Do the important things first? In my last post, I told you not to worry about the most important things. I just want you to start doing ANYTHING and start crossing things off of your list. Working on feeling accomplished and creating momentum is key to getting things done. But, there are some IMPORTANT things you should do first, but let me define important. 

Important is NOT that project you've been putting off, and it's not checking your email to make sure you don't have any fires to put out today. Important is any activity or task that creates energy for you rather than drain energy. Energy creating activities including drinking water, stretching, exercising, meditation, creative work, journaling, brainstorming, or anything that energizes you. Meeting a colleague or friend for coffee might energize you. Going for a challenging hike could be what energizes you. Taking a long hot shower could be it too. Whatever those things are, these are the most IMPORTANT things to do first thing in your day. In order to start doing these important activities first in your day, it takes a simple mind-set shift and tweak....

I want to share a story with you. 

The summer I turned 14 years old, my dad decided he was going to designate the task of cleaning windows to me. I was to go around the entire house and clean every window from the inside of the house. He would clean them from the outside. 

So, I began. Mind you, by age 14 I had pretty much everything figured out, especially when it came to cleaning our house. I had a solid 5 years of experience cleaning our house. I got a rag, I got glass cleaner and I started cleaning. I imagined sparkling windows and my dad giving me huge praise for doing such a stupendous job. Instead, I got streaks. I got white spots and lots of fuzz from my rag. The windows were getting clean, but the results I wanted were no where to be found. While I cleaned and went from window to window, my dad kept telling me to use newspaper instead of a rag. I rolled my eyes every time. I thought to myself, "how in the heck would newspaper do the job better than a rag? He must be making it up. There goes dad again, trying to tell me how to do everything HIS way." I certainly did not need anyone telling me how to clean, of all things... 

Yesterday, I read a report by MarketingProfs, a leading marketing research, and management company. One of many organizations dedicated to studying and reporting on marketing and communications findings.  

The report they published showed what major marketing departments across the U.S. are utilizing and spending their money on to get their message across to their target markets...

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 am a huge advocate for reviewing your marketing plan and tactics every few months. At the very least, you should review it every 6 months. The end of July is right around the corner which is a perfect time to closely inspect all of your marketing to determine what is working and not working with your marketing. 

Here is where most of my clients get stumped. They know the concept of reviewing, but they don't know what information they need to really look at to make decisions like, whether to spend more money on something, or to stop doing it all together. 

I want to help make it simple.... 

Many are walking a dangerous line.  I’ll explain. Though the rules have changed, and many can sense this, and may even know logically that they need to change, they just haven’t changed the old way of doing things. This is primarily due to two things.  1) You don’t know what it is exactly that you need to change and 2) you haven’t broken your habits of operating the old way. Which also means you know what you need to change, but haven’t figured out how to implement the change. 

Knowing is a big part of changing. So, let’s start with learning what it is we need to change immediately. I say immediately because continuing to operate in this way will absolutely lead to failure. A business and organization can no longer sustain themselves this way...

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...