"Failing to plan is planning to fail." ~Alan Lakein

Imagine having the majority of your marketing tactics mapped out on calendars that you hang on your office wall. Then imagine that these calendars help to ensure that you market your business consistently throughout the year (not just when you are slow—it’s too late then), prevent marketing “fire drills” (increasing chance of error and giving you less time to devote to crafting well thought out messages—and testing them) and keeps everyone on your team accountable (internally and vendors) for their part of the marketing process.

Because we’re all busy running our businesses, marketing often gets sidelined and then slowly forgotten as we get involved in other things. A common occurrence is knowing in the back of your mind that you need to get a promotion out the door by a certain date and waiting until a few days before that date to start working on that project. This is a recipe for frustration—and your promotion is likely to suffer from rushed implementation (which is why many business owners think that marketing doesn’t work). If you calendar your marketing initiatives you can greatly reduce production costs and get better results!

Clients that take advantage of this service have nothing but great things to say about the process. It brings a sense of clarity to your marketing program and helps to reveal gaping holes in timing. One of the biggest benefits is that it identifies every step needed to get a marketing project off the ground and establishes a realistic time frame for completion of these tasks.

Here are some tips to help you create your comprehensive 2012 Marketing Calendar:

1. Plan to spend one entire 8 hour day of completely uninterrupted time with key players to work through the first draft of your calendar.

2. Go back to good old pencil and paper for this calendaring process. We print out very large 36” x 48” calendars when we do this exercise with clients so that we can write in everything, erase if we need to, and everyone can see the “big picture” so-to-speak.

3. Start from the end. In-other-words, pencil in your “due” date for any given project and then work backwards through every step necessary to get to that due date. You’ll find this process to be very revealing. Don’t forget to add testing of projects into your timetable. This could mean that you actually have to start a project six months before launch! It also means that you’ll get much better results.

4. “Tag” each deliverable with the names of the team member who will be responsible for getting that item initiated or completed. This way everyone knows what they are responsible for, when they need to get started and when they should have tasks completed.

5. Post two to three months at a time. You’ll actually hang your calendars on your office wall for all to see. Then it’s everyone’s responsibility to check in with the calendar daily to ensure that they’re up-to-date on their assigned tasks. This aids in accountability and also helps the team see what’s coming so that they can schedule their time accordingly.

6. Don’t forget to note RESULTS from marketing initiatives right on your wall calendars. You’ll use this year’s calendars to create your calendar for next year, so it’s good to have notes regarding what worked, what didn’t work and ideas for future promotions/initiatives. If you don’t write them down, you’ll forget when calendar day rolls around.

7. Revisit your calendar quarterly and update accordingly. If you see that you’ll need to add a promotion in order to reach your revenue goals, or just want to tweak dates, this is the time to do that.

Sound overwhelming? Chances are you won’t make time for this valuable exercise if it feels too daunting. We can facilitate the calendar process for you so you’re sure to get it done.

Visit www.ucreativegroup.com/marketing_calendar to learn more.

Here’s to YOUR STAND OUT Success on 2012!

If you’re like me, you don’t plan to settle for modest income in the coming year. We’re in business to make money after all, right? It would also be great to be in a position to be able to give back and help make a difference for those less fortunate—something you can only do if you’re making more than you need to survive.

So if you aren’t planning to settle, what exactly is your plan to take your business where you want it to be in 2012?

Where are you going?

Of course, you first have to know where you are going before you can come up with your plan for getting there. This is a great time, just before the New Year, to sit down and consider your “destination” long and hard, even if you’ve already completed your budgeting process for 2012.

Why are you going there?

This step is often overlooked, or taken for granted, but you should take time to carefully consider the “why” behind your goals. Take your projected gross revenues, for example, why did you choose the figure you chose? Is this the figure you’d really like to achieve, or have revenues been declining steadily so you’re settling for the best of the worst case scenario? Is all the news about the economy influencing your decision about your destination? Are you planning to settle and not really even aware that this is what you’re doing? Have you considered that it might be your planning that has left you with less than desirable results and that it’s the why behind the plan that needs to be modified in order to get you to the destination that you really desire?

If settling isn’t what you had in mind for your business, then change your destination and back it up with a solid plan.

How will you get there?

Now that you know where you are headed (and why) in order to make this your best year ever, it’s time to take stock of where you’re at—what’s working, what isn’t working and what can you do to get everything moving toward your goal?

