Enterprise Nation

Karen prepares

This useful post appeared on Karen Skidmore's blog and we thought you'd enjoy it too.

September is a huge window of opportunity for you to really push up and out your brand, your marketing messages and your product/service offerings.  Your customers are back from their holidays, back in to routine again and ready to make some purchasing decisions.

No use spending the month of September doing all your marketing prep because it will be bonfire night before you know it and it won't be long before its Christmas!  And, unless you have a business that is aimed at the Christmas market, by that time, your customers may have other things on their mind rather than spending money with you.

So, whether you are a massage therapist wanting to win back your clients after their summer holidays, a corporate trainer ready to follow up on pre-summer meetings and proposals or a web designer waiting to get out there and network like crazy, there are 5 simple steps that you could be taking to be ready to kick some butt that first week back.

1. Update your website.  Go through each and every page to make sure what you and your business offers is represented correctly on your website.  It's amazing how fast your business can change as you work with different types
of clients or offer different types of programmes.  Have you got your latest testimonials online?  Are all your links working?  What about your news page?  Is it up to date?

2. Plan your event marketing.  If you plan to run events, workshops or seminars in September, your marketing plan should have been done weeks ago, to be honest.  But it's not too late for events happening in October onwards.  I recommend a minimum of 6 weeks hard marketing before any event and if you have very little database, then longer.  So, plan your early bird offer, decided how you are going to get the message out there (leaflets, emails, website, local PR) and start writing your compellling marketing copy. If you have set up a weekly timetable then it makes it far easier to execute and ensure all your events are sold out.

3. Build your team.  I have just gone through this exercise over the past month as I knew I wanted to delegate my newsletters and shopping cart to a new VA.  The whole process took about 2 weeks from start to finish and I now have another fab new VA with all the skills I was looking for.  By doing this now rather than wait until September, she and I can out how to get the best out of each other, get all the prep work done and be ready to go with the routine actions in September.  I can recommend www.AssistU.com as a great place to go and recruit a VA, especially a VA with shopping cart and email newsletter experience.

4. Plan your articles, newsletters and blog postings.  There is nothing like having a weekly schedule of the articles all set out, to make writing them easier.  It can be as simple as printing out a monthly calendar for the next 2 or 3 months and writing in the topic or article headline in the day you plan to publish it.  No more wasted time looking for much needed inspiration on the day.  Oh, and make sure your articles help promote what ever newlsetter, product or programme you will be offering in the Autumn.

5. Clear out your office.  A tidy desk gives a tidy mind.  And if you have been building up paper clutter (like me!) over the past few months, it is easy to feel overwhelmed every time you walk in to your office.  Get busy filing, recycling, delegating or throwing away all post-stick notes, invoices, paperwork and client forms.  Start September with a clear desk and your head will be a lot clearer too. 

• Karen Skidmore, Candocanbe.com