Do you ever feel like you have been too stale, stagnant, or just plain old rusty at what you are doing?

I know that owning a business gives me two ways to feel:

1. FEELING INCREDIBLE: Having an outlet to fully create new things from my bursting, innovative ideas to express my value, service. All while challenging myself to provide a stream of income replacement from the 9-5 job that still offers so much time and support for me and my family, along with my self-esteem and fulfillment of what I love doing.

AND AT THE SAME TIME…

2. FEELING OVERWHELMED & STUCK/ LOST. It goes hand-in-hand with having almost TOO much control and choice that when new ideas pop-up, I can’t help but feel a little derailed and distracted from operating a business focused on the bottom line. Afterall, there is so much fun to be had and good to be done outside of just the operations, revenue-generation, and marketing!

What I have learned after this month of working with attendees at CEO Day’s March event and building our workbook, being involved fully in discussions and providing marketing content that was opening conversations around this topic, that businesses need adventure too!

My husband and I have been discussing that too much “human” in our business can often time take away from the mission and the bottom line if not being intentional about the focus.

I used to completely argue with him about this, but lately, I have seen this coming more true as I dove too deep into transforming everything about the way I ran my business, and doing so too frequently.

I work with my clients to provide a direction to a larger vision, a bird’s eye view of the big picture, while still keeping adventure and spontaneity in marketing along the way during the day-to-day.

Are you feeling VALUABLE enough- try to add some more adventure to what you are already doing! 

​​IN YOUR BUSINESS....

Do you take the path of least resistance.... or blaze your own?

Are you stuck in a stale habit & routine that isn’t working anymore?  

Lately, have you edited anything about your

business

processes

community

offerings

or workflow?

Do you feel like the impact you are making on your big mission isn’t where you want it to be?

Does the problems of the world get you feeling actionable or keep you feeling small, stuck or depressed?

Are you surrounded by people who don’t challenge, inspire, or motivate you?

Does the number in your bank account make you feel proud of the hard work you are putting forth?

When you look at your life, do you as, “is this what I really wanted to build for myself- is this really “it”? 

Do you see a clear vision for “what’s next”? 

When you wake up in the morning, how often do you spring out of bed with new ideas that you can’t wait to jot down?

Does the way you run your business feel “enough”?

If you liked this exercise, imagine how much more we can dive deeper with a 1-1 strategic session for your marketing. I’m happy to take a look at what you wrote down and make some actionable steps and suggestions for you in your Q2 marketing plan for this year! 

• Dana 

Have you ever heard the expression, “junk in, junk out” when it comes to nutrition, habits, and overall wellness?

As wellness is one of my top 4 values (being #2 on my list), I find this exercise along with regular attendance at CEO Days an essential part of keeping up with the health of your business and marketing “department.”

Do you ever evaluate the health of your marketing?

Maybe you feel like you are abiding by your plan, but do you know when it is actually working?

Here is a list of ways to look at your marketing and diagnose where you should be focusing on your efforts!

Please give yourself a rating of 1-10 in each area. 1 being weakest, 10 being strongest!

1. Look in the mirror

   First of all, what do we see? Take a look at your emails, your social feeds, put yourself on the listening end of your spoken elevator pitch- what do you notice? 

   Often, we can pinpoint what we like/ don’t like about others’ marketing, but what about doing a little self-check? We notice from others if their messages or posts made any sense or if it just seemed annoying. Have we taken a look at our own marketing content?
   
   

   1. Does this marketing content make me PROUD of my abilities or do I feel like I’m not giving it my best shot?

   2. What would I rate myself (1-10) on my efforts?
      Rating__________
      
      

2. Look at the metrics

   Data is easily accessible on our platform’s analytics dashboards- have you logged into these?

   Maybe you are taking a look too often and need to make some little “wins” along the way to keep feeling good and guided from these metrics. 

