Are You Spinning Plates or Breaking Them?
May 18th, 2011 by Diane Conklin under Information Marketing. No Comments.
You’ve seen the guy on stage spinning the plates. He starts at one end and gets a plate spinning, then moves to the next plate, and the next, until he gets to the end of the line of plates. The hope is that when he gets the last plate up and spinning, all of the plates are still spinning and then he can go stop each one, take it off the stick it’s been spinning on and all of the plates are in one piece. That’s success for the plate spinner.
Sometimes, plates start to fall and break before he gets them all spinning. At the very least, you see the guy start a couple plates, run back to the first plate to keep it spinning, get the third plate spinning, run back and work on 2 more plates, run to the fourth plate, etc. You get the picture.
What does all of this have to do with marketing and the mistakes you might be making in your marketing?
Well, most of us try to juggle too many projects at one time, and end up not completing any of them, or if we do complete them they aren’t very successful. We’re like the guy with the plates. We start a marketing campaign; give it a little bit of attention, and then run to something else, forgetting about the project we just started. It’s a juggling act that doesn’t work.
It’s also unrealistic to start one project and work on only that project until completion – that doesn’t make good business sense either. And, it wouldn’t work – you would get bored very quickly and if the project weren’t a success, you wouldn’t have anything to fall back on, or money coming in from other things.
You have to prioritize and have your hands in enough income producing streams to make a profit and continue to grow, but not in so many that you never complete anything and are just running around like a crazy person from one project to the next.
Part of this goes back to planning and knowing what your goals and objectives are for the month, the quarter, the year, and the next five years. These plans will keep you focused and it will be much easier to keep the important plates spinning without them falling off their sticks. Then you too will have success.
If you are currently spinning a lot of plates, but not making the kind of progress or money you want to be making, or think you should be making, and you can turn this around and be making more money than you ever thought possible.
There are 2 big areas of your business you should give attention to that will help you get more done, in less time and have more success. They are systems and good quality staff. And, remember, the systems run the business, not your staff. Staff are very important, the most important thing you have, because they make the systems work.
Take a look at your spinning plates, analyze and look at which ones you might want to remove for now, which ones need your focus and attention, and which ones you can delegate and then continually re-access. This one thing will give you a lot more ease in your business.
