It doesn’t have to be shiny and new

I was recently invited by Andy Hayes of Travel Online Partners to be a guest on his TOP radio show. We discussed marketing, websites, the Hotel Success Handbook, being in business, and lots more.
Listen online or read the summary.

Yesterday, I got back from the first 2-day ‘Small Business Marketing Workshop’ run by the very smart Jonathan Jay in his new business venture Success Track.

The purpose of the 2-day workshop was for Jonathan to share his own experience in what does and doesn’t work in terms of marketing a business. Jonathan also offered a ‘marketing clinic’, where attendees could (perhaps crushingly honestly in some cases!) receive a critique of their current marketing materials and approach (note to anyone who attended here — you will of course get the irony of Jonathan describing this in his own words as “a clinic”!).

Are you in that relaxed place just seeing what comes along, not doing anything too energetic i.e. are you in ‘holiday mode’ with your business?

There is nothing wrong with taking it easy (I am not saying don’t relax!) but what I suggest is that like any good holiday you put some planning time in beforehand to pick the best time, place, location to get the MOST from it… I know I relax more when I’m where I want to be!

I am sure it’s happened to you too?

You know exactly where you want to get to—you even have the map—then something unexpected happens… the road is closed.

You get diverted. It might be a technical detour, it might be a timing detour, it might be a team detour, it might be a marketing detour… but it is just a detour—you’re still headed the same way. Or at least that’s the plan…

One of the ways you know you are doing your Thing is that you realise that your ‘radar’ is always on.

Your Thing is either something you find really easy, something that really annoys you, or a combination of both those factors (as they are, in fact, 2 sides of the same coin–it’s likely something annoys you when you know how easy it is to fix it).

Lifetime value is not a new concept in marketing and business but it often astounds me (in a slap-on-the-forehead kinda way) that many business owners don’t ‘get it’.

Lifetime value is the ‘number’ you need to have in mind when you are evaluating your marketing, when you’re working out your investment into how much to spend (time or money or both) in getting a new customer.