   1. Are my metrics clear and do they make sense?

   2. Am I using the application properly?

   3. How would I rate my performance on these platforms? (1-10)
      Rating__________

   
   

3. Look at who’s engaging vs. who’s looking

   1. Sent an email and ever notice who opened it, but they need a follow up?

   2. Do you have fans on your social media that you haven’t asked to become a client?

   3. Are you getting lots of positive feedback from people, but they never buy?

   4. How would you rate your overall engagement
      Rating__________
      
      

4. Look at what’s up to date

   Go through and make sure all of your systems are up-to-date and consistent

   Log into your multiple platforms- are they all saying the same thing?

   1. Do you see consistency or breaks or confusing elements across all of your systems or platforms?

   2. How would you rate your marketing “freshness” and being accurate with your information?
      Rating__________
      
      

5. Look at feedback

   If you are making a multi-platform funnel or sales flow, don’t stop testing and coming at the process with a critical eye

   If enrolled, ask MKTG Group members in Slack or friends and family to give you honest feedback and say, “who do you think this is intended for what problem am I solving- is the solution clear- would you buy it if you were in my customer’s position, why or why not?
   
   

   1. Do you regularly ask for feedback and how your marketing makes others feel?

   2. How would you rate your overall ability to get honest, non-biased feedback
      Rating__________
      
      

Marketing Health Analysis

Where do you score and what can you improve on?

Come up with a plan

1. If you notice some things need to be nursed back to health, don’t try to do everything overnight, let’s map it out!

2. Come up with a game-plan (below) to space things out and alleviate stress and anxiety around making these big changes:

3. Once you have all of your notes logged in, you can add to your calendar or plan out which weeks in the Impact-Driven MKTG Group, you’d like to work on these things with Dana’s 1-1 support help, the MKTG Group’s support slack channel, or on your own during our accountability work sprint time!

I’d love to hear about your marketing “health” and what you got out of this analysis! If you are interested in working together to nurse your marketing body back to health, let’s schedule a strategy session today!

Photography by Jungle Branch

Are you hungry for a more juicy and delicious way to market your vision in 2022?

A marketing “umami” strategy reminds me of the perfect combination of elements coming together to give your diner the experience of a lifetime. Sweet, savory, bitter, sour, and salty. 

WHAT’S ON THE MENU?

Are you hungry for a more juicy and delicious way to market your vision in 2022?

A marketing “umami” strategy reminds me of the perfect combination of elements coming together to give your diner the experience of a lifetime. Sweet, savory, bitter, sour, and salty. 

All great leaders have a salivating VISION for the future, that’s why we follow them and want to eat up every “bite”. The insights and ideas bring perspective, bring empowerment, and bring hope- that’s why they are so irresistibly impactful. 

I believe that all entrepreneurs who are building a personal brand can be mission-driven the moment they start to really get intentional about their marketing becoming a way to inspire and educate their community. 

When it comes to measuring the impact of your vision, consider it’s value by how often it’s accessed, experienced, and utilized. All chefs love to see the plate cleaned as the best complement. Think of your marketing department as the same way eating up every part of your vision! 

A marketing “umami” strategy reminds me of the perfect combination of elements coming together to give your diner the experience of a lifetime. Sweet, savory, bitter, sour, and salty. 

For entrepreneurs struggling with carving out time and focus to work on their own marketing when it doesn’t come innately intuitive to them, you may relate, I put together a quick list of 5 ways you can simply share your vision. Mark one of these prompts into your calendar spread out over the next 12 months and enjoy the simplicity of knowing it’s being broadcasted easily and quickly!

1. GET FAMILIAR
   Right out of the gate, this whole list wouldn't work unless you can quickly and easily access your vision statement. Did you even write one yet?
   
   Your vision for the year can be: 

1. A video of yourself talking it out (5-10 minutes)

2. A few pages of it written out

3. A collage/vision board put together by mixed media or assembled digitally

4. A playlist of music that describes your experiences that you want to have with artists, styles, and lyrics that are intentionally gathered

5. A recipe of a dish that has all of the ingredients, along with the flavors and sensations of taste that you are after - how can a delicious cheeseburger relate to your business goals and the results you are after? Is it responsibly raised meat with locally gathered greens and a beautiful steamy stack of ingredients perfectly standing still with the most perfectly seasoned french fries and a Belgian quad beer to wash it down? That’s what mastery tastes like to me!!!
   
