A Simple Analysis That Defeats Marketing Paralysis - Part 1 of 3

The term analysis paralysis is fitting when a person over-analyzes a situation to the point where a decision is avoided or action is not taken, thus paralyzing the outcome.

Success ALWAYS responds to decisive action. So even if an action you take leads to an outcome you didn't expect, it doesn't mean you've made a mistake. The goal is to create results!

Make this easy on yourself! Instead of wasting time and energy worrying about which step to take next, review what you've done in the past to help determine what you should be doing now and into the future.

There are 3 categories of your marketing strategy that we want to analyze:

• Tracking past results

• Tracking marketing efforts

• Tracking marketing results

Why is tracking so important? It is because you can see clearly what is working and what is not. Thus, you'll know where to focus your time, energy and financial resources so as to get the best results.

Tracking past results

Take a look at the clients that you have worked with over the past 12 months. Then ask yourself, "where did those clients come from?" Let's say, for example, within the past year, you worked with 15 different clients. To get more clients and increase your income, it is imperative that you recognize how those clients were introduced to your business.

For illustrative purposes, let's say the following about your 15 clients:

• 4 clients were referrals.

• 4 clients were repeat customers.

• 3 clients were found through speaking engagements (either in person or virtual).

• 2 clients found you through one of your email promotions.

• 2 clients were met via social media outlets.

What does this tell you?

Development of your referral relationships, staying in touch with past clients and doing speaking engagements have been the most lucrative marketing strategies for you. So you may want to focus more of your attention there and less on email marketing and social media.

• How can you increase the referrals and repeat customers from 4 to 7?

• Have you set up more speaking engagements so that you can turn that 3 into 6?

• What can you do to increase your referrals from 4 to 8?

Let's take our analysis a bit further:

• What products or services did those clients purchase from you?

• Which were most popular?

• What is the total revenue that you earned from serving those 15 clients?

This will show you how much revenue you generated specifically from each marketing strategy you pursued. You can then analyze how to increase the dollar value of each transaction and decrease your expenses. Which, of course, increases your profitability!