Quick. Ask yourself the following questions. Answer privately, no one has to know the answers but you. But answer honestly. This is a quick snapshot of some personal and business position points, as of New Year's Day.
1. Are people talking about you? Are you getting referrals from word of mouth? Are people sharing your work and ideas? If not, you probably aren't delivering good work, you aren't creating anything and you are probably selfishly only pushing YOU one-way.
2. Is your website converting? Are people taking the actions you want them to take? Are they subscribing? Are they buying? Are they commenting? Are they downloading? If no, ask why. And make adjustments.
3. Is your email marketing program moving buyers along your sales process? If not, why are you even engaging in email marketing? And what can you do differently?
4. Are you engaged in content marketing? Are you serving people with your content? Are you helping people with your content? Are you educating your market with your content? Are you sharing content? Or are you just consuming content? [sign up for my FREE content marketing course here]
5. Are you punctual to all your meetings and conference calls? If not, why are you do disrespecting the time of others? And yours. Fix this. It will make a difference.
6. Do you deliver on your deadlines and promises? If not, this is the single biggest threat to your success and happiness.
7. Are you writing each day? If not, why not? And I am not talking necessarily about publishing to the world, but to and for yourself. Writing clarifies thinking. Writing organizes the mind. Writing unleashes creativity. Writing is like any skill, it only gets better with practice.
8. Are you reading/learning enough each day? Education didn't stop when you took off that stupid robe and tassled hat. Learning MUST happen every day. Read articles. Read blogs. Read books. Here is my reading list from 2011 if you need some ideas.
9. Are you eating well? If you are eating fast food, processed food and chips all the time, you deserve all the lethargy you get. Eat better. It improves everything.
10. Are you doing enough physical exercise? If not, what's the damn point of all of this?
To be honest myself, these are all areas I want to improve upon in 2012. And I plan to take drastic steps to better track, measure and make strategic and tactical adjustments.
[to be really honest, improvement on these areas NEVER ends...]
I will keep you posted on what happens and what I learn. In the meantime, Happy New Year. Let's get to work!
[drawing by hugh macleod]