When it all comes together

You absolutely need a plan in business, and while I am not a big fan of the v-e-r-y long (and let’s be honest sometimes quite dull) ‘business plans’ that your bank manager might want to see, you absolutely DO need a plan.

Not having a plan is like navigating in the dark with no idea of where you’re headed. Things work out so much better when you have a plan.

I have a client who when we first starting working together referred to her ‘Thing’ as common sense. And it is. To her!

That’s the beauty of your ‘Thing’ – to you it’s something easy, effortless, makes perfect sense and is just so OBVIOUS. Once you see it and you realise that that is your Thing of course. But because your Thing is right in front of you, you might miss it…

Your Thing is what you just ‘can’t help’ but do

Now I love cheese. Nothing gets me more excited than a cheeseboard of stinky, oozy, mouldy cheese and some delicious crackers BUT I am so over the cheese when it comes to marketing.

WARNING: This may turn into a bit of a rant.

This morning I visited my friend Nicola, who’s just started running her own business (she’s my hairdresser), and it was great to hear that she’s already got her ‘business head’ on, and is busy working out how she’s going to start differentiating and improving her salon.

She’s taken over an existing business, and this of course can have its upsides and downsides — the upsides being that she is making money from day one (quite useful!), but the downside being that there isn’t a blank page to start from to do everything your way from the outset.

But here’s some things that we talked about that made me confident that the salon is only going to get better and more profitable…

Your job is always to do your best, not your worst. And the worst thing you can do is create muddle and indecision. Limbo is not a great place to be. So don’t take anyone there.

When you’re doing your marketing, your messages, your website copy, your ads, your talks, your landing pages, your flyers, your videos, anywhere you are talking about what you do… make sure you use the language that your clients (existing and potential) do.