“If you watch how nature deals with adversity, continually renewing itself, you can’t help but learn.”
- Bernie Siegel
It’s true: nature provides an exceptional model of renewal. No matter how harsh, chaotic, and damaging winter may seem, spring always resurfaces with new life and a sense of structure. This inherent feeling simultaneously “springs” up within each of us, bringing with it a strong desire to prioritize orderliness. Thus, the concept of spring cleaning was born.
It’s important to note that the concept of spring cleaning is not reserved just for homes. We believe that this stirring transition of seasons provides just as much inspiration for the business world. Below, you will find the top five ways that we believe leaders can bring a little taste of spring cleaning to their business.
1. Refresh your marketing strategies.
Spring is a great time to examine and evaluate all of your business’s current marketing strategies. Ask yourself questions like:
- Which advertising mediums do we think are performing the best?
- Fact-checking the above question, which advertising mediums allow us to accurately measure ROI and are actually proving to perform the best? How are we tracking ROI?
- Are we “spraying and praying,” or spreading our advertising budget too thin by spending a little here and a little there?
- Are we “filling up our cup” and dominating the advertising medium(s) that we are currently using?
- Is our creative campaign still captivating audiences, or is it starting to fall flat?
- Are our advertisements part of an all-encompassing marketing campaign? If not, have we considered following a structured marketing system, such as The BrandsFormation ™ System?
2. De-clutter your desk.
Some refer to their cluttered desks as “organized chaos” and feel that they are just fine with papers strewn about, resembling tornado aftermath scenes. But did you know that a seemingly innocent, messy desk can actually be devastating to long-term productivity and workplace behaviors?
A recent report found that 90% of Americans believe that cluttered desks negatively impact a person’s work ethic. This same report revealed that “executives waste six weeks a year searching for lost items and information.” Six. Weeks. Wow!
Another survey found that 57% of Americans admit that they judge their coworkers by how messy (or clean) their workspaces are kept. Sure, being judgmental never helps anyone, but in a business setting, it seems completely unnecessary to even invite that kind of tension. No matter your current stance, it’s apparent that cluttered desks truly seem to correlate directly with unhealthy productivity levels and negative coworker relationships. It’s definitely time to spring clean your desk!
3. Re-energize your business goals.
How specific are your business’ current goals? Are you pacing toward those, or are you starting to fall behind? The truth is that if your business goals are not specific enough, then this will inevitably lead to chaos. Spring is a great time to re-examine your overall goals and make necessary adjustments.
Start by determining whether or not your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound). SMART goals allow businesses to develop laser-like focus. They outline your business’ specific path to success, help you to stay on course in a timely fashion, and best of all, make vague goal tracking a thing of the past. Spring clean the dust off your business goals and bring renewed energy to them by getting SMART!
4. Prioritize what’s important.
As a business owner, your time is precious. Only you can determine just where (and with whom) you should be spending your coveted hours of the day. Just as we recommended de-cluttering your desk, we also suggest that some business leaders seek to de-clutter their overall schedules in general. Spring is a great time to determine which processes (or even people) are sucking hours away from you that would be better spent elsewhere.
But how can you determine just where to begin to cut ties? This helpful article identifies four key signs that a prospect is about to waste your time. This article identifies seven ways that people commonly waste their time without even realizing it. Also, take a look at these project management tips that could help you to de-stress and de-clutter your schedule. Don’t waste any more time! This spring, steal back your precious hours of the day.
5. Take a good, hard look at your marketing bridge.
Last but certainly not least, spring is a great time to examine your business as a whole by evaluating your marketing bridge. This is one of the most beneficial things that businesses can do to ensure success in all areas. We have even gone on record as saying that this practice is the biggest key to marketing success!
To refresh your memory, let’s quickly review. The marketing bridge is made up of everything that connects you to your customers (and prospective customers). That means, literally, every aspect of your business. It is composed of five categories, including your business, price/value, merchandising, personal selling, and advertising. These five factors are the forces that must combine in order for your business to make a sale. Your business’s ability (or inability) to strengthen each of these individual categories will ultimately determine the success (or demise) of your business.
There are several key questions that your business can answer to determine the strength of your marketing bridge. See that list of questions here.
We hope this post has given you a renewed sense of order and a desire to “spring” into action and clean up the big issues (and even the little idiosyncrasies) that could keep your business from further success.
Originally posted 3/28/19 - Updated 4/13/23