{Marketing How-to} STOP the Feast and Famine Rollercoaster
Would you be surprised if I told you I coach A LOT of marketing “professionals” who help others build their businesses? Many of these folks come to me because, even though they know how to market/promote, they still aren’t obtaining consistent growth.
Why?
They aren’t MARKETING CONSISTENTLY!
What usually happens to them (and most self-employed professionals – yes, I’m talking about YOU) is that we get caught up in the everyday of our businesses and marketing goes to the wayside.
That is, until our number of customers (or sales) start to become flat, decline or worse, our bank account ‘well’ runs dry.
So what do you do?
You market, market, market and bring in a number of new clients/customers. Then once you have these new clients/customers, you have no time for marketing and so marketing stops again.
And guess what?
You’re back to living the UNBEARABLE feast and famine rollercoaster. You’re stressed out, cash-strapped and having sleepless nights AGAIN.
So what should you do?
Be Systematic.
If you set things up to be systematic, then you’ll stay on track and stay off the crazy feast and famine rollercoaster ride.
Here’s how I do it and how I’ve taught numerous others how to do it too:
- Blog posts (WEEKLY, up to two times a week, schedule of articles and deadlines are set for the next 6 months).
- Facebook posts (WEEKLY, up to three times a week).
- Twitter posts (WEEKLY, up to three times a week).
- Pinterest pins (BIWEEKLY, booked on my calendar for the entire year).
- Strategic Alliances (OFTEN WEEKLY or BIWEEKLY, I have a list of strategic alliances that I’m constantly following up on to do things with regularly).
- Working Women association (BI-MONTHLY, booked on my calendar for the entire year).
- Speaking for associations/organizations/conferences (up to 3x’s a year, I have speaking opportunities that get booked and placed on my calendar).
Do you see a trend? Everything I do in terms of marketing, is set up automatically and systematically on my calendar…and I set these things up AHEAD OF TIME! (Remember last week’s post, minimum of 3 months ahead. You can read it here.)
I don’t ever have to worry about what I have to do next. It’s already on my calendar!
This is one thing that I rarely see businesses do and yet it’s one of the most crucial.
If you don’t set things up to be systematic, then you won’t stay on track. If you don’t stay on track, you won’t market consistently. If you don’t market consistently, you won’t grow consistently.
Your Assignment:
Figure out what you will do daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly for marketing and growing your business. Once you’ve done this, place it on your calendar… And, STOP the feast and famine rollercoaster!
If you’re not sure where to start or what marketing efforts are best for you, everything is laid out in our 90-Day Client Attraction Bootcamp. Here’s where you can go to sign up and get started today!
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Having a weekly, monthly and annual marketing plan with specific action steps to complete has helped me stay on task. Thanks for the reminder to stay the course.
Thank you Tana! Words of wisdom you have here! I have been on that roller coaster ride before and hadn’t figured out why, but it’s just like you said–you market like crazy and then when things get busy, you drop it, then pick it back up again. I definitely need to be more consistent in this area, especially with blogging. I’m really consistent with Facebook and usually post 1-3 days each day. Twitter is such a shame for me. Shhhh….I need to fix this one. ; ) Pinterest I post often on, as well as on Flickr. I also network around town, but guess what…just like you said, when busy times hit this Fall, I had more work than I’d ever gotten before and stopped going to networking groups. SO need to do that again and am starting with Working Women on Monday!!! : ) I’m curious to know how you get booked for speaking events. It’s nerve wracking for me to talk in a small group of people, but I LOVE and thrill on talking to big groups of people. There’s an energy there that lights a fire in me. I was invited to speak at another organization which I’m delighted to….but I’d love to get the opportunity to speak more! I’d love to hear how you get started in that! I had thought about Toastmasters but don’t know that much about the organization. My passion and fire inside is to see people succeed and believe in the power and beauty of their dreams. I want to motivate and inspire and encourage people to take the next step…and whoever will listen and whoever is ready to take that next leap to follow their goals, they’re my audience. I just wonder how to find more speaking engagements so I can share that message with others? I love, love, love that you suggest placing things on your calendar. Something I’m not doing right now, but something I intend to do! Thanks for the tip!!!! : )
Scheduling your marketing activities/efforts on a calendar will help you immensely – plus you can start working/scheduling/selling at least 3 months ahead. Right now you should be working on generating sales for April/May/June.
In regards to speaking…
Decide on a niche target market you’d like to speak to. Then figure out where they hang out! Most have an association, organization, etc. that they belong to (some meet weekly, others monthly, quarterly, yearly). Most have speakers come and talk to the group. Simply ASK them to speak – you can develop your topic around their theme/topic.
I know this is really condensed so call me if you need more 😉 Perhaps I should write a blog post on it!
Thanks Tana! : )
And yes, I TOTALLY wrote a novel there. I’m really excited about this post–it came at the perfect time and was exactly what I needed to hear!!! : )