Choices - Less is more?
Recently I watched a video by Barry Schwartz, author of the book ‘Paradox of Choice’, who gives various scenarios and shows how less is more. We are all inundated with too many choices for every little thing in our lives on a daily basis. His talk cites examples of how fewer choices result in a higher conversion rate e.g. when presented with 24 types of jam vs. 6 types of jam, you have more people trying the jam when 24 types are presented but more people buy the jam if you have only 6 types presented.
I found this topic resonates with my daily experience and invite you to watch and compare with your experiences. I find fewer choices also lets you focus on getting to the end result faster otherwise you end up spending far too much time thinking about the decision and whether you did well in coming to the conclusion. Irrespective of the result of the decision you are more stressed about making the ‘best’ decision.
Video link at Google: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200
Note: The video is about 1 hr long.
Alternately, you can read a summary of his interview with the NewYorker magazine at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/03/01/040301crbo_books?currentPage=1
You can buy the book from Amazon to read more about the subject matter.
How to plan your activities?
Independent consultants/consulting organizations have so much to do and sometimes it is just confusing where to spend the time. The following guidelines help in making the best use of time for all the needed activities necessary for a small business.
| Income producing | 50-60% |
| Marketing | 20-30% |
| Everything else | 20% |
Income producing
- Developing services & programs
- Time to read, think, study, learn
Marketing
- Planning marketing campaign & strategy
- Time to learn about marketing
- Networking, speaking, writing, follow-up calls
- Sales appointments, preparing proposals
Everything Else
- This includes maintaining accounts, organizing, keeping your organization compliant and in shape for future activity
Marketing Principles
I like short and sweet messages which allow you to get your point across. I heard the following tips on a successful marketing campaign in a webinar for IBM partners.
Marketing should be strategic and yield profitable results.
Three things that every marketing campaign must answer:
- Sector - What do you want to pursue (company or people)?
- Vector - How do you want to reach them?
- Connector - What gets the connection back to you?
Immediately following your marketing efforts, sales team must be ready to follow up to derive benefits of your marketing campaign.