Is your business, branding and marketing on the path to success?
First let me tell you this is not a SEO keyword building, 5 quick tips and then click on a landing page kind of article. Those certainly have their place and I will definitely be churning them out.
In fact Hubspot’s keyword grader is screaming at me right now that I have not included any keywords in the title or the body. But as a new blog, I’m free to start out on the path I want to take it. It is not always going to be self-promotional.
Do I want to earn your business? You bet! Do I want to drive your attention to my fantastic premium content (when we finally finish it and start adding it)? For sure! But I also want to “keep it real” as they say.
I want to reach out to you and start teaching, and discussing that which I have learned in business, sales and creative marketing in my career, because I think I have an insight that can really help you grow your business. In fact I know I do, customers hire my company and pay monthly for that insight and our creative output.
I want to keep this blog human, personal, and earn your readership. That’s why I refuse to write in the generic third person like so many blogs. The ones I find myself reading every morning are the ones written like this one, from the writer direct to me the reader. The Sales Lion by Marcus Sheridan is a great example. So lets get started with some of that personal insight.
If you are a business owner, I don’t need to tell you how hard it is to start, grow and maintain a business. If it was easy we wouldn’t be able to find employees, everyone would be in business for them self.
If you are anything like me, you are constantly looking at the future and planning. Maybe you found a great space you hope to one day occupy, or maybe you ran into a former co-worker with the perfect skill set for your upcoming growth needs, or maybe a fantastic person just walked through your door and you know you need to hire them, even though you weren’t looking to hire yet. Maybe you are looking into equipment or technologies to help you reach this year’s goals. The point is you are always looking into the future, and planning for what is coming up.
So how do you know that you are on the right path? As an eternal optimist, it is easy for me to sometimes believe that my vision of the future is going to happen just as I see it. This is what keeps me going, and can also get me into trouble. I need to constantly stop and look around at where I am, and check that reality against where I believe I am heading.
When you do take that look around, how do you know if you are on the right path? How can you tell if you are doing it right?
I had one of those days yesterday. I hit a snag and it took the wind out of my sales for the day. I wasn’t very productive; instead I was extremely introverted and pensive. And I’ll admit I was a bit scared. It is part of that big rollercoaster every entrepreneur talks about. The ups and downs of business.
So I confided my fears to a couple of people and I got the “am I doing it right” litmus test results I needed to pull me through.
So here is my take on how to determine if you are on the right path in business.
You know you are on the right path when people around you…
… Tell you that they are pulling for you.
… Tell you that they want to see you succeed.
… Know that you have something unique, valuable, and different.
… Aren’t afraid to tell their friends, and recommend you to their inner circles.
… That you haven’t even met yet, are asking to join your team.
That is how you know you are doing it right. So if I just described your business, keep on going. You’re doing it right.
That is my take. Please feel free to comment. Tell me what you use to tell if you are headed in the right direction?
