients, but who are your ideal clients.

Now that you have this information, create your outline for the new program. If it’s a program that you’ll drip content out or do weekly calls, don’t do the whole thing just yet. Get ahead a little and create the first lesson or two, and then sell it!

Don’t spend time creating the entire program until you absolutely know it will sell.

Another common way entrepreneurs run full speed ahead is by not having the right team in place.  One person cannot do it all for very long, no matter how motivated or equipped he or she is.

When solopreneurs have success and the company begins to grow, they can run full speed ahead and hang on for a short while, ducking here and there and enjoying the windfall.

But eventually, things will start to fall apart because there is not a support team in place to help hold the reigns and keep things balanced and stable.

However, if the right team is in place from the beginning, the success still comes (and it can come quickly), but the difference is you’ve got a group of skilled people holding things together, complimenting each other’s strengths, and ensuring that the business keeps up with and grows along with the market demand.

What are some ways that you may be running full speed ahead in your business? It may be time to slow down a bit to think about how you can regroup to ensure your business is not only profitable but also balanced and organized in the New Year.

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