Becky Robinson's Blog, page 36

The Two Most Important Aspects of Effective Email Marketing

I’ve noticed that some clients are resistant to sending email marketing messages about their work. Why? As authors who are seeking to promote a message, they are the recipient of other authors’ emails, and rather than enjoying the messages, they’re turned off by them.

Since they don’t want to annoy others, they assume the solution is to not send messages, at least to not send messages like the ones they are receiving.

Before I share two important aspects of effective email marketing, I want to first share a couple of important reminders about email marketing.

Follow email marketing best practices.In order to not annoy people with unwanted emails, it’s important to follow email marketing best practices, which includes ONLY adding people to your list who request to be added, giving you their explicit permission. You do not have permission just because you know someone personally, have emailed them directly, are connected to them on LinkedIn, or got their business card at an event. Typically, people give you permission to email them by filling out a form on your website.

Unsubscribe from unwanted lists.Your own fatigue about email marketing may be tied to the fact that you’re receiving emails that are irrelevant to you or unrequested. It’s possible you subscribed to these communications, but maybe you didn’t. If you are annoyed by or overwhelmed by them, unsubscribe, or choose to ignore and delete. Unless the emails are clearly dangerous, don’t mark as spam which can cause problems for the sender; instead, use the legally-required unsubscribe link.

People will gladly open and engage with email they want to receive, including email marketing they’ve intentionally subscribed to receive.

Think about a problem you’ve recently struggled with, or a challenge you’re looking to overcome. Suppose you landed on a website that contained valuable, helpful, and actionable ideas to address your issue. You feel so convinced that you’ll gain new insight from this expert that you enter your email address to subscribe to the content.

What is your response when that expert’s email comes into your inbox? If you’re anything like me, you open it as soon as you are able to give it your attention. You read it carefully, scanning to see if it contains the answers you are looking for. If the email contains links to content that resonates with your area of need, you click it and consume that content. Then you eagerly anticipate the next message.

Here are two ways to ensure that people open, enjoy, and take action on your emails.

Provide content that compels them to learn more. My example above outlines the response we can expect when our email messages contain content of value to our audience. The more value you add that is specifically relevant to your audience’s needs, the more likely they will be to receive your email joyfully.

Give your email recipients a personal connection to you. The more personal an email, the more likely someone is to respond. Since email marketing is, by its nature, a one-way communication and impersonal, the more real you can become to your audience, the more they will want to hear from you. What can you share that will both help people learn and help people get to know you? How can you invite people into an ongoing conversation with you? What question can you ask to invite their participation and reply?

When you send email to people who have asked for it, send the content they are expecting and hoping for, and infuse as much of your own unique personality into each message, they will open and engage with what you send.

Build Your Content Library FIRST

During our initial meetings with authors and thought leaders over the years, most clients have been very enthusiastic about following our plan to support their launch. They say “yes!” to writing guest blog posts, “yes!” to providing 1-2 posts a week for their own blog, and “yes!” to creating unique content for PR requests and top tier media.

As we move from the Building Phase into the Working and then Launching phases, a few of them have been just as prolific as promised, but the majority end up exactly where we warned them they could be: scrambling for content during crunch time.

Whether you believe it or not, you will be very busy with last minute changes to the book, unforeseen issues with the distributor, and plans for marketing your published work to your desired audience. You may find, as so many do, that the time that you thought you would have for writing “once the book is done” is eaten up very quickly by things outside of your control.

When faced with fifteen — or fifty — requests from your publicist or fellow authors and bloggers for content and interviews to help them spread your message, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and only answer the top five. This not only sends the unintended message that the others aren’t important, but it causes you to lose out on free advertising.

Don’t miss out — be prepared to be generous with your content because you did the work ahead of time.

In addition to the above reasons for why you need a content library, here are three ideas for creating a stockpile or ready-made library of content, whether you have a ready-to-launch book, a rough outline, or are hoping to be discovered as a new niche blogger.

