The Ash Tree Starter Kit

There’s a five-foot tall ash tree growing in my backyard. Unchecked, it could reach up 80 feet.

Three smaller ones threaten similar growth. My suspicion is the HOA will NOT be pleased!

I suspect I accidentally planted one, which re-seeded itself. Or perhaps a friendly bird did me the favor.

Regardless, I have to decide whether to cultivate, prune, transplant, or remove.

Contemplating my next move, I hear the words of RB-based Certified Reverse Mortgage Professional Rosemarie Litoff. Rosemarie regularly posits about how her marketing efforts are like planting seeds in a garden. “Some seeds take immediately, others take a while, and some never sprout,” she says.

I agree, because your business is also like a garden. Some seeds you can plant yourself, and with others you must rely on friends for help. All gardens must be nurtured, watered, fed, and weeded.

Reaching these goals requires ongoing efforts, including:

• Planting seeds. Networking and speaking ensure you’re meeting new people, proving your expertise and inviting them to contact you when they need whatever you’re selling. Asking current customers for referrals brings unexpected business opportunities.

• Feeding and watering. Critical to helping any garden flourish, in business we call it social media, newsletters, drip campaigns, publicity, and promotion.

• Weeding. Recognize you can’t do business with everyone you meet. Budgets, required products/services, and chemistry must be a good fit. Otherwise, it just distracts you from real areas of growth.

Your garden can’t sustain every option, and neither can your business. Pick your area of specialization and stay with it. Try new areas of potential growth when they make sense.

And have a blueprint to eliminate chances just anything will grow. Don’t randomly allow stray tomato plants to be introduced amidst your succulents.

Finally, as Rosemarie observed, not all seeds grow immediately. But steady, regularly scheduled communications efforts help keep your name prominent. When those customers are ready to buy from someone like you, they’re more likely to remember your name if you’ve recognized the reality that out of sight is out of mind.

By adopting a strategy of keeping a constant presence, you’ll plant seeds and care for those young shoots. Over time, this should give you lush sales, and one day provide you several customers who are bigger than you ever imagined.

With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.

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Grow your sales at www.marketbuilding.com.