As we slowly creep in on the last quarter of the year, are you left reminding yourself that tomorrow you need to work on the marketing tasks you have been putting off?   Whether you are a new business or an established business, marketing is an essential part of your businesses' success. The average consumer spends almost 2 hours a day surfing social media for new content. Getting the right message to your connections at the right time can be tricky, especially if you don't have the time, don't understand, or maybe don't even like marketing...   

We all know that thinking, dreaming, planning, discussing things only get us so far. A successful life and business begins with a thought, the thought to finally start paying attention to your financial numbers more carefully, the dream to hire and work with more people, or the plan for a more targeted marketing and communications campaign, the discussion with friends, colleagues and mentors about the details when you do think about growing and taking your business to the next level. It begins here, but it can stop here too. In fact these four things could be a detriment to your success if they are keeping you from doing the one and ONLY thing you need to be doing in order to be successful. What is that one thing and how do these other things serve as barriers?.... 

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 am an AVID reader of time management books and am constantly learning and researching new time management methods. Ever since I was 11 years old, I have studied this subject. I was home-schooled from 6th grade through high-school. My mother passed away when I was 12 years old but was sick a lot of my childhood. In order to help out with the upkeep up my household, I was home-schooled. So, at a very young age, I had to learn how to manage a household, take care of myself, and get through school. Needless to say I learned to be VERY disciplined and it was through the study of time management that I learned the necessary skills to get through that time of my life. My now 30 years of study of this subject has taught me a lot!   Today's post is all about what I know about time management and then I will create several related posts on this topic as part of a series. 

From day-planners, to do it tomorrow apps, there are literally dozens of time management tools, apps, and software to help you go from chaos to organized. But, many of my colleagues and friends still report that they find it hard to manage their daily tasks, and truly stay organized AND have enough time left in their day to do everything they wanted to do....  

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... 

Have you ever been witness to a firefly show? I grew up in the Midwest and it's an understatement to say I am fascinated by fireflies. It is much more accurate to claim that I am obsessed.

Fireflies are cool for many reasons. I have studied fireflies informally for many years. From learning about their behavior to the energy efficient light they give off.  That light is now being studied formally at UC Berkeley to see if they can recreate it.  

It is the light that draws us to the firefly. That subtle, consistent blinking light is the way this little bug communicates with other fireflies. If you've had the pleasure of witnessing them, it is a beautiful, subtle, dance of survival for this species. They NEED to attract other fireflies in order to mate and continue their species through time.  This communication is delivered with precision and when done right, a whole community of fireflies will blink their light in unison, as if proclaiming..."I've got your back, I'm here for you, You are not alone." It's quite inspiring. I realized when I was forming my business almost 11 years ago, that fireflies shaped my philosophy on communication and marketing hence the namesake Firefly Strategies. They communicate strategically and here's what I learned....

When we plan, whether it's a personal plan, a business marketing plan, or a non profit development plan, we assume we are going to be successful. We work hard to make sure the plan will lead us to success. But, there are many things that can cause delays and even derail us from our end goals and outcomes. But, most plans do not have a crisis component built into it. That is a mistake because ANYTHING could go wrong, I've seen some of the best laid plans fail miserably because something went wrong.

When a crisis occurs you might be able to maintain it internally without news leaking to the public, but more often than not, the public finds out. So, plan for the plan failing, plan for a crisis and plan that the news will go public. Here are 3 things you must do when managing this kind of crisis....

Not too long ago, I was struggling to keep my head above water, trying to manage and do WAY too much. Unfortunately, this predicament isn't something that happens to me only. In fact, I know MANY businesses, organizations and individuals that have or currently are incredibly stressed out and exhausted due to juggling too many roles, hats, or whatever you label all of your work and personal life responsibilities. 

I know that sometimes there just isn't a way out of it. Hiring someone is just not feasible. There's no time to recruit an intern, and volunteers, though great, just don't have the skills to do what you need done. 

So what CAN you do when you are on the verge of "drowning?" You create systems. If you had systems in place, you would eliminate quite a bit of time explaining things, and doing work from scratch, or I'm even guilty of this, doing something totally different from before because I forgot how I did it last. Also, when systems are in place, then you do feel comfortable hiring someone and recruiting an intern or volunteer. You and they know exactly what needs to happen, what they need to be accomplishing. There is less time spent in training and orientation because documented systems can serve as training material.  So here are the top 3 systems I recommend you put into place as soon as you can...

The other day, I read a fantastic article on pricing your services and products. This article was written for women entrepreneurs, but I saw how it could be applied by any kind of entrepreneur, business or non profits.  It made me think about all the steps in sales strategy. The first step of course is making sure you have a price figured out for your business, but how do you know if you are charging the right price. For non-profits, how much should you be asking for when asking for a donation? 

Getting to a good place with the first step (pricing) of your sales strategy starts with knowing what you are trying to earn and/or how much you want to raise either monthly or annually. Figuring out this simple goal can help you create a very targeted and strategic sales plan....

I consistently get asked what is the 1 most important marketing activity to do. People ask "what is that 1 thing I need to do in order to get customers?"

​My answer usually is that there isn't. There is no 1 thing you can do to gain customers or more sales. People are complex human beings. We like to receive and absorb information differently depending on the time of day, season and how we are feeling on any given day. 

​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...