1. If you find yourself with time on your hands, USE IT.

Instead of taking a nap on a rainy afternoon, type out a short article or two. Rather than watching a movie on your next flight, jot down outlines for 7 or 8 future posts. When inspiration hits you, use it! Chances are, when it’s time to respond to pre-launch requests, you may not be feeling particularly creative or enthusiastic after completing all those manuscript revisions!

2. Writing once can help you TWICE.

Even if you don’t have a book yet, you can stockpile posts that can be used on your own blog during the book writing phase. This will keep your blog active in the present while you are busy focusing on the future. ALSO, If you mention your book or include ideas from it in your posts, they can stay in your launch library to be reused later (with two or three easy tweaks to refresh them) as guest posts for bloggers who are willing to use repurposed content.

3. You’re not writing a BOOK, just a few paragraphs.

So many bloggers and authors are paralyzed by the idea that they need to come up with 2,000 or 2,500 word posts, when 250-500 will do. Everyone’s in a hurry, so your post should be like the sample on a stick that fast-food restaurants hand out to entice you to buy a meal — hook them with the basic ideas, and sell them on buying the book.

No matter where you are in the process, set aside time to begin cultivating your library of content so that you can fulfill all those “yes!” promises that you make to yourself — and others.

P.S. Learn more about repurposing content in our upcoming webinar! Details here

 

Summer Is the Perfect Time to Experiment on Social Media

It may not seem like it, but social media is cyclical. We see less engagement with social media every year starting around July 1, and activity doesn’t rebound until September. It’s summer break but for memes and politics!

This break in activity is a great time to do some social media experimentation. Not as many people are engaging, so you can test material and pinpoint what works, and roll it out in a larger initiative or campaign in the fall.

Here are just a few ideas we recommend trying this summer.

Build a content library.

I regularly hear from clients that they don’t have time to handle multiple social media channels. I’m proof that it can become a full-time job — but it doesn’t have to. Building an evergreen content library allows you to schedule content with ease, dropping in of-the-moment posts as needed. Summer is a great time to search for curated content, pull powerful tweets from your writing, catalog your blog posts for re-sharing, write new social content, and create graphics and images. (More on this next week!)

Experiment with live streaming.

We’ve been recommending Facebook live for some time, but we do understand that live video streaming can seem intimidating. Summer is a great time to experiment with it. Invite a friend or colleague to join you for a Q&A, schedule a short training, or create a live introduction event. Your imagination is the limit! One suggestion — plan to do a live event each week during the summer to get a feel for the format and discover the ways it can work for your thought leadership.

Launch a new platform.

Have you been thinking about increasing the number of social platforms you are on? Now is the time to launch that new account. We especially recommend giving Instagram a try. IGTV is a great new video option; plus, sharing inspirational graphics and interesting snaps from your work life can create a vibrant community. Consider creating an Instagram book club or even a learning group around your work. You dream it, and they will come.

Video, video, video.

Video is the strongest content for social sharing, and every network supports it. Summer is a great time to gather the gear necessary (no, your phone is not enough!) and start creating content. You’ll be amazed at how quickly solid video content helps propel social growth and engagement. Note: content needs to have some real meat to it and be as high-quality as possible to stand out.

While others are vacationing this summer, we hope you’ll use at least a few of these hazy, lazy days to invigorate your social media platforms and expand your message.

Which platform or task will you experiment with over the next few months?

 

Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers

This week we’re excited to launch a #1 new release for job hunters and career changers, a handbook that demystifies the job search process and provides simple strategies for getting in front of the decision-makers and securing the job you want.

Most Americans spend around five years of their lives engaged in some type of job search activity, and hold about eleven different positions in the course of their career. In fact, the new normal is not only to switch jobs but to change professions—which isn’t easy to accomplish. Whether considering a completely different career, or simply changing roles within your current organization, you need a savvy understanding of both the art and science of the job search.

