Guest Column: Run Through the Turkey
Run through the turkey
Shawn Casemore
Shaun is a graduate of the Million Dollar Consulting® College and is a Master Mentor
With Thanksgiving now past, the holiday season is nearly upon us, and the images of turkey dinners, sugar plums, and of course a good cigar begin to fill the air. The cigar probably fills the air more so. The downside of this festive time of year, however, is that many who run solo practices find themselves in a gradual decline of effort from Thanksgiving until the New Year, resulting in a significant effort to crank up their business in January. I call this the festive slide, and anyone who is a solo practitioner is prone to it, myself included.
In the earlier years of my business, I would take the month of December to make my plans for the New Year, spruce up my website, and write some new blog postings and newsletters to reduce labor intensity in January. In the end, I felt good about being “ready” for the New Year. You know what? I was the farthest thing from it. By confining myself to my office, I was in fact hurting my business more than helping it.
In more recent years I have taken a different approach. December is a great time to get out and visit clients, prospects, trade associations, and media contacts, and you know why? No one else is doing it! Everyone is back in his or her offices hurriedly finishing off year-end projects, preparing taxes, and signing Christmas cards. I attribute my new approach to the integration of Alan’s saying, “You have to run through the tape.” I have now replaced the “Festive Slide” with a more proactive approach and in honor of what Alan has taught I call it “Running through the Turkey.”
Now, let me precursor this with clarifying that I am not suggesting you avoid taking downtime or spending time with family and friends. I do believe however that your start to the New Year will be far improved if you spend time in December connecting and re-connecting with your network. It has for me. In light of my “Running Through the Turkey” regimen, I wanted to share with you some of my most successful strategies to help you kick off a great start to twenty-thirteen. Here are just a few ideas that you can incorporate into the remainder of December.
1. Find a reason.
Find a reason to reconnect with past clients, prospects, and other key contacts. Do you have projections for your field in the coming year that they might find of value? Are you coming to their area in the first quarter of 2013? Is there some industry conference or other information that you think is pertinent to where they are or might be heading? With this in hand, and here is the key step, pick up the telephone. Don’t just send an email; pick up the telephone and call! You will be surprised at how many past clients or prospects are planning for the first quarter of next year. You might be able to help them, but you’ll have to call to find out.
2. Out with the old, in with the new.
I have found that my business evolves each year. Heck, I’m not even offering some services that I did less than two years ago. I like new challenges and variety (that’s why I am in this business), but or greater benefit is that I can offer help in new areas and provide new ideas to help existing clients and past prospects. If you reconnect with your network, you can easily find out what challenges they are encountering. More often than not, these discussions will trigger recollections around similar areas you may have done work recently but not yet communicated to your network. So, consider what new experiences or knowledge you have had in the past year, and how this might be of help to your current clients, past clients, or prospects.
3. Get the boss excited.
I don’t know about you, but the most enjoyment I get from my business is identifying new ideas and improvements for my clients, my business and myself. Doing so requires that I take some quiet time to consider what my mentors and idols in my field are doing (or in other fields that I think might be relevant to my clients), then interpret how this might fit into my business model, and lastly, (and here is the most important step) do something with it. In building my network I have found others doing some unique and interesting things in social media, in workshops and retreats, and in their writing. New ideas and improvements get the boss excited, and since he is me, that’s a good thing.
So there you have it: Shawn’s Run Through the Turkey model for ensuring your New Year is set for growth. When it’s all said and done, whether your business grows or not is up to you, so don’t wind down this year, wind up for the New Year. There’s no better time to get started than…. now!
© Shawn Casemore 2012. All rights reserved.
Shawn Casemore is a Master Mentor and graduate of the Million Dollar Consulting College. Having left the corporate world he grew a six-figure business in under 16 months. Find out more about Shawn’s work at www.casemoreandco.com or sign up for his monthly newsletter “Shawn’s Mentor Minute” by dropping him a line at [email protected].
