Here Are the Two Most Powerful Assets to Your Business

I know what you’re thinking.

Jay, the two most powerful assets of a business have to be the CEO and the company’s employees, right?

Nope, that’s not it.

Well, then it’s got to be products and sales, right?

Getting closer, but nope.

See, while all of the aforementioned assets are important, they don’t come to fruition without the right mindset and consistent marketing.

That’s right . . . mindset and consistent marketing. Probably not what you were thinking, but the right mindset allows the CEO to lead the company and its employees, and consistent marketing leads to product awareness and sales.

Now, what people may not also realize is the relationship between the mindset and the marketing.

Let’s start with the mindset in business.

Often, when people don’t see the types of sales they’re expecting, their mindset can instantly be triggered and become reactive. What people may not realize is that there are two highs and two lows in the year for acquiring sales.

The two lows come during summer (the mid of July through August) and  Christmas/New Years (December and part of January).

I’ve done some significant research, and human psychology dictates that people during those times are preoccupied with events that defer their buying making decisions.

And even though they may not be making the buying decision during those two low points, they’re still looking.

So, why do I bring this up? Well, I handle a lot of people in the digital marketing world, and they’re number one concern is sales conversions; people constantly bring me their fears that their conversion just isn’t there. How do I get over the low points?

First, you must understand timing.

Understanding Timing

Everyone always asks me, how was I always able to overcome the low points and use those to springboard into the strongest times of the year? Well, for starters, I learned a thing or two about timing.

See, we’re currently in September, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. September is grouped into one of the two highest points of the year. Why?

Because September and October come right after July & August, just like March and April, come right off the holidays through the new year. This is when people are most active in their buying processes and decision making.

Just because August is slow in terms of conversions, those customers/buyers are still there. They’re just not making the buying decision quite as quickly.

What happens is through the summer and slow periods, people will back off on their marketing. They’ll scale back based on the concern that it’s not converting.

What happens is that September and October more than make up for July and August. But if you back off on your marketing, September and October come along, and you’re now not running at full throttle with your marketing.

You’re now missing out on one of two of the most active buying seasons, which is Fall.

This leads me to the second most powerful asset in your business; consistent marketing.

Consistency Is Key

There really are ebbs and flows in marketing, but regardless of that, you have to stay consistent with it.

Your marketing, over time, whether it is a good month or down month, will even out. And as you do higher and higher volume in your business, you’ll notice much less variance from month-to-month.

So, I can’t stress this enough, the biggest mistake you can make, is to pull back. Obviously, if there’s something broken in your sales funnel or other areas of the sales process, that that’s something you need to address. All other signals should tell you to keep your foot on the gas.

The secret is to not take your foot off the gas. Not to allow yourself to get into a reactive state. If you do that, you’ll miss out on Sept/Oct.

In those two months, along with March / April, you can make enough in just those four months, to replace or double, whatever your current income is now. Just in those four months. In fact, you could probably quadruple your current income working four months of the year.

But in marketing business like this, you can’t just turn it on for two months and then turn it off. It doesn’t work that way. Cause marketing is all about consistency.

That consistency is what the people that you are bringing into your list, the people that are looking for and consuming your content, the people that are reading your blog posts, watching your videos and following you on social media, are all part of your journey and will purchase at varying times of that journey. You must keep going.

And if you go radio silent, or start promoting something else, you can lose any momentum that you already started to gain. You also lose some of their trust that you’ve been earning.

I always use this analogy with people – Watering your garden.

What good will it do if you water your garden for two weeks and then stop just because the tomatoes haven’t grown yet? You say screw it and don’t water the rest of the year? Really? That’s not how growth works.

This concept is no different than your marketing, and consistency is the key.

So, how do maintain a healthy balance between your mindset and your marketing efforts? Well, it begins by getting into the details and monitoring yourself monthly or quarterly.

Don’t Be Afraid To Analyze Your Results

We’re coming into the fourth quarter of the year.

