Balance Your Life, Balance Your Business

Looking for Marketing Success?

Then balance your life so you can also balance your business.

Many of us that work building strategies for personal brands and small businesses, take for granted our intuitive understanding of balance. Our clients turn to us to create a clearer pathway to their marketing success, knowing that our expertise can visualize the larger picture as they are trying to juggle all the tiny chaotic parts as well as personal lives.

Strategists build plans while highlighting the best options for their clients, then recognize how and when to provide guidance if they stray from the established pathway or need encouragement to fulfil  each phase. Applying guidance with clear objectives is key here. Guidance does not equate to pushing and bullying “motivation” nor trying to make a client do it the strategist’s way only or else attitude. Not every personal brand carries the same life dynamics as another, so why should your personal brand be squeezed into a cookie cutter mold of someone’s else’s definition of brand success without consideration of your life’s goals too?

Strategies are dynamic and ever changing. A one size fits all approach is detrimental to the marketing success, especially with the numerous online and social technologies available today. A personal brand or business’ success cannot concentrate only on the business vision, but must take life goals into consideration for true success. When a strategy includes the client’s personal goals, a specific plan can be designed that allows the client to be happier with decisions so they look forward to working the business and have a better chance staying on the pathway.

Michael Hyatt wrote a post recently on “How to Lead a More Balanced Life“, and I could not help but visualize how this also applies to the clients we work with as we build their online and social strategies….an area of marketing full of so many unknowns, advanced technical learning curves and time management issues. The key points of Glance at the Past, Work in the Present, and Focus on the Future are so important to one’s life AND a personal brand’s goals, I wanted to show how they apply to your strategy plan too.

So how can we apply the 3 life balance key points Hyatt shares with us for your marketing strategy?

A Marketing Strategy Balance:

• Glance at the past – look at traditional marketing on how to incorporate new ideas using online and social tool. Don’t get caught up in “that’s how we have always done it before” mindset since this can limit an open viewpoint. Also, if a previous strategy failed, learn from it and move on…don’t get caught up in a failure, use the wisdom you learned from it to bring you to the present.

• Work in the present – online and social branding involves many fast and changing technologies. If you do not concentrate your energies on the here and now, you will fall behind the curve and miss important marketing opportunities. Don’t get distracted by what others may be doing, yet be aware of opportunites that can be added or adjusted to your current plan if they will help you meet your already established goals.

• Focus on the future – always look beyond the here and now to your goals. To keep you from straying from your designed pathway, keep your goals and objectives in front of you so you remember why you are working the strategy the way it was designed for your brand. Revisit and adjust as needed so you do not steer off course or give up. Remember, sometimes life’s adjustments call for an adjustment to your business goals…go with the flow, stay the course and appreciate that you can stay on target with a strategy that fits your lifestyle and brand, not someone elses.

When you are seeking out a partner to work with or collaborate with for your personal brand and business’ web and social strategy, look for a strategist that not only understand how to build a plan for your business’ success, but understands the importance on how to juggle the plan with your life’s goals. Your strategy should include goals with the option to consider important life factors of interest and the understanding that life and business must be balanced for true success.