Consider subscribing to my blog's RSS feed. It's sticky
One of my most frequent mantras for small business is “Strategy Before Tactics.” In other words, you must develop a solid marketing strategy before you ever consider the what and how of the tactical side.
For me, that strategy is always based in two core ingredients - a thorough understanding and description of who makes an ideal customer for your business and a simple, yet meaningful, way to communicate how your business is different than all the others that say they do what you do.
The longer I’ve owned my own business and the longer I’ve worked with small business owners I’ve come to add a very important third element to the strategy piece, and it’s one that I think somehow must come before anything else.
This 3rd strategy element is something I call “Your Shine.” Essentially this is the illumination of your marketing and life vision in what is ultimately a highly personal and unique way.
You already know that line that separates your business and your life is so thin that without a vision for how one will serve the other, perhaps neither will serve either. And that’s what I believe holds people back from building truly remarkable businesses and equally remarkable lives.
So what does this shines thing look like? I don’t know exactly, but I do know it has nothing to do with balance. First off, balance is impossible to achieve and it’s wrong thing anyway. Building a business and a life that shines isn’t about balance, it’s more about blending the right notes to create a certain kind of dynamic harmony.
See, the beautiful thing about harmony is that only you can determine the kind of music that excites you.
Your Shine then is your personal understanding of your organization’s (substitute job if you like) higher purpose or reason for being that syncs perfectly with your personal goals and values. Okay, before you conclude that this is starting to sound a little too spiritual for your taste, let me bring it back to a simple, practical idea. You and only you can decide what “higher purpose” means, the only point I’m making is that without this driving vision or “this is why I do this” it is far too easy to get knocked off track the first time you suffer some setback or criticism of your dream.
A firm grasp of this thing I call your Shine is what gives you the courage to stay with what you believe.
-
So the parts of your Shine, your harmony and by their very nature parts of your marketing strategy are:
- Your personal, business, strategic and tactical long-term and short-term goals
- Your marketing vision - the higher purpose of why you do what you do that helps you throw off the desire for a homeostasis kind of balance in search for a much more dynamic kind of harmony
- Your vision story - A detailed description of a day in the life of your business if, in fact, your marketing vision was being fully realized and that your business was indeed allowing you to create a remarkable life - in a word, a life that Shines.
Once you create Your Shine as part of your marketing strategy you may find that the other elements of your strategy, your ideal customer and your core difference, are much easier to get your arms around.
The most exciting thing I’ve witnessed when people take the time to really get this idea, is that all of a sudden marketing gets really easy, because they have a guiding light that drives every single marketing decision.
Comments
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at Aug 09, 08 | 10:40 am and is filed under Core message, Ideal Customer, Marketing Strategy, Shine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
You’re right about the importance of Shine I call it finding your story, but no matter, we’re talking about the same thing. Something WAY too few small business owners are encouraged to address. And something that can give a company momentum. Thanks for extending the conversation.
I’m a little fuzzy on the concept of “your shine”, John. I break down the business planning steps like this: (a) identify the target market, (b) what specific need in the market will your product or service fulfill, and (c) what is your competitive advantage against the competition that will lead the target customer to select you to fulfill that need. “Your shine” seems to be more of stepping back and making sure your business really can deliver on (c) above (i.e., there is a reason for you to exist in the market). And I kinda read in this article the thought that a business owner must make sure that he or she plus the entire organization is personally committed to do all that is necessary to deliver on (c). Agree completely if I correctly gather the intent of the article.
Hi John,
If I “get” what you’re saying my Shine is helping my customers succeed at their objectives through more efficient communication (right message to right person in right place at right time). It might be helpful if you gave an example of Your Shine. I strongly agree with your comments about harmony and balance. I’m not sure about how it contributes to marketing your business any more than the traditional tools that others list such as: target market, value proposition, buying behavior, buying criteria, etc.
John, I couldn’t agree more with having a ’shine’.
It’s a circle: I grow my mentoring program to help mediators build practices that help the public and we become empowered and enabled to live the lives we want, filled with meaningful relationships.
I assist talented people to find peace of mind, and, I get paid! I couldn’t ask for more.
@joe - the meaning of “Your Shine” is dynamic as well and will be mean different things to different people, but your thinking on this is right on. The word passion comes to mind as well. I just find that if people can connect their business to something they are passionate about delivering, they are much more likely to make the right choices and stay the course.
All of the other things you mentioned are crucial business strategy, but if you can align those with something you deeply believe, well, you’re bound to succeed in a way that nurtures you and those around you.
In fact, I’m sure there can be true growth without it. Maybe P/L growth, but not the kind I think people are really craving out of owning a business.
@Barbara - Actually I think you’re getting the full point I’m making - all the other tools you list are necessary for you and your customers, but what about you - what’s your connection for why you do what you do - what’s the higher purpose you can attach to your business - a higher purpose that informs, motivates and amplifies your work.
As for example - that’s a tough one, because, as you might have guessed, this is meant to be highly personal. Even though I’m suggesting in this post that the Shine be part of your marketing strategy, it may not be something you ever share as part of your marketing communications. It’s just what drives you and allows you to do what’s in sync with what you want out of life.
For me, what I want to be my mark on life - a big part of my Shine, is the help people see how incredible business ownership can be when you realize how fun marketing is. I talk to and see countless business owner’s for whom their business has become worse than a job, and I think that’s the ultimate crime.
So my higher purpose, if you will, is to help them get relief. It’s become a mission that infuses what I do. I’m still stumbling along each day with just how, but I’m crystal clear on why and it makes what I do a joy.
So I don’t have any need to communicate this purpose but I use it as the filter for making business and marketing decisions.
@Dina
What a beautiful illustration of my point. Thanks for sharing.
WOW. I think you must be the first person in the business growth / marketing arena I have ever heard say something like that. I wholeheartedly agree with you when you say it’s not about balance, but about dynamic harmony. From a life perspective, balance or equilibrium is equal to death! Who wants that? Life is about being far from equilibrium. And into dynamic growth.
A very dear mentor of mine used to say (I paraphrase): “Screw balance. May your personal life and vocational(work/business) life intertwine in a passionate dance. Dance that dance with absolute passion and no breaks on. And let people from the outside try to figure out which is which”.
I think your point is SO important. How many of us, entrepreneurs, are so passionate about what we do and serving others that we make that business/life line gets fuzzy and disappear? But then, the “all about balance” people come in and try to make us feel bad for not delineating clearly personal life and business life.
Well, maybe they are just envious we have figured out the steps of the dance and that they haven’t.
Yannick Pauli
Applied thought leadership in wellness and healing.
Switzerland
What an elequent way of describing what I call “knowing your WHY.” I believe if your Why is big enough it will drive you with passion in the right directions…everything else is detail.
I missed this post on my reader a few days ago, and I’m so happy I found it!! Often times, we get caught up in all the official steps of the marketing plan/strategy, that we forget to keep it simple and figure out what makes us SHINE! I started thinking about a few of the marketing projects we are working on here, and it really helped me narrow down the most important elements. Thank you for simple, but great ideas.
This is great advice. It’s funny how when it’s your business things get all confusing and convoluted, but it’s easy to look at someone else’s business and analyze what they need to do.
John, good post on getting your shine on. I don’t personally think that the difference between strategy and tactics are important. (You and Robert Kiyosaki both do).
To me it’s about this process:
SET (your goal) PLAN (how your going to do it) ATTACK (with focus)—no matter the size of the task, this three step process for creating can build billion dollar companies or just get your household chores done more effectively.