Learn to measure the distance and join the dots
We all want to market something for one reason: the will to grow.
Now that 2012 is on the road, we can easily talk about the next opportunities to come. I mean those which will help us accomplish tasks we couldn’t achieve previously because of some lack of resources or administration issues.
Here’s the thing: we cannot close the recession book. We have to endure this never ending economic crisis and at the same time, running on the new social revolution.
The good news is that all the pressure we’ve accumulated during what we can now call the previous era, can be transformed into positive and relevant energy.
This energy will help us race the top or we’d better stay hidden in the backyard.
Target: reaching smart goals by measuring the distance
It’s all about defying the odds in an industry where most businesses fail after the first three years.
You have to become a risk-taker by going out of your comfort zone to avoid being on a constant welfare and start detecting the pillars of your environment.
What separate you from those pillars, and how will you measure the distance to go and reach them.
Most of the companies that experienced a crisis in engagement will tell you about measuring the distance.
Moreover, the distance separating people can be fatal at some point. If you don’t maintain a constant and average market process between you and your customers you can lose a lot.
On the small business side, that means to practice your craft, learn the metrics to build long and sustainable connections.
On the global side, companies need to fight hard to connect and shape their customer relationship.
The more you’ll be able to measure how long you’re separated from your connections, the more you’ll be close to your target. But long is the road to reach this target.
Experience: the new normal is the constant change
Small businesses, companies must reinvent themselves if they want to survive in the new market.
A disciplined approach will help you evaluate ideas, push them into concepts and bring you affordable content. But this is not enough.
Ability to listen and understand the business environment you’re evolving in will come over at the moment you’ll join the dots.
The dots are those fails you’ve encountered at the time you weren’t aware. They came like a punching ball in your face and caused such a tidal wave you couldn’t do nothing but waiting the disaster to go away and let the time repair the fracture.
Getting up and start moving will create energy.
Getting energy and drawing a new business strategy built on past actions and fails will help you join the dots.
Getting the dots joined will certainly shift for good your organization and condition your productivity to perform small but often.
There won’t be room anymore for participants that are not able to perform: we need new leaders to show the new rules and identify positive actions.
Result: Improve your strengths, not your weaknesses
Don’t be afraid to use your observation. If the routine work rules well, there are many tools that will help you iterate the job and free up spare time to get involved in something new.
Many actions are waiting out there, though, there is no miracle recipe but there are tracking points to follow that tend to reduce weakness and adventure new ways of success.
Every entrepreneur should be able to measure the distances and join the dots.
Now, this is your turn.

A special dedication to Jim Connolly and Minter Dial for their impressive and great support.
My recent post Learn to measure the distance and join the dots
You're very welcome, Yael!
My recent post Are you making this common mistake with your marketing?
This is an exceptional post Yael.
Connecting the dots is a great description of how business owners need to think of their marketing efforts. You have the traditional dots (newspaper, magazine, TV, radio) and new media dots (Blogs, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and more)
You don't need to connect all of the dots; only those that are relevant to reaching your goals. However, you need to aware and in the know of how to leverage both traditional dots and new media dots and incorporate them into a comprehensive marketing strategy for your business : )
It's not about using all of the dots – its about understanding your goals and discovering how the connecting certain dots can improve and grow your business & revenues.
Thanks for sharing Yael!
My recent post Lead For Crying Out Loud!
So true my dear friend!!
It’s quite impossible to connect all the dots. The good thing is to know their existence for a better overview.
Technically we have the chance that digital helps a lot for connecting as you very well described.
I totally agree with you on acquiring a strategy to go straight to the main goals needed, then going forward.
A great comment from a great person.
Thanks a lot Mark!
Funnily enough, Mark, while reading Yael's post, I went on another angle. I thought of the myriad dots representing the tons of information out there. On the one hand, that cloud of dots can look daunting and confusing. On the other hand, we've never had more data available to us than now.
The dots — aka the data — contain among other things masses of customer insights. For me, it is all about joining the pertinent dots to crystallize the killer insights. The "dots" are a gold mine with the right pair of glasses.
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