If your business isn’t where you want it to be, doing the same things you’ve always done will likely result in keeping you where you don’t want to be. What will you do differently in the coming year to move your business closer to your intended destination? This is where creativity comes in!

Do you have a New Year Resolution for making 2012 the best ever? Share your thoughts!

Here’s to YOUR STAND OUT Success!

Most of us as small business owners are extremely determined to succeed in business. We have lots of motivation to keep us working hard to make sure that we continue to bring in revenue that not only keeps our business operating but pays our mortgage, feeds our families and allows for the occasional vacation (you are taking vacations, right?).

The problem (opportunity) is that somewhere along the years we forget our original Purpose for starting our business and, because we’ve lost that focus, our purpose becomes survival. This shift in focus from whatever our big vision was to survival is what keeps many small business owners feeling like a hamster on a wheel. Now we are just determined to survive. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to survive, but my hunch is that your original vision was a bit grander than that. Am I right?

As we move into a new year, this is a great time to reflect on what you really want for and from your business and what you’ll give in return. Moving your focus away from survival to potential.  Create an intense desire that will energize you so that you harness the determination you already have in ways that will take you far beyond mere survival. This doesn’t mean that you will not work hard. In some instances you will work harder. But because you’re On Purpose instead of in survival mode, the work is just part of the journey to success.

If you feel that you’ve “lost your way” when it comes to why you’re in business in the first place, you might try reading this fascinating book and applying some of the exercises. Whatever you do, find some way to get that fire back so that your business motivates you instead of depleting you.

Here’s to YOUR STAND OUT Success!

Mindset is critical to business (and life) success. You’ve created everything that exists in your life and in your business through the thoughts you hold. The more you take time to recognize all that you have to be grateful for right now, the more room you make for more to be grateful for. In other words, you set the tone for what you expect by appreciating all that you already have.

If you’re always experiencing lack-lack of time, lack of money, lack of cooperation and so on-this focus on lack sets the tone for your future experience. It just becomes what you’re tuned into and therefore affects your decisions. For example, if you’re feeling a lack of enough income, you may decide not to implement a marketing initiative so that you can SAVE money, which will create a lost opportunity to MAKE money. Your thought of lack is going to create even more lack. You create what you think about.

Promoting your business is all about perception and it starts with yours. If you think marketing doesn’t work, it won’t. If you think everyone is out to scam you, they will. If you think the economy is going to put your business in grave danger, it will.

You have to intentionally shift that perspective to one of gratitude in order to change your perception which will help you see other, more empowering options. Doing this before you implement any promotions at all will have a huge impact on your marketing efforts because now you are ready for success.

Taking the time to manage your mindset could be the best thing you’ve even done for your business. And at the very least, you’ll feel a lot better when you’re thinking from a gratitude mentality instead of a scarcity mentality.

Remember, your thoughts color your decisions which create your business. What are you thinking?

Here’s to YOUR STAND OUT Thanksgiving!

If you’re like many businesses, you have ruled out direct mail because you feel the return on investment just isn’t there. Often times, you’re right, but it’s not because direct mail doesn’t work, it’s because you aren’t doing it right. Ouch! Sorry about that.

There has never been a better time to consider direct mail as part of your marketing strategy! With fewer businesses utilizing direct mail, you’ve got less to compete with in the mailbox. AND… if you implement these tips when creating your campaign, you’re guaranteed to improve your direct mail response rates.

In this first of a 5 video series, I’ll share with you THE MOST CRITICAL factor that impacts your direct mail response rates. It’s often the one that most businesses take for granted or think they have a good handle on but once we dive into their database we find some gaping holes—which translates into huge opportunities for improved results!

Yes, I’m talking about your “WHO”. Who is your ideal customer? If you say, “Females between the age of 25 and 60 who live in Atlanta.” That’s a problem (or opportunity as I like to call them). If you market to other businesses (B2B) and you say “Professional services businesses with revenues of $1 Million or more.” That’s another “opportunity”. While both will yield sizable prospect lists, they are so general that it will be difficult to create a marketing promotion that moves them to act or buy.

So let’s address the whole idea of “bigger is better” when it comes to your “universe of prospects”. It seems quite logical to have hundreds of thousands of viable prospects, however, based on how many customers you need to sustain your business, and your marketing budget, it’s likely that you need a smaller “universe” than you think. Really honing in on your ideal prospects improves your chances for finding prospects who are more likely to engage with your business and further helps you to message to them in more effective ways—both improve response rates. You don’t want your business to be all things to all people. You want it to be the only solution for the right people.

