1. external forces impact but don’t rule your business
2021 had a lot of external forces occurring within it. More so than the world ending in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar. We know what they are so I’m not going to belabor it.
Even though the world changes, we must change with it. Not in a progressive way, but in a thoughtful and customer focused way.
Customer trends actively change, yet human nature does not. Customers want to feel celebrated, taken care of, and satisfied with the end product or service.
When we focus on that, we can effectively take care of our clients and thus the customers by creating delight in the transactions and experiences.
Focusing on your brand is still the greatest investment you can make for your business.
To learn more, check out our video and brand workshop found here:
Brand Strategy for Small Business | SEWEDA Sponsored Workshop – Pullman Marketing
2. I get in the way more than I think
There have been many instances this year where I thought I was helping and I totally misread circumstances, technical details, and customer conversations when my team was already doing the right thing.
Mike Michalowicz talks about this phenomena occurring among business owners in his book called, Clockwork. (Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself: Michalowicz, Mike: 9780525534013: Amazon.com: Books)
As we try to empower and equip our teams, we feel like we are not needed anymore. When we feel like we have lost some control, we begin to insert ourselves back into work that really doesn’t need us.
This undermines the teams, makes client relationships bumpy and doesn’t allow us to focus on bigger picture business development that only an owner can do.
I am supremely guilty of this and have learned to trust my team so much more and it’s a huge blessing.
3. Partnerships, Partnerships, Partnerships
As a freelancer I became enamored with the idea of the 1-man band business that could pull in 6-figures and isolate from community.
I found that to be horribly wrong, extremely misguided, and unfulfilling.
As we have grown and partnered with community agencies, non-profits, governmental and businesses, we have grown and helped businesses far reaching than we ever have before.
We have grown in our own staffing, this year especially, and I enjoy training, mentoring and coaching the staff. I never could of have imagined how much fun we have doing the work we do.
Some partnerships are fresh and some have been going on for several years, but because of these – we are able to serve our customers in greater ways every day.
4. Block-Chain finally has usefulness
Some may argue on this point since cryptocurrencies have been in play for 12 years already (Bitcoin – Wikipedia), but in terms of infrastructural use cases – block-chain technology is really taking off this year.
I’ve been indifferent to Block-chain technology as it has not had large influences in the day-to-day operations of small businesses as well. Bitcoin and others are difficult to receive and send for the average person to use in a business-to-business and business-to-consumer transaction.
NFT has changed the game. We are actively pursuing how we can use this form of block-chain infrastructure to assist small businesses in terms of branding, ownership and trademark.
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5 Not everything is measurable online.
We use social media for ourselves and our clients. We have a lot of metrics, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and dashboards for monitoring all of this. Even though the numbers may be accurate, the impact may not be properly articulated.
For example, many of our clients have great metrics, yet the client feels the great ROI when a customer tells them in-person how much they love a social post, YouTube Advertisement, or other online interaction.
Essentially, nothing is real until it becomes real.
Momentum, culture and ROI takes time and strategy. Measuring can be simple but understanding what is truly meaningful has never been more important than in 2021.
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Thank you all for being with us on this journey and we are excited to present, teach, serve and delivering on marketing.