Switchers

Switchers is the first book written specifically for the career changer and will help you to realize your dream. The first step is recognizing that the usual rules and job search tools won’t work for you. Resumes and job boards were designed with traditional applicants in mind. As a career switcher, you have to go beyond the basics, using tactics tailor-made to ensure your candidacy stands out. Switchers reveals how to:

Understand the concerns of hiring managers—and think like they do
Craft a resume that catches their attention within six seconds
Spotlight transferable skills that companies covet
Rebrand yourself—aligning your professional identity with your new aspirations
Reach decision-makers by recruiting “ambassadors” from within your network
Nail interviews by turning tough questions to your advantage
Convince skeptical employers to take a chance on you
Negotiate a competitive compensation package—even as a “newbie” to the field

Career changers face unique challenges that demand fresh approaches. Packed with psychological insights, practical exercises, and inspiring success stories, Switchers helps you leap over obstacles and into a whole new field.

Are you stuck in an unsatisfying job? In the wrong profession? An industry that just isn’t a fit? Get unstuck! Land a new career—one you’re genuinely passionate about. Read Switchers and pull off the most daring—and fulfilling—career move of your life!

Meet the Author

Dawn Graham, PhD, LP, is the Career Director for The MBA Program for Executives at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, where she partners in setting strategy and supporting the EMBA students in achieving their career objectives through extensive programming and individual coaching. She also hosts a national call-in radio show on Sirius XM (Channel 111) “Career Talk,” and writes regularly for Forbes.com under their leadership channel.

Earlier in her career, Dawn held successful roles at Korn Ferry (formerly Personnel Decisions International), where she moved from providing executive consulting and coaching services to building and implementing the firm’s global talent resource allocation infrastructure; and Arthur Andersen, AT&T Corp and Lee Hecht Harrison, where she gained experience transforming policies and practices, analyzing and nurturing talent, and understanding both company and individual career needs.

A licensed psychologist, Dawn holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Denver, a Master’s degree in Organizational Development from the Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Seton Hall University.

Praise from Readers

“Dr. Dawn Graham gives you the best process I’ve ever seen.   She’s an expert on how to make your value visible in your new niche. And you’ll love her plain language.”

— Lynne Waymon, CEO of Contacts Count LLC

“Dr. Graham gets underneath the anxiety associated with changing careers and divides the process into digestible, achievable steps. Then, too, she helps the reader use psychology toward convincing others that this switch is an investment worth making.”

— Dr. Jody Foster, MD, MBA, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry

“It is rare to find a career book that is both inspiring and practical, but Dr. Dawn Graham has hit the bullseye with Switchers.  This is a must-read for anyone who could use the help of step-by-step tools and strategies toward changing their career.”

— Dr. CK Bray, CEO, Adaption Institute, and author of Best Job Ever

“A successful career change requires both an internal search and an external search.  Switchers is that unique guide that helps you to manage both dimensions.  As a psychologist, Dawn can help you overcome internal obstacles and fears of change. As a career coach to business professionals, Dawn also gives you the tools to convince an employer that you are the best person for the job, even if you don’t have the experience specified in the written job description.”

— Roy Young, CEO and Founder of Beyond B-School

Learn More

Visit the website to learn more about the book and its author.
Watch the recent webinar to learn strategies for getting where you want to go.
Subscribe to the podcast to hear from experts about career management.

What’s New in Social Media: IGTV

Instagram has had its sights set on SnapChat for a while — now the platform is gunning for YouTube with the unveiling of IGTV, which will allow creators to upload videos up to one hour in length. IGTV will be available within Instagram, but it will also have a stand-alone app (iOS and Android).

Highlights of IGTV

It features vertical video-optimized for your phone and how you use it.
Anyone will be able to share long-form videos on the platform, not just celebrities and influencers.
IGTV will be available to most accounts very quickly. Those with new accounts or small followings will be among the last to get access.
Instagram will highlight videos, much the way the platform highlights stories now, and give priority to longer-form videos.
Users will be alerted when people they follow upload new IGTV material.
Creators will be able to insert clickable links in their IGTV posts.
There is no advertising on the platform right now, but it will come later.

