Cleaning Up Your Marketing – Marketing
Cleaning Up Your Marketing
Charlie Cook
Has your once well-organized marketing plan come to resemble the jumble of stuff in your closet not to mention the garage and the attic If you are like most people, each time you come across a new marketing idea you try to adopt it and add it to your existing approach.
Strategies and tactics tend to accumulate and linger even when they may not be working as well as youd like. Like the ill-fitting clothes that accumulate in your closet or the broken tools still in the garage, they are hard to get rid of, whether because of habit, emotional attachment or just plain not getting around to cleaning them out.
To improve your marketing, youll need to clean out some old ways of working. While I dont want to get anywhere near your closet, and in fact I could use some help with mine, I can show you how to clean up your marketing plan so youre ready to take advantage of the New Year to grow your business.
Cleaning Up Your Marketing Plan
Every morning my friend Michael Angier of SuccessNet.org sits down at his desk and asks himself the following three questions about his business.
1. Whats working
2. Whats not working
3. What can I improve
You may not want to review your marketing plan five times a week, but it is a good idea to do it at least once a year. So take out your pencil or fire up your computer and assess your marketing plan:
Your Marketing Plan
1. Is your plan working
2. Do you have a well defined marketing strategy that helps you achieve the three phases of marketing: Getting Attention, Positioning, and Selling
3. Do you need to write or rewrite your marketing plan
4. Do you need additional information or coaching to complete your marketing plan
5. What are you going to do to improve your marketing plan
Getting Attention
6. Does your marketing message prompt prospects to contact you
7. Do your ads, letters, and web site motivate prospects to contact you
8. What are your conversion rates
9. What steps can you take to improve them
Positioning
10. What are you doing to establish your credibility with prospects, to help them know and trust you
11. Is it working as well as youd like
12. What could you improve
13. Is the value of your products and services clear to your prospects or do they question you about merits and price
14. Want to learn how to ensure that your prospects understand the value of your products and services
Selling
15. How successful are you in selling, that is, in getting commitments for everything from appointments to orders
16. Whats your conversion rate of prospects contacted to clients and customers
17. Do initial s/ales generate repeat s/ales and referrals for years to come
18. Want to learn how to generate more s/ales from each client
Evaluating Your Marketing Plan
Use Michaels three questions to summarize your comments
about your marketing plan and your success in getting
attention, positioning and selling.
1. Whats working
2. Whats not
3. What do you want to improve
The hardest part about cleaning out your closet, attic, garage or your marketing is getting started. It may be time to straighten up or throw out some of your old marketing strategies and tactics and replace them with new more effective ones. Start 2005 with a well organized marketing plan, one that helps you Get Attention, Position your products and services and Sell and youll find your business growing in leaps and bounds in the coming year.
About The Author
2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.
The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up for the Fr
The Art Of Gutter Cleaning – Home
The Art Of Gutter Cleaning
Henry Bockman
Many homeowners clean their own gutters or hire someone each season to properly maintain their homes. What you may not realize is that most gutter systems should be cleaned 3-4 times a year with each season.
You may be wondering why should I clean out my gutters so often The reason is each season trees go through various cycles that can clog up your gutters. In spring, most trees drop seedlings and dead twigs. Spring is also the best time to inspect your gutters for any damages that may have occurred during the winter snow. In summer, trees lose leaves from heavy storms and high winds. In early fall, you should remove leaves that have fallen early to keep your gutters flowing freely. At the end of fall or early winter, you want to make sure everything has been properly cleared from the gutter system to help prevent ice dams or buildup of ice in your gutters. The extra weight of frozen water in your gutters can easily cause them to pull away from the fascia and in many cases, fall off the house. Improper gutter maintenance will lead to clogged or damaged gutters and can cause thousands of dollars in damage to your homes foundation, exterior trim and basements.
