Are you selling a cake or a recipe?

Now, I am NOT suggesting you lie about what you can do, but I am totally OK with you inventing a new market to own. I am also OK about you making up a new way of doing Things—specifically YOUR Thing.

When you work out your Thing, it’s very tempting to then run at 100 miles an hour and try and get everything done at once. You want the website, the Facebook followers, the big list, the speaking gigs, the PR, the online programme–the lot. But what you might spot missing from that list is clients (and therefore cash).

Sometimes it is up to you to go first.

There might not be an example you can follow. Your idea might be just that—YOUR idea. So you have to do it.

Often when you work out what your Thing is you look around for examples of other people doing it so you can see how it’s done, or see how you want to do it differently, to make sure you stand out.

It’s not just you that’s part of your marketing—there’s also the person you’re marketing to.

If you are constantly marching forwards with your marketing, and there’s no ‘thinking’ space or ‘feeling’ space where someone can make a decision that suits them and, worse still, they feel like they’re being led blind in a direction they don’t want to, that’s when your sales will suffer.

When something is your Thing you look at it from ‘your’ side–the side where you know how it works well, what to do to get the results, and usually the ‘easy way’. So when you’re putting together marketing material, you need to look from the ‘other’ side.

Sometimes we are so involved with the journey and activity of our business we forget where we are heading.

When you love what you do (as is always the case when you are doing your Thing) it’s easy to do it a lot and get busy. But busy-ness without direction can mean taking your eye off your goals.