The fourth quarter of the year is a great time to evaluate where you are for the year but to start thinking about where you want to be for the next year. I recommend that you take a day or a weekend and do some evaluations:

1. Where are you?
2. Have you met the goals you set out for the year to accomplish?
3. Look at a macro level of your business every quarter and include your life as well.

Sometimes we get too caught up with assessing month-to-month. Sometimes we have a good month; sometimes we have a bad month. Don’t get too caught up on month-to-month.

Until you’re earning multiple 6-figure incomes, it’s really difficult with such a small sample size as a volume to make any decisions just on one-month results.

So even though you’re monitoring your business, those quarterly check-ins are critical to make sure you’re trending in the right direction.

The last thing any of us want to do is close out yet another year with the same results we had the year before. So, if that’s the case, what better time than right now to do some serious self-evaluation; a conscious, cognitive and objective inventory of where you’re at.

It’s easy to do those check-ins when things are going great; it’s easy to step back and feel good about your progress and count your victories when you’re winning. However, it’s tough to do that when you’re not. Part of checking in with yourself relies on you taking stock of yourself.

Check In With Yourself By Taking Inventory

Why do you constantly need to take stock of yourself and check the inventory?

Because, as an entrepreneur you have to have the mental toughness and the discipline to grow and sustain into your various roles. You are the CEO of You, Inc. If you don’t do that analysis to make sure everything is working the way it’s supposed to, then you can find yourself without a business or a life real quick.

Take the time to say to yourself – “TIME OUT! How am I doing? Let me check in!” – If you don’t do this, then you can’t self-correct.

This sounds like common knowledge, yet almost no one does this. They never check in to see why their goals weren’t achieved.

People don’t take enough time to analyze results, adapt, change, shift, and make necessary tweaks.

You have to leverage your way forward; fail your way forward. If you don’t screw up, what are you going to build experience with? And you have to screw up a little bit to get the data you need to make key decisions.

If you have a business that’s only knocking down one goal after the other, what the heck happens when you have an off month, quarter or year?

If all you’ve ever done is succeeded, if all you’ve ever done is accomplish every goal that you set, as soon as you set it, what kind of character would you have? What kind of resilience would you have? What kind of courage would you have? What kind of confidence would you have? You’d have almost none.

So, stop being afraid of what you see in the mirror. Stop being afraid of printing out the year’s bank balance, and creating a little spreadsheet that says my average balance for the last 12 months hasn’t changed.

And maybe you need to stick those damn bank statements up on your fricken wall as a reminder that shit hasn’t been changing. Do that for a weekend and see how that feels.

If you were the CEO of your business and wanted all the benefits of being a self-employed entrepreneur, but you don’t want to do any of the dirty work, messy stuff, or have any of the tough conversations with yourself, then your expectations are completely off base.

But here’s the cool thing. When you take stock a few times. As uncomfortable as it is, you’ll become better and stronger much faster.

It’s funny, most of society is motivated by a horn or boot up their ass. That is, something kicks them in the butt as a wake-up call.

If you’re not disciplined with your marketing and crunching your numbers on a monthly basis, then how the hell are you going to run a marketing business or any business for that matter. Get used to using a spreadsheet and a calculator.

Some Parting Thoughts

As we enter the last quarter of this year, remember that mindset and consistent marketing are your two biggest allies.

Take time to set some aggressive goals for the 4th quarter and use some of September and October to get your momentum. Use September as your foundational, momentum building month. Ride that thru October and November and then thru the holidays.

Just imagine, how great would it feel if you were able to put 50K into the bank between now and the new year. If you’re going to do it, now is the best time. Stop waiting for things to happen and waiting for some things to work and set some specific goals and targets.

There is no rational, logical reason why you should financially struggle in this day and age.

Start shifting your focus from helping yourself to helping others and see what happens. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to have a positive impact on the world.

All my best,