So what does that mean for you? It means a platform that now attracts one-billion users per month has created a new path for you to grow your following and connect with new audiences. Video content is the highest performing type of content on all social media; and according to Instagram, by 2021, video will account for 78% of mobile data traffic. It’s important to start exploring the world of video content.

Here are some important things to keep in mind:

Videos can be shot on your mobile phone, but quality is paramount.
Good lighting is important.
You’ll need to invest in a separate microphone for quality audio.
A tripod and remote start will be your best friends.

As long as you focus on quality, content is wide open. Tutorials and humorous videos rule YouTube right now, and they’ll likely do very well on IGTV, too. But there’s still a place for the thought leader.

Ideas to Consider

Move your webinars to IGTV.
Launch book promotion videos on the platform.
Repurpose video content from other sources for IGTV.
Shoot an introduction video.
Launch a free content/learning series.
Hold a regular Q&A session with your followers.

While IGTV and YouTube have much in common, YouTube is often more a place to watch, than a place to engage. IGTV will put an emphasis on engagement, too. A win-win for thought leaders.

Are you ready to start sharing videos on IGTV?

Your Website Mid-Year Checkup

We all know the world of the internet moves fast . . . to say the least. In the past, we’ve written about when your website requires an upgrade (generally 2-3 years). But even if your site is fairly fresh, say 6 months old, you should still be doing regular checkups to make sure your site is healthy and is accomplishing your goals.

Introducing Your 6-Month Checkup Checklist

Make sure your plugins are all up-to-date, and check to be sure you have a plugin installed for regular backups. We like UpdraftPlus, a free WordPress plugin that you can configure to do daily backups onto your server or hard drive.
Refresh any outdated static content. This could include your staff bios/descriptions, services, contact information, or any of the other static content on your site that may have become incorrect/irrelevant.
Make sure you are getting the most out of your SEO. SEO is a world in and of itself, but anyone can make sure they are using healthy SEO practices by installing an SEO plugin (we like Yoast), and making sure that the headers and snippets are active and filled out for each page, as well as for each blog post.
Do a quick run-through to make sure all links on your site are still working. Links should open in a new tab — you don’t want to direct people away from your site when they are in the middle of reading about you.
Re-evaluate your blog. Are you posting at least 2x per month? If not, you may want to re-evaluate whether you really need a blog. A blog that is not active is sometimes worse than no blog at all. If you are posting regularly, make sure the topics are in line with your goals for your website and get some honest feedback from peers about the effectiveness of your content.

Need Some Additional Help?

The Weaving Influence web department is at your service! We can help you with:

New fully designed and developed custom websites (we specialize in websites for authors and thought leaders).
Templated websites for your book page, business, and more.
Strategic advice about your website’s effectiveness, direction, and content.
Blog curation, posting, and writing.

Interested in learning more about our web offerings? Be in touch with us at web@weavinginfluence.com.

Cheers!

Why Your Content Strategy Needs to Include Curated Content

There are many different ways to create success on social media. If you’re reading our blog, you are likely trying to create a niche for yourself as a thought leader. You have probably also either followed or read about brands that are successful in social. You may have even considered trying to crack their code for your channels. That’s not the best path for thought leader social media success.

Brands are after attention, even negative attention, which can often lift a brand on social media. Take Wendy’s, for instance. It’s not a warm, fuzzy account to follow. If anything, the account becomes snarkier everyday, with an active strategy around attacking its competitors with often pointed, and some might say mean-spirited, humor.