To clean your gutters properly, rent a sturdy ladder and get your a neighbor to give you a hand. Ladders can be rented from most local rental centers for as little as $40.00 a day. When using ladders, make sure you stay away from power lines, trees and windows. Its a good idea to use a ladder stabilizer to make sure the ladder doesnt crush your gutters or slip while your doing the cleaning. Ladder stabilizers can be purchased at most hardware stores for about $30.00. Remember your safety is more important than clean gutters, so make sure you get someone to help you. Thousands of people die each year from falls and electrocution while working on ladders.
If you have gutter screens or gutter guards, make sure that they arent damaged or clogged with leaves and branches. They wont help protect the gutters if the water cant get into them properly and the water may just flow over them making them useless, even if the gutters are clean! Carefully lift the guards to avoid damaging them and remove any leaves or debris under them and then reinstall them properly. You should run water over them to make sure they are working properly. Check your downspouts to see if they have screens at the top and clear them as well. If necessary, use a hose to clear any heavily clogged downspouts and make sure you replace any damaged gutter or downspout screens. While cleaning your gutters, inspect them to make sure the fasteners are properly secured. This can usually be done with a hammer, or in some cases a screwdriver.
You may find that over time, the spikes that hold the aluminum to the fascia board have loosened. Either drive the loose spikes back into place, or replace them with longer ones for improved support. When gutters are loose, the pitch is changed and the water will overflow at low areas. Since you have help from your neighbor, this is also the perfect time to inspect your roof for missing shingles, cracked vent pipe gaskets or bare nails. Make sure you return the favor and help him or her on their house when youre done.
If you have any questions about gutter maintenance, gutter guard systems or to hire a professional to clean the gutters on your home, contact Henrys Housework at 301-353-9287. For more information about gutter cleaning, guard systems or our other services, see our website at www.henryshousework.com. We also offer a newsletter through our website with maintenance tips, reminders and discounts on our services each month.
Henry Bockman
President, Henrys Housework Inc.
Online at www.Henryshousework.com
Email Henry@Henryshousework.com
Office 301 353-9287
About The Author
1989 Henrys Housework provides gutter cleaning, roof repairs, power washing and nuisance wildlife trapping services to over 10,000 commercial and residential clients in Montgomery County, Maryland. For more information on Henrys Housework visit their website at: http://www.henryshousework.com.
henry@henryshousework.com
Fall Pond Cleaning – Home
Fall Pond Cleaning
Brett Fogle
Great question. The answer is it really depends. Doing a full pond cleaning during the colder winter months can be very stressful on your fish. However, if the pond is really dirty and full of muck - then you may want to consider it because all of the decaying organic matter in the pond can cause problems if the pond ices over, and this begins to de-gas and rot.
So, I think the best solution, and what we used to do for our clients was do a partial Fall pond cleaning.
Heres how to do it:
First, get a container that will hold roughly 100 gallons or so, or up to half of your pond volume bigger is better. Then take a pump with a hose, and pump out the relativel clean water from your pond by holding the pump just beneath the water surface. Keep as much of the old pond water as you can. Then, catch your fish if possible and place them into the holding tank of their own clean water.
Then you can either net out your leaves and dispose of them, along with any muck that you can get out also. Alternatively, you can then pump out the remaining water and do a thorough clean out, including vacuuming out the pond with a large wet/dry vac this works great!.
Then refill the pond back up to the level it was at before disposing of the water, de-chlorinate the water, and adjust the pH to match that of the old water in your holding tank. At this point, start pumping new water from the pond into your holding tub, and then pumping the mixture back into the pond. Do this for 15-20 minutes until the new water mixture matches that in the pond - and then pump the remaining water back into your pond while netting your fish back in as well.
But its very important not to expose your fish to new water conditions too quickly as differences in temperature and pH can cause extreme stress to your fish, affect the immune system, and even cause shock or fish death. So always be careful when changing water.
About The Author
Brett Fogle is the owner of MacArthur Water Gardens and several pond-related websites including macarthurwatergardens.com and pond-filters-online.com. He also publishes a free monthly newsletter called PondStuff! with a reader circulation of over 9,000 pond owners. To sign up for the free newsletter and receive a complimentary New Pond Owners Guide for joining, just visit MacArthur Water Gardens
brett@macarthurwatergardens.com