Getting your ducks in a row

25th February

Warming up Sheep Land (the Yorkshire Dales, England)

Welcome to the 10th edition of the Geospatial Marketing Academy Newsletter – a fortnightly newsletter by me, Elaine Ball, on all the stuff that matters – geospatial marketing, life! A big hello to Charlie, Elizabeth, Ahmed and Holly. Welcome to my NEWS-letter!

Ey up! (a Yorkshire Colloquialism for ‘hello how are you’ )

These past two weeks have been a bit hectic.  I’ve been trying to slow down to speed up! Putting in new processes and systems!  Ya know, the things that should make you more efficient, be able to manage your workload better and in turn be financially better off – as well as feeding the sheep, riding the horse and having date day!! Being a business owner can be exhausting 🥱

Many marketers within the Geospatial Industry are also girl Fridays (in other words they wear multiple hats for their business) taking on several subjects and trying to spin several plates like doing the wages, booking in jobs, writing proposals, dealing with the accountants.  And to top it all off, fit in some quality marketing time!

If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by fellow marketers and focused on the marketing subject alone – I am soooooo jealous!  But you have your own challenges 😉

Putting processes and systems into your business and marketing department is the only way you can grow. What do i mean by this?

For example; from establishing a way to monitor sales leads coming in from an exhibition;

• How are they handled at the show?  Are they logged into a CRM (database) or is it just a business card with a tick in the corner rating how hot they are?

• How does the salesperson follow up with this lead?  How is it scored? (rated on ‘how likely they will purchase’)

• Is the information put into a database (system) in order to log when it came in and how it came in?

• Is an automatic email sequence set up (process) that sends out valuable content prospects will want to read or know more about?  Keeping your brand top of mind?

• Do you know how many sales leads convert per year from your marketing? (process)

The day to day routine

So how can we as marketers slow down to speed up.

“Don’t wait.  The time will never be just right”

Napoleon Hill

Here is my list to you with a dollop of ‘love’ on the side.  Helping you slow down to speed up!

No. 1.  Invest in a journal 

Yep you heard me right, invest in a journal that will help you set goals and write tasks.  I use Mal Paper and it has changed the way I work.  Setting out long, medium and short term goals then having a daily tasks list

No. 2.  Keep tasks to a minimum to make room for life

I used to fit as much stuff into my day as I could, which left me feeling exhausted and fed up (unmotivated).  Now – with my friendly Mal Paper at my side, I write down three or four key tasks I must do that day.

It has changed the way I do stuff.  F O R E V E R !

3. Bite Sized Chunks

If you put off a task until tomorrow, it will grow big fat hairy legs and run wild and be bigger and scarier than the day before!  For large hefty tasks, I break them down into manageable sized chunks – making it so much easier to complete.

4. Use an electronic Calendar

This is not new – but sometimes the simple things need revisiting.  ✨

I’m actually a paper diary kind of gal!  I have been for years however paper diaries can be inefficient and I kept double booking myself! 🥺  So last month I transitioned to THE ELECTRONIC DIARY with an added difference; Bella who runs the operations at EBL (Elaine Ball Ltd) has blocked booked out three hours per day for calls.  These can be discovery calls, client catch ups – whatever.  And you know… it works a treat! 🥳

So think about how your day is split up.

5. Mind Mapping a process

This works wonders in so many ways!  It is great to understand all those little niggly (annoying) bits you need to remove, tweak or add.  It is a great way to look at the big picture and dive into the elements of it!

Here is a Marketing and Sales example:

• Question:  How are leads (prospects) logged at the moment?

• Answer:  Business card with a tick on them

• Question:  How can we make this more efficient?

• Answer:  Make a form on an iPAD which is logged directly to the database.  Include a lead scoring card that is a checklist and the sales team can tick away.

• Question:  Do we have a lead nurture sequence set up to nurture our leads?

• Answer:  No.

• Question:  So what should we do?

• Answer:  Set up MailChimp and produce 5 pieces of content that goes out every two weeks to that lead to nurture them.

• Question: What content should I produce?

• Answer: A lead from a show is new and potentially never heard of you; so you need content that educates and adds value to that person.

• Question:  Can we set the lead nurture sequence in the database?

• Answer:  Yes and then you can track how many sales leads convert over time resulting in knowing your conversion rate (this is so good especially when you want to know how many eyeballs you need at an Exhibition to convert x number of sales per year!)

I mind map everything.  I’m a little addicted.  But in order to grow my geospatial marketing business, I have to slow down to speed up.

Getting my 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆’s in a row it key! 

LOVE LETTERS

💌 To Ann Handley, the queen of content writing for your inspiration and making me a better writer every day.

💌 To Janeale Dean for busting your ass on getting the lessons completed in GMA – you are one amazing human being!  Thank you!

💌 To Charlie Whyman for hosting the LinkedIn challenge and sharing all your amazing knowledge!  

💌 To Polly Hopkins for giving me honest direct feedback on GMA and producing your awesome video diaries!  You are wonderful and it’s very much appreciated

💌 To Carla Johnson, the best Marketer on this planet for your guidance and amazing balls support!

Thanks for reading to the bottom. I appreciate you!

Stay safe. Stay sane.  Wear a 😷

 I’ll be back on 11th March 2021

Elaine