A thought leader, on the other hand, needs to inform, inspire, and even entertain in a professional and positive manner. Your social strategy is quite different from a brand strategy. The goal of a thought leader is to become the top social destination for people interested in information, inspiration, and thought leadership around your area of expertise. In some ways, you become an aggregator of powerful thinking. That means sharing your own content, and it means sharing great content from other people.

When I share this approach, I often hear: “why would I share someone else’s content?”

The answer is simple: social media is about creating conversations. Think of it as a round-table, not a bully pulpit for your work — at least, not if you want to be successful.  Sharing other’s work that aligns with your thinking, and sharing work that you consider thought-provoking, is a value to your followers. You want your content to always offer value.

The next question I get is: “how do I find content to share?” 

There are a few ways to find create third-party curated content, and a few tools that can be very helpful. Here are some we recommend.

Your Social Feeds

This is the least predictable source for content, but it can deliver some real gems. As you scroll through your personal or professional feeds, you’ll see great articles pop up. Grab the link and save it in your spreadsheet, or share it immediately to your professional profiles if the articles are especially timely.

Google Alerts

Google allows you to set up alerts around your name, a competitor’s name, keywords, and more. When those words are mentioned in an article, you’ll receive an email. Just be careful: if you use very general keywords, you’ll be inundated with updates with little value. We recommend keeping an ongoing alert around your name and your book’s title primarily. Learn more here.

BuzzSumo

This tool has a free article search (with some limits) that allows you to look for news coverage on specific keywords and topics. I use this tool regularly to locate curated content. I’ll set aside some time each day to search around certain keywords and put the links in my content library for future use. I’ve found great articles that I didn’t unearth using the same keywords in a Google news search. Try it here.

Feedly

This tool helps you set up RSS feeds around keywords, blogs URL’s, and specific topics. Additionally, Feedly allows you to mark content to read later and allows you to organize content into boards, eliminating the need for a spreadsheet. You can create up to 100 feeds with the free edition. Set it up here.

Dedicating an hour a week, or a few minutes a morning, will help you create a library of strong third-party content. This approach will deepen your thought leadership, but streamline the amount of time you need to dedicate to delivering value to your audiences. And isn’t that what we’re all seeking— more value and less time commitment?

Which tool are you going to try?

 

3 Ways Social Media Metrics Can Improve Your Marketing Efforts

A basic rule of marketing is measure everything. As content marketers, we rely very heavily on data and analytics; but if you are managing your own social media, you may skim over those oftentimes confusing numbers.

Here’s why we recommend you don’t skim, and instead dive in: these numbers are the breadcrumbs to success. They let you know what your audience likes and what they don’t like. Based on this information, you can adjust your content marketing strategy to reach and engage more people, with less time and effort.

Figuring out where to begin is where overwhelm can set it. Each social media and content marketing platform has data available and often they have multiple data points. You can literally track thousands of numbers, but there is no need to track everything.

We recommend identifying your goals first: Are you trying to increase your audience size?  Do you want to engage people? Are you promoting or selling a product? Once you know what you’re trying to do with your content marketing, then you can begin to monitor the metrics that reflect on your progress.

Here are three of the data points we track, plus how we use this information to drive results.

Social Channel Growth

Clients often come to us with social platforms they want to grow, email lists they want to build, or website traffic they hope to increase. Growing platforms is a top goal and one of the easiest to monitor. In fact, I bet you’re keeping track of your growth metrics right now.

We recommend creating a spreadsheet and comparing your audience numbers, platform to platform, every month. This will help you chart growth and also determine if you see an increase or a slowdown, if there are cyclical trends, or if big news events impact your channels. For instance, we know that growth slows every summer starting around July 4th for our American clients and it picks up again in September. Web traffic drops then, too. We see an increase in growth every January. These are cyclical rhythms we’ve observed by monitoring client growth over time.

This knowledge helps us plan content marketing initiatives or content experiments. For example, if we have a new lead magnet, we likely won’t unveil it in July or August; but if we want to experiment with a new type of content, these slower months may provide the perfect soft launch platform.

