Whether you’re a seasoned business professional, just getting your feet wet in your own business or still kicking around ideas for what you want to pursue, you’ll want to learn as much as you can about inbound marketing strategies and formulating a workable plan of action.
One way to do this is to sit down without any distractions and actually list all the things you do each day to work your business. This exercise can be a real eye-opener, as it forces you to see where your time is being spent.
If you’re a sole entrepreneur, you wear pretty much all the hats in your business. You handle the administrative tasks, marketing and sales, research and development, etc.
Now that you’ve taken inventory on what you do each day and the time it takes to do it, you’re ready to see how you can incorporate inbound marketing strategies into your workflow and increase your business’ bottom line.
Depending upon the type of business you have, your week may look pretty much the same every day or you may have a varied schedule that requires you to be out and about a significant portion of the time.
Let’s take a look at our fictitious friend Wyatt who works from home and has been marketing pet products online for about a year:
He spends a lot of his time on the computer emailing customers, checking out new products, etc. He already has a social media presence but wants to begin a serious campaign by building relationships with people who are in various businesses associated with pet products like vets, groomers and kennel owners.
He’s also planning on running some contests and he’ll give away some of his top selling products in an effort to increase his marketing scope.
In addition to all that, he’s thinking about starting a blog to answer questions about different products, give tips on pet topics, etc.
Wyatt is a morning person so he tends to do all his creative work in the a.m. and then leave the afternoon for more mundane tasks. It’s really important to know when you work most effectively so you can capitalize on that energy flow.
He’s pretty organized and that helps a lot. As you can see, he’s put some thought into what he wants to accomplish and will now start working on a schedule to achieve those goals.
He knows he can’t work 24/7 and he knows that he needs to start slowly and work on one new project at a time, developing his comfort level and learning all the ins and outs that will make it successful.
He’s decided to work on his new tasks in 90-day increments so he doesn’t overwhelm himself and begin to feel like he’s just spinning his wheels and not moving forward.
A workable plan for anything you want to achieve is just that – WORKABLE. Unless you’re under some critical deadline, taking your time and doing things correctly is well worth your patience in the long run, as opposed to working haphazardly and missing the mark.
Remember the tortoise and hare? The hare was fast but the tortoise was steady and STEADY WINS THE RACE!
David