Boost Your Business with Creative Thinking

Has your business been challenged by the current economic status? It is an opportunity to put into action the advice: “When given lemons, make lemonade.” It is the notion that a failing business or a struggling small business CAN turn around with a few additions of “sugar and water”. But what is that sugar and water for your business? First it is creative thinking or thinking “out of the box” and stretching your own creativity.

Your business plan is designed to be your map to success. But just like driving to a destination, it is easy to be distracted, make a wrong turn or get confused by the landmarks. The map helps to keep you on track, keep your focus and keep you moving in the right direction!!

Business plans just like life plans are not written in stone. They are fluid and always subject to changes and revisions.. Your business is bound to have at least one of these changes in direction or new destination and perhaps it will have more than one. It could be the addition of new products, services; or a new location; or new management, but something will change along the way.

An essential component of your plan is your marketing plan. And, with the Internet, marketing has become even more fluid than in the past. Marketing used to be simpler, perhaps. Now is is an ever changing environment. You plan for a set of strategies and techniques and then the marketing environment changes, like with the advent of social media and your plan has to change to accommodate these innovations. You have to figure out how they fit into your business.

Press releases used to be just that, a press release to local media. Now you can submit your press releases online as well as to the local media. The resulting affect is multi-dimensional.

Knowing your numbers is an essential in marketing, so that you can tell what is working and what is not and you can make changes when you see your sales numbers tumbling. This is why you want your marketing strategies to be cutting edge. You need to be watching what works in the market place and making the needed changes to your plan. When new media comes online, it is an opportunity to look at it and evaluate HOW it will work in your business. The marketing strategies that you are currently using can become stagnate and ineffective. If you are not constantly evaluating what you are doing and what other strategies you can implement you can lose touch with your target market and how to reach them effectively. It is not a time to get comfortable with the status quo. It is a time to be watching, evaluating and implementing all that you can.

Taking on new strategies can be overwhelming. Twitter, for example is a marketing tool that many laughed at when it first came on the scene. Even the media questioned what it was and why people would use it. But now, a year later, you see all major media personalities are using Twitter. Is your target market there too?

Learning new strategies for reaching out to your current and potential customers just makes sense. It gives you a new venue for adding your marketing message, building a new community of “followers” or contacts and reaching out.

Learn additional strategies for building a highly profitable and effective business from Donna Price, Business Success Coach, Author, Facilitator and Speaker at: http://www.resourcesforentrepreneurs.com