Social Engagement

Having a large platform is helpful, but it’s more important to have a connected and engaged platform. I often cite the example of a large consumer brand I once consulted for — the brand had more than one-million Facebook fans, but the fans didn’t feel any loyalty or connection with the brand and responded negatively to content, if they responded. Fans were not engaged, because the brand wasn’t sharing content relevant to their customers. Follower numbers painted a rosy picture, but engagement gave us the real story. That’s why engagement matters.

Engagement can be tracked across social platforms and at the post/tweet level. That spreadsheet you created to track growth — add a column for engagement and see how it’s trending for you. If you see a dip or an spike, it’s worth diving deeper. Your content-sharing cadence, the time of the year, the time of the post, and other variables can impact engagement, and often you’ll notice patterns.

If your text-only content gets poor engagement while your graphics do well — you have some actionable data. You might also notice that content shared at certain times of the day normally performs well or not so well. Adjust your posting accordingly.

The most important step you can take is to find out what really gets your audience excited and share more content like that! By checking post/tweet level engagement, you’ll know exactly what your audience wants to see from you.

Social Actions

You can dive even deeper into engagement and take a look at the actions people are taking on your content.

Retweets and shares are the most valuable social actions because they expose your content to a wider audience, plus it creates social proof that you can be trusted, that your content has impact.

Comments are also important. You want to create conversation. Comments show whether you have succeeded here. One note — we’ve seen a big drop in comments on blog posts. That doesn’t mean your post isn’t successful. In this instance, we’re seeing more people sharing blog comments on social media instead of posting on a website. You can track this activity in your mentions across platforms.

Likes and favorites are nice, but they are the low-hanging fruit of social actions.

If you have content that’s really sparking action, take a good look at it and try to determine what is igniting conversation and sharing. Then, try to create more of that content for the future.

The numbers don’t lie. They can help you create a content strategy that engages and excites interest, or they can reveal some painful truths about your efforts. Either way, that information is powerful to help you refine your message, your delivery, your format, and your timing. Without it, you’re driving with your eyes closed and that’s never a good idea.

Tell us, what have you learned from your social metrics?  

Confident ROi: Discover the Right Tools to Transform Your Company

For business owners and executives, the bottom line is what counts; and there is no shortage of business books, systems, and consultants that claim they can improve it. Some magazines haphazardly throw books and resources at readers, and others offer a new direction or concept in every issue. There is no map for knowing where to start, and how to continue improving. There is no consistency — and thus, no confidence in any of the recommendations.

But if business leaders are going to spend time and money implementing a business concept to grow their business, they want to be confident they will generate a return on that investment.  That’s the focus of a new magazine launching this week, which empower leaders to advance their company whether they own it, lead it, or work in it.

Confident ROi

Confident ROi magazine, started by company turnaround specialist Alex Vorobieff, interviews business leaders to hear their stories of what concepts worked and didn’t work, and focuses on providing concrete how-to’s. It also explores costs, time, and effort levels (i.e., brain strain) to implement tools leaders can use to turn around their companies. It is devoted to bringing you the tools and concepts to build the company you envision, along with the insights other leaders discovered when they tried to implement them. With this information, you can confidently select the right tool to generate a return on your company’s time and money.

According to Alex: “There are countless concepts with claims to fix all the problems facing business leaders and media outlets, that throw every concept at them. Besides trying to have one solution to all issues, they often start at the wrong end. Confident ROi ‘maps’ out the proper sequence from starting point through the end, offering real-world stories on what worked—and what didn’t—to let readers confidently choose the right concept to maximize their own ROI.”

Consistently reading this magazine will give fresh perspective on the business improvement universe, and how it relates to your business, so you can confidently select the next project concept to implement. Confident ROi will start with two issues a year, offered both digitally and through the mail, but Alex hopes to eventually transition to producing quarterly regional issues and organizing conferences.

