With summer vacations over and schools back in session, marketing plan “season” is fast approaching. This is a time when you reflect on the effectiveness of your business marketing programs. You will be planning to improve performance of some marketing programs, discontinue some, and try others for the first time.

Each Marketing Plan is Unique

For those writing a marketing plan for the first time, it is important to know that there is no “magic formula” to an effective marketing plan. Formats and procedures vary widely, and your marketing plan will be one-of-a-kind.

Your company, customers, competitors, and suppliers interact to create a unique and ever-changing business environment. Because of this, your marketing plan should also be unique and frequently changing. What worked wonderfully for one company may be a dismal failure for you. What worked yesterday for you may not be the thing for you to do today. By thinking of your plan as a unique and perpetual work in progress, you can be better prepared to change direction when the business environment changes.

A Plan Makes a Profitable Difference

Ultimately, your marketing plan is a compass by which you navigate your day-to-day business. As opportunities arise or your business environment changes, the objective and strategies in your marketing plan will point you toward the best action. Without a marketing plan, you are guessing what might be best for your business. And don’t forget to address your Web site in the marketing plan. Without a marketing plan your Web site may be a drain

Q: I will be retiring this year at age 60 and intend to fulfill my lifelong dream of owning my own business. I’m too old to start from scratch, so I’m looking at several franchise opportunities, including fast food, auto parts, and an accounting service. What should I consider before choosing one?
Anthony R.

A: Congratulations on the retirement, Anthony, and on the new business venture. As the old adage goes, when one door closes, a drive-through window often opens (or something like that).

Given the franchise types you are considering the first thing you should ask yourself is whether or not you want to spend your golden years cooking fries, selling mufflers, or doing taxes.

Franchising can be a great way to start a business career, but you should make sure you’re not just trading one job for another. Unless you plan on being an absentee owner, which I highly discourage, you are gong to be working in the business just as an employee would, so be sure the business you choose doesn’t turn your lifelong dream into a never-ending nightmare.

The primary advantage of buying into a franchise system is that it allows you to enter business quicker with a proven system, while minimizing risk and increases the odds for success.

The primary disadvantage is that you give up considerable freedom in how the business operates. In many ways franchisees are not really their own bosses because they are required to follow the rules set down by the franchisor.

Many franchise owners also quickly tire

How dramatically we can change our results is largely a function of imagination. In 1960, it was a technological impossibility for man to travel into outer space. Within ten years, however, the first man stepped out onto the surface of the moon. The miraculous process of converting the dream into reality began when one voice challenged the scientific community to do whatever was necessary to see to it that America “places a man on the moon by the end of this decade.”

That challenge awakened the spirit of a nation by planting the seed of possible future achievement into the fertile soil of imagination. With that one bold challenge the impossible became a reality.

- The Same Principle Applies To Every Other Area Of Our Life! -

Can a poor person become wealthy?

Of course!

The unique combination of desire, planning, effort and perseverance will always work its magic. The question is not whether the formula for success will work, but rather whether the person will work the formula.

That is the unknown variable.

That is the challenge that confronts us all.

We can all go from wherever we are to wherever we want to be. No dream is impossible provided we first have the courage to believe in it.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

Reproduced with permission from Jim Rohn’s Weekly E-zine.
Copyright 2005 Jim Rohn International. All rights reserved
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