What do you REALLY want?

I watched a home design show not too long ago — a woman redecorating a cottage. As she selected and installed a white couch all I could picture was how it would look after sandy feet, damp bathing suits and  dripping ice cream had had their way with it.

The result of her decorating was gorgeous, but I thought it was an example of poor planning.

This in turn got me thinking about goal setting and about the things that we do that are contrary to what we want to achieve.

In business as in life you have to set goals or you’re going to find that you run out of time and money before you get to do those things that must be done.

I've seen many organizations, particularly small businesses without internal PR or marketing staff, bombarded with opportunities for promotion from broadcast to print to digital. Without knowing what their business goals are or how they are going to measure the success of their promotional efforts, it’s impossible to decide which, if any, of these opportunities will pay off for them.

Leaders have to spend some time thinking about the direction they want their company to go. Additionally, they have to know as much about their customers (or those they'd like to attract as customers) as possible before they commit their budgets to specific promotional activities.

Once they know these things, they have to create and stick to a plan that will help them achieve their goals rather than spending their time and money whimsically.

It's like decorating that cottage. The white couch might be pretty but unless your goal is to continually bark at the kids to get their grass-stained feet off it or to increase the amount of time you spend cleaning, you may have to pick another fabric.

When deciding which promotional opportunities will work best for you, think about your goals and your customers and be sure that you spend your money where it will have the biggest impact.


Colleen


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