Meet the Editor

Alex Vorobieff is the founder and CEO of The Vorobieff Company, a premier business-consulting organization. A highly sought-after speaker, business alignment coach, and the author of Transform Your Company, Alex has helped scores of business owners and successful companies replace chaos with clarity and finally attain the success they’ve always imagined. His methods eliminate the real source of their frustration using business alignment tools (a term he coined after years of working with and investigating different business systems).

After years working with companies, Alex realized the financial and accounting issues he would clean up were always a symptom of a bigger issue: people within the companies were not on the same page to the answers to essential questions and would inevitably end up working against each other. It took time to articulate the root cause, where to start and what could prevent a transformation, but removing the frustration changes a company for sucking the energy from its people and into a source of energy and satisfaction.

In addition to solving thorny business problems, Alex enjoys pursuing his hobby of photography. He lives in Newport Beach, California, with his wife of more than seventeen years, Christine; their daughter, Kate; and their two horses.

Learn More

Visit the website to learn more about the magazine, and sign up for your own copy.
Subscribe to the podcast to learn directly from business leaders about what works and what doesn’t.

It’s June—Time for a Business Reality Check

The temperatures are heating up and the days are getting longer. Summer’s just around the corner, and many business leaders view this as a time to take it easy. But many smart business leaders view it as a time to take stock in the last half of the year in a mid-year business review.

There are many reasons to do so. It gives you more time to recalibrate on things that aren’t working, rather than waiting until December when more damage could be done. It can give you a leg up on the competition that may be slowing down over the summer months. And it can be a great time to re-energize yourself and your people with fresh goals and challenges.

But how do you do a mid-year review? Here are 7 tips.

1. Mark some time off.

While you’re scheduling that family beach vacation, go ahead and schedule a half day for yourself to go somewhere peaceful to reflect. It could be while you’re on break at the beach, or at a park, or a coffee shop. Just be sure there are no distractions. Then start asking yourself some questions.

2. Take stock.

Now is a great time to think about how far you’ve come in the past six months. What are you grateful for? Where have you and your business grown? What new cool clients are you working with?

3. Glance at those 2018 goals.

How are you doing with them? Have you sold as many books or gained as many new clients as you wanted? Are they still relevant? Maybe you’re off mark because of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will pay off in the long run. If so, time to push a reset. What are your priorities now?

4. Look at those numbers.

This is likely most people’s least favorite part—but it’s necessary, because looking at numbers now could save you a lot of heartache six months down the road.

Review what money has come in, gone out, what your tax situation is, what’s making money and what’s eating it up, what expenses aren’t necessary, who still needs to pay you, how your rates stack up to your competition, and what opportunities (like a new client, speaking gig, or project) exist to ramp up your cash flow. 

5. Do a systems check.

Many times, we embark on a new collaboration or launch a new strategy hoping it will make our lives easier but the opposite happens. What’s creating headaches in your daily life? Is your project management system too clunky? Is that new collaboration draining time and money? Is your assistant not completing necessary tasks on time? Once you pinpoint what’s making your life harder instead of easier, brainstorm alternatives.

6. Review your marketing.

Whether you’re trying to sell books, get new clients, or land speaking gigs, chances are you’re putting yourself out there. Look at your marketing materials and activities like your social media and media relations activity, website, and brochures and advertising collateral. What’s paying off and what’s not? Do you need a refresh of your content? Are you resonating with your audiences? Are you spending too much or too little time and money on your marketing efforts?

7. Look at those clients.

Check to see if your client/customer portfolio is balanced. Do you need more long-term clients? Are there clients that are draining your resources rather than replenishing them? Think about what may need to be cut to free up space for collaborations that will benefit you and your business.

Finally, pat yourself on the back. You’ve already done more than most people. Celebrate what you’ve achieved so far. And, if you’re not on mark, don’t beat yourself up. Now you have the time to create an action plan so that 2018 is still on track to be your best yet.

What other mid-year evaluations do you recommend?