Check out this video where I share how to get a better handle on your “WHO” and don’t forget to subscribe to my blog feed so that you are notified when video tip #2 has posted. In the next video I explain how to use a direct response marketing approach to significantly improve your response rates (this works in all of your marketing initiatives, not just direct mail).

Here’s to YOUR STAND OUT Success!

Small business owners are faced with opportunities to change every single day. Many can even verbalize exactly what they need to do in order to improve their marketing, sales, finances, etc. And yet, even with this understanding, they continue to do things the “old way”. The way that has a proven track record of not working.

Consider this example. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with a couple of business owners whom I’d discovered had hired a high-powered, highly successful business coach to help them implement change in order to improve their business results. I couldn’t wait to find out just how this coach had helped them transform their respective businesses, so I asked them to share about their experience. To my dismay, both sheepishly admitted that while the coach gave them exemplary advice (advice, by the way, that they were sure would improve their business results) they’d not done anything!

Why is this? What is it that has such a firm grip on us that we can know what we need to do, even want desperately to make the necessary change, and STILL we don’t do it?

The answer for most of us, based on the findings revealed in this insightful book, is “self protection”. While a part of us wants to change in a bad way, another part sees how this might threaten an underlying belief we have about ourselves and, therefore, threatens our “safety.” We make assumptions that we may not even be aware of that make it very difficult for us to implement the change we think we desire. For example, a business owner who is overwhelmed and knows that they need to delegate or hire help but may come up with a variety of excuses for why they can’t do this. The underlying belief or assumption that might be keeping this business owner stuck could be that they won’t feel “valued” if they aren’t at the center of everything that is going on, or they might hold the assumption that they’ll lose self respect if they can’t handle everything on their own. So rather than threaten these assumptions, they “sabotage” their efforts at making the changes that they know they need to make to be more successful.

Of course, there’s a lot more to the theory than this. I’d encourage all business owners to give this book a read and attempt to map out your own immunity to change to see if you can get past the barriers that are keeping you stuck.

Here’s to YOUR STAND OUT Success!

Orlando, Fla. – October 5, 2011 – Barbara Batt, author and small business expert, recently joined a select group of business experts and entrepreneurs to collaborate and co-write the business and marketing book titled Trendsetters: The World’s Leading Experts Reveal Top Trends To Help You Achieve Greater Health, Wealth and Success! Nick Nanton, Esq. along with business partner, JW Dicks, Esq., recently signed a publishing deal with each of these authors to contribute their expertise to the book, which will be released under their CelebrityPress™ imprint.

Barbara Batt, is a small business mentor, a respected expert in small business marketing, accomplished graphic designer, author and professional motivational speaker. Barbara is the owner and founder of U Creative Group™ and has most recently launched a new initiative at www.BarbaraBatt.com that promotes a vibrant new vision for American small business, where scarcity and competition—which formed the old engine of prosperity—are replaced with a much more efficient and powerful catalyst: a fusion of abundance mentality, cooperation and compassion.  Barbara is dedicated to helping solo entrepreneurs and small business owners break through the barriers that keep them playing small, so that they can fulfill their responsibility of creating abundance for themselves and their stakeholders. Connecting these revolutionary business owners and empowering them to make a difference is Barbara’s ultimate goal.

Trendsetters will be released on Thursday, October 6th and will feature top advice from leading entrepreneurs, business owners and marketing experts from around the world. The authors will tackle an array of subjects ranging from health, wealth, marketing and business success.

To learn more about Barbara Batt, and how you can receive the free special report “How to Turn Your Business Around in 90 Days,” visit http://www.BarbaraBatt.com or call 303.679.6328.

About Celebrity Press™:

Celebrity Press™ is a business book publisher that publishes books from thought leaders around the world. Celebrity Press™ specializes in helping its authors grow their businesses through book publishing. Celebrity Press™ has published books alongside Brian Tracy, Ron Legrand, Mari Smith, Kelly O’Neil, Alexis Martin Neely and many of the biggest experts across diverse fields.

If you’d like to learn more about Celebrity Press™ or to see if we’re a good fit for your book project, please visit http://www.celebritypresspublishing.com/contact-us

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Contact:

Lindsay Dicks

Dicks and Nanton Agency®

407.215.7564

lindsay@CelebrityBrandingAgency.com