To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.
~Audrey Hepburn
Today we continue with part four of our six-part series, 30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business. If you missed the first, second and third installment, you can find them here, here and here.
This series is inspired by my CEO Fast Track guide, which you can find here, where I lay out the 6 core CEO disciplines required to move beyond the busywork, and find time to work ON not just IN your business.
In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the fourth discipline – Platform Building.
Enjoy!
Full Transcript
Today we continue with part three of our six-part series, 30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business. If you missed the first, second and third installment, you can find them here, here and here.
This series is inspired by my CEO Fast Track guide, which you can find here, where I lay out the 6 core CEO disciplines required to move beyond the busywork, and find time to work ON not just IN your business.
In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the fourth discipline – Platform Building.
What are the strategies you’ll use to grow the visibility of your business and create a strong know, like and trust relationship with your ideal audience?
This is the work of platform building (i.e. marketing), and it’s the lifeblood of any great business, as people don’t buy from companies they don’t know exist. And yet, it’s often a totally neglected area of business because of the discomfort with self-promotion.
Use this time to develop and execute on anything that brings new people in, nurtures those already inside and then leads to a possible conversion.
*Note: remember to keep it strategic. Blocking off Platform Building time only to goof around on social media is not considered a productive use of this time.
So let’s identify five key activities you could do with this fourth CEO Discipline, to spring clean your business. This list is not exhaustive but will get you headed in the right direction.
Important note: As I said in the last episode, If you’re listening to this in a different season, don’t discount these ideas. While we’re maximizing the energy of spring, these can be accomplished any time of year.
Audit your main platform channels for growth, resonance, and impact
Spring is a perfect time to review the different marketing channels you’re using to showcase your business, and really assess which ones are driving results and which ones are just make-work projects. Identify each marketing channel you currently use (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Podcast, Tradeshows, Public Speaking etc) and systematically review to determine if they are creating value for your company.
Be wary of vanity metrics. Having 20,000 Twitter followers may look good but it doesn’t mean it’s doing anything for your business’ bottom line.
Come up with a fresh, new or enhanced way to get in front of people
If your marketing feels old, boring or stale, now might be the perfect time to inject a new marketing channel into the mix (assuming you’ve done activity #1 above and cleaned out what’s not working). Is there a channel you’ve been excited to try but haven’t yet?
If you’re bored of your marketing, chances are good your audience is too. Make a plan this spring to inject a fresh approach into your marketing mix.
Give your copy and images a fresh coat of paint
If your marketing copy hasn’t bene updated in years and no longer reflects the heart of what you do, it’s likely time to either create new copy or give the existing copy a makeover. The words we use to describe our business matters – it’s what connects people to us and builds that relationship over time.
This goes as well for our images and branding materials. If you’ve been using dated stock photography or images that don’t really reflect your brand style, use the spring to find a style of images that better tell the story of your business.
Create a library of evergreen social media updates
Social media can be the ultimate time suck – if you let it. But taking just a day or two this spring to stockpile a library of social media updates that are timeless and repeatable can save you so much time in the long haul. This spring, I spent about two days creating an entire library of social media updates that I now just feed through CoSchedule and Buffer.
While I will still show up live to engage and share more time-sensitive content, knowing I’ve got content scheduled at least 90 days out feels really fantastic.
Enhance your audience’s capacity to share and engage
How many times have you been reading a blog, wanted to share it, only to find out that there were no share buttons for you to use? My guess is that you just walked away and never shared the content.
I want you to review your marketing materials from the lens of your reader, listener or viewer. Do you make it easy for them to engage and share your ideas? Whether that’s basic share buttons, an easy-to-use comment section or a clear call to action when they’re done consuming your materials, make it really easy for them to get your content and ideas into the hands of more people.
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These are my five strategies to spring clean in the CEO Discipline of Platform Building. Stay tuned next week when we continue our 6-part series on the 30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business. We’ll be talking about the fifth CEO Discipline – Business Development.
Recommended Resources:
The Leadership League Mastermind
30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business (Part #1)
30 Powerful Way to Spring Clean Your Business (Part #2)
30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business (Part #3)
Behind-the-Scenes: How I use CoSchedule to manage my content
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