Your advertising plan is not your marketing plan. You may think it is or wish that it is. But it will just be an advertising plan. It is but one of the many elements in a complex integrated marketing equation.
Figure out the bigger equation and where each element fits. That’s how you make the plan work harder.
What’s the more complex equation?
How do you do right by them?
There will always be someone somewhere who will not do right by us, hurt us, treat us like cow’s manure. Don’t bear any grudges. Don’t carry them. They are too heavy to be carried where you are going. Takes too much energy and slows you down.
Every time someone crosses you, makes you feel like horse excrement, remember all the angels around you that made you feel great, appreciated your work, support you, listened to you, and treated you with respect. Think about them, be thankful they are in your life. Be grateful for them. Show gratitude for every kindness you experience. Call them and thank them. Pay it forward in their honour. They support you in your journey. They lighten the work you need to do to get where you want to go. They propel you; they boost your energy.
Grudges versus gratefulness and gratitude. It’s an easy choice.
How do you do right by them?
Principles are not formulas. When you learn the principles well and apply them, perhaps you can come up with your own formula. But before that, know the difference.
What is the recipe?
We have a client whose payment is always prompt. In fact, generally, they pay a little earlier than the payment due date. We like many things about this client and our working relationship with them. Being paid earlier than the due date tells us the client respects the relationship that we have. That our business is relational and not transactional.
It changed recently. When we asked the finance department why the change, we were told that the boss has been advised to delay payment. Rather than pay on time or earlier, delay all payments even when there is good cash flow in the company. Apparently, he was taught that paying later is better.
What we pay with is money, but what we paid for may not just be services. What we paid for with our money and the actions behind that payment is a positive perception, good reputation, and trust. That cheque isn’t just money.
What’s the ROI?
Thinking about an exit plan even before you have entered into the business is crazy. It tells us that you aren’t committed. We do our best to stay away from people who peddle thoughts such as, “What’s your exit plan?”
For your own sake, set up the company, run it like your life depends on it, make a profit. Then perhaps, just perhaps you can think of an exit plan.
Try a commitment plan. Works much better.
Are you a con man?
But if you are original, you bring your magic, stand out, fight mediocrity, do the work, take the blows; you know you will earn fans.
No one can do it for you but you. And that is good news.
Is anyone coming?
Commitment gets you started. If you are committing to start, the next decision you need to make is, are you going to continue or give up? If you are going to start, then go all the way. Starting, they say, is the most difficult. Learning curves, resistance, nay-sayers, disappointments, frustrations are just some of the simpler stuff you need to go through. But once you go through them, they get easier. After each valley and trough is the pathway to another peak.
Commitment keeps you going. Every day of an entrepreneur’s life is filled with a series of conflicts between the better way and the easy way. Pick enough better ways, and you earned yourself another day to see excellence. You earned another year to see your dream come through.
Are you consistent?
