Why Your Marketing Plan Won’t Work

A few months ago, I was asked to present at Office Space Co-Working’s BizCamp Event.  I had lots of time to think about what to present.  And when I asked Kelly Brown, Owner of Office Space Co-Working, he said that most people wanted to hear about Marketing Plans.

That got me thinking about why we keep wanting to hear about something no small business owner does very well.  It’s as if we all buy books and listen to presentations hoping that somehow, somewhere, someone is going to tell us that we can grow a thriving business and build a household-name brand by doing virtually nothing.  We all know that isn’t going to happen in the same way that we know we won’t lose 30 pounds by watching exercise videos and eating bon bons.

Marketing Plans often don’t work because we want them to be something they are not.  We treat them as documents and brand builders instead of goal-setting tools and mega to-do lists.  The activity isn’t thinking about the plan or putting it together – that has the significance of a shopping list.  The work is finding out who your want to be, who you want to sell to and pulling together a compelling reason to get those ideal customers to choose you.

In this presentation, I cover those unspoken things that live inside our minds that keep those plans from becoming a reality.