   

Whatever the way your brain is wired to reference the way you dream up to keep yourself referencing a guide for yourself, make it a finished piece! And then put your vision somewhere visible to you to access for the following exercises below.

2. GET VISUAL
Use this prompt to help your vision become something, well, to visualize! Use your imagination, creativity, pictures, references, and other elements that resemble your vision.

Perhaps you have a dream home you pass to / from your commute every day, or a song that brings out feelings that you also want to feel when you live out your vision in your business. Use those to tell a story or support a post in your marketing. 

When you explain it deep, wide, and with every detail you can describe, you are helping others “get it” and understand your vision. You can share it as a statement, as a video, as a graphic or photo, or with key phrases or keywords.

3. GET CHOOSY
You are clear with who needs to hear about this vision. It’s one thing to scream something loud and clear on the rooftops for everyone to hear, but you may be missing out on getting more intentional, creating a stronger pull with knowing the audience and focusing on them.

For example, when sharing my vision, I am using adjectives about the community I want to attract. Words like, “passionate, purpose-driven, inspired by social justice, environmentally-focused, responsible for their dreams, driven, experimental, humorous” which can detract people as much as it attracts people.

4. GET CLEAR(ER)

Are there other ways you can talk about your vision after sharing it or presenting it? I love doing market research at the beginning of the year with colleagues and new connections about “does this whole idea or concept even make sense?” and do the edits. Put out a few different iterations of your vision: short, long, in different places, and with different creative elements to let it get digested by different audiences who will find it useful and relevant!

For example, you may have used the cheeseburger recipe, but try to then take that and elaborate a bit more, or shorten it up, “I want to have my business stacked with clients enough to keep me full, but excited to come back for more once I get my appetite back- I want to rate my business 5-stars on yelp when I look at it with the level of service and quality I put forth!”

5. GET CONSISTENT
Last but not least, you are consistent with your vision and share it often. This work and these messages do not end on January 31st. You bring this vision into all of your meetings with your team, new people you meet, on your website, on the back of your business card, and weave it into the way you talk about your offerings. 

1. Add your vision into your offerings

2. Add your vision into your meetings

3. Add your vision into the way you introduce yourself while networking

4. Add your vision into your branding & messaging

5. Add your vision in all conversations you have and describe ways that the people in front of you, on the other side of your social media messages, email marketing pieces, etc. play a role in your vision

If you are stuck creating a vision, I highly encourage you to start with a simple way to visualize a vision using the “umami” five basic taste sensations.

If you like simplicity, just start with a power phrase or word and let the details work around you each month.

As always, if you are in need of additional support around this vision and carrying it out into your marketing, the Impact-Driven MKTG Group supports you each week to put your vision into action!

How does marketing work more EFFICIENTLY to buy me back hours & so much more time to be creative, connected, and consistent?

I've been exploring the idea of STEPPING AWAY from the business this month as I am just 2 months away from a huge life change- becoming a mom!

Subtracting more of "Dana" from the business while I'm inserting more of my intentional processes, automation, and efficiently run my business so I can operate more efficiently is what I really need in order to make 2021 as enjoyable as possible for me, you, and my team.

You know- start to replace me with the big tech tools in order to really start embracing the age we live in and give me more time!

TOOLS I USE: (View more resources & discounts here)

• Zapier (paid plan)

• Eventbrite (free plan)

• Zoom (paid plan)

• Flodesk (paid plan- Save 50% off a full year)

• Pipedrive

• Google Drive / Docs/ Sheets/ Forms

• Google Calendar (GSuite for Business)

• Hellosign for document signatures (paid plan)

• Asana (paid plan)

• Vimeo (paid plan)

And other freebies I love like Mailtrack, Lastpass, and Boomerang for GMail to schedule out recurring notifications!

Next month, I will be speaking with my friends at the Confident Expert Program about starting to step away from my business while still being fully present in all of the things I have setup for myself.

Delegating to a team, using these amazing tools, and spending lots of time working ON the business and less time doing the mundane is a start.

What automation, integrations, or processes can you start to really clean up so you can shave off HOURS from your week???