The Mid-year Check-Up

2012 is halfway in the books already, thought I’d check my resolution progress.

  • Healthier living. I can report more salads, fewer Cokes, longer walks. Not a lot of change, certainly going in the right direction.
  • Website. Sadly, those cobbler’s kids still ain’t got no shoes. Decision to go to all SEO-friendly WordPress has been made; still trolling the plethora of free (small business owner on a budget!) themes; and deciding the best way to Unsuck my copy and kill overused buzzwords. Got to make this happen!
  • Business Development. Work in progress as I’m trying to figure out how to make all this blogging, tweeting, socializing work for my business – not the other way around.
    • Blogging. I have scaled back, and started writing for stronger inbound marketing, based on content and search. I’m making better use of SEO plugins, but need to pay more attention to the Google analytics.
    • Automation. I’m considering it. I’ve looked at various @IFTTT recipes, but since I don’t think you can program engagement or automate curation, IDK what I’d ‘set and forget’ – yet. Open to suggestions.
    • Self-promotion. I will be tweeting, plussing, linking my own stuff more often than I do now, which is almost never; if I’m hitting ‘publish’ then I might as well share to Google+, LinkedIn and/or Twitter. (Lightbulb: maybe this is where @IFTTT could help?!)
    • Networking. Still need to step it up, be more aggressive about looking for work, with an eye towards bigger waters (therefore bigger small business fish). LinkedIn I think is about to get more of my time; I’m a B2B consultant, need to think more along those lines.

The Mid-Year Business Check-up

Take a look at your 2012 Gameplan:

  •  Are you on track? Did you take on too much? Maybe focus on your Big Two or Three KPIs (“‘K’ is there for a reason,” it’s KEY) for the rest of the year.
  •  Hits? Misses? Change gears to focus on what’s working – and cut what isn’t.
  • Surprises? Twists? Maybe you didn’t really give Pinterest consideration in December as you mapped 2012; now you see it’s the right hit for your visually strong product and target market.

Things change. Flexibility, adaptability are crucial skills in today’s market. And keeping up with what your buisnsiness is doing throughout the year will go a long way to getting you where you want and need to be.

What successes, surprises, twists has 2012 brought you? Are you on track – or changing direction?

Want More? Keep Reading.

2 thoughts on “The Mid-year Check-Up

    1. If nothing else Marcus, I’m thinking more about my business, the kind of work I want to do. I’m not “Dial-a-Designer” or “1-800-Press-Rls” – I’m more than that. Still looking for the best way to ‘sell’ that – and the right buyers.

      Have a happy 4th! 🙂

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