I've been working in and teaching marketing now for over 18 years. I have practiced and preached all forms of marketing methods, processes, strategies and plans. 

I'm knowledgeable when it comes to textbook definitions of branding, marketing, promotions, and sales. I have also gained a tremendous amount of experience and discovered some amazing insights as I've applied, taught, tweaked, and finally created my own method for marketing. Through it all, I discovered something so extraordinary, it blew my mind and it humbled me. I've learned what marketing really is and I've learned, unequivocally, what marketing is not.

It comes down to a fundamental human skill. One we use every day and every waking moment of our lives. Let me start off by telling you that, we all have the capacity to be marketing masters and that is why I want to share what I've discovered. This is my most important marketing advice ever. I hope you take a minute to read it, take it in and if compelled, share it with others. I want this to spread wide and far...

I've seen it so many times. Entrepreneurs and Nonprofit leaders are already busy trying to run things. Managing the marketing in the business can become cumbersome, inconsistent and downright exhausting if you don't have the right tools. Firefly Strategies uses several marketing management tools to help clients streamline their marketing and create systems that save time and bring in results. 

Below we share our top 5 marketing management tools along with links to access those tools right away so you can start producing consistent, relationship building marketing campaigns that save a lot of time, help grow marketing productivity and bring in BIG results for your business or organization...

Inspiration, motivation, passion, and mission are all precursors for success. These things help launch the idea, product, program or service and give us the start for achieving success. But how do you actually get there? How do you get to the kind of success that goes viral, that starts trending, that is big, bold, and for some, sustainable? It comes from taking consistent action. One swim stroke, one step, one breath, one word, one brush stroke, one phone call, and one email at a time. This is continued over a long period of time. A long period of time is at least 6 months and most times, it can take a year or two, or even more, to see the results of your efforts.

It takes heartened commitment and sometimes it can be painful. So how does one do it? What is it that keeps us from derailing and getting off path? Many think it is inspiration or motivation that drives consistent action, but that's not it at all... 

Google is like the online phone book. I look up phone numbers and websites for businesses every single day on Google. I type in the name of the business and the city they are in, and it’s surprising how many businesses I can’t find in the Google search results. That’s a shame because guess what happens when I can’t find them? I go find someone else. Guess what your potential customers are doing if they can't find you? They go find someone else. 

So, by the end of today, I have a challenge for you. Set up your Google Business Profile page. Google Business Profile is the service provided by Google that allows you to have a local listing with Google so that people like me, and your potential customers can easily find you and your contact information.  

Here are step by step instructions...

Creativity is such a buzz word. Everyone is talking about getting creative. But, putting all trends aside, creativity is a part of our human nature. So to be human is to create. We create everyday. For instance, if we look at just how we create our mornings we'd see, for example, that we create our outfit for the day, we create what we eat for breakfast, and we create our plans for how to most effectively get through our day. These are things we do anew every morning and we've formed a habit to create these things in the morning. Therein lies the secret. Habit. Creating a habit is probably one of the most important things you could create. It's actually quite wonderful to know that creativity is something that is innate in us and that we already know how to be creative. So creating the habit just means acknowledging that and then taking action. Today, I am going to write about getting more in touch with that most human part of us and tap into a incredibly intelligent resource within us to create huge results in our work...

I have the book "The Creative Habit" by Twyla Tharp very near me in my office at all times.  This book has offered me inspiration on several occasions.  Mostly, it has provided me with specific actions to take to help me transform my way of thinking and being, allowing me to step away from doing things the way I always do them. It opened up my mind to try something new.  These actions have helped me get through proposals to potential clients, problem solving marketing issues for current clients, and even coming up with ideas for growing my own business. Because I have found this book to be an invaluable resource over the years, I am compelled to share with you one of my favorite passages form this book and I challenge you to "Give Yourself a Little Challenge." 

On page 114, the section numbered 14 is titled "Give Yourself a Little Challenge" and it reads: "George Harrison once decided, as a game, to write a song based on the first book he saw at his mother's house.  Picking up at random, he opened it and saw this phrase 'gently weeps,' whereupon he promptly wrote his first great song, 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.' You can give yourself the same kind of challenge whatever medium you work in: paint only in shades of green; write a story without using the verb 'to be'; film a ten-minute scene nonstop with one camera.  Giving yourself a handicap to overcome will force you to think in a new and slightly different way which is the prime goal of scratching." For Twyla, scratching is where creativity begins and she puts it " the moment where your ideas first take flight and begin to defy gravity." 

I strongly urge you to take on this challenge.  Let it help you relieve the grip of the mundane and elevate you to a place of curiosity and creativity. Use it to finish that project you started and can't seem to finish. Let it inspire action or provoke the urge to serve in your community. Let it move you out of stagnation and propel you to new heights. 
 
To learn more about Twyla Tharp's creative habit, I encourage you to get the book.   

Finally, if you try this challenge, please share your story here. I'd love to hear from everyone on what they did and how it worked out for them. 

Here's to your illumination!

Over the past 11 years, Firefly Strategies has worked with both non profits and for profits shedding light on and illuminating the impact of programs, products and services in both New Mexico and all over the world! With offices now in Washington D.C., Denver, Colorado, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico, we have a wide reach. Where we have the greatest impact for you and your business is by becoming your marketing department. Through the power of delegating all of your marketing to us, our ability to leverage resources to create a greater ROI, and with a an expert team working on your behalf, in partnership with you, we have nothing but successful case studies to share with you. 

Please feel free to utilize the free resources located here on our blog as it pertains to marketing, or you can join our free Facebook group Fireflies Lab and join a community of businesses who are learning and implementing marketing to grow their businesses, or call us to learn more about how we can take marketing off of your plate. 

My goal with this blog is to help shed light on all of these issues especially as it pertains to marketing/ communications strategy, implementation, and community building. Ultimately, I hope those who find this blog will use its information to help them and their work illuminate. 

Here's to your illumination!

Here we are the day before Thanksgiving and on the cusp of the holiday season. I recommend businesses and nonprofits increase their communications during this time of year. Not thoughtless emails just because your supposed to send something out. But, a well crafted message that is of tremendous value to your community. I wrote a blog post about how to discover what is valuable to your audience here.  Once you have a good idea of what your community is asking you to speak with them about, that's what you focus on. 

So getting back to the holiday season, in my last email, PART 1, I told you there are 3 strategies you need to be implementing in order to end the year strong with sales and revenue if you are a business, with donations and gifts if you are a nonprofit. The top 3 strategies are a referral strategy, email strategy, and event strategy. Then, I gave you my tips and actions steps to implement a strong referral strategy. 

Today, for Part 2, I tell you about implementing a successful 4th quarter email strategy.

We all get so many emails in the day. You are likely deleting several or ignoring a majority of the emails in your inbox. When this is your reality it's hard to believe that email is still considered (based on statistics) the best way to communicate with your community.

A couple of things need to be in place to make this accurate for you...  ​