Priorities! What is the most important thing we can do for our aging in place business? Today, this week, this month, the rest of the year? It’s a large, encompassing question, but it’s an important one. Before we can answer it, we may have to review our business and our aims and goals. We might have the answer ready, or it may take a while to sort through all of the possibilities and arrive at the number one thing we want to do.
By selecting the most important activity – or number one – it does not mean or imply that we ignore other aspects of our business or suggest that somehow they are unimportant or lesser important. They are less important only in the sense that if something is number one in priority everything else is secondary. After we focus on the activity we identify as number one, we can move on to others, slotting a new top priority each time we review all of the possibilities for our business.
So, what are some of our choices or considerations for number one priority? Remember that this is going to vary by us and the type or focus of business that we have so that there can be many answers from which to select. There is no one answer that we are going to form a consensus on and pursue it.
Let’s start with tomorrow. What is the most important thing we want to do, need to be doing, or should do to help grow our business, establish or grow our brand, or create goodwill with our existing and potential clients?
What are some of the possibilities? Lead generation is always a good one. We need more clients unless we are booked solid for several months and have a good referral base on top of that. If that’s the case, lead generation or growth would not be the answer to this priority question. For those who want to select this as their top priority, there are many other considerations.
We can’t just say that our top priority for tomorrow and this week is generating or producing more leads and clients we can serve. We have to break it up into smaller, actionable parts. For instance, how important do we feel our website is in letting people know about us and how we can help them? Is it where we want it to be in terms of content and traction? Do the search engines even know we exist? Are our keywords appropriate for what people are looking for when they someone like us to help them? Maybe, then, hiring a website consultant or firm, bolstering our website ourselves, creating one if we don’t already have it, adding new content to it, or cleaning it up to remove outdated references, content that no longer applies, or broken or incorrect links to other sites. Just pick one of these items as a top priority for this week.
In addition to websites, there are other types of informational vehicles we may want to focus on this week at number one. Remember, we only identifying one item to focus on initially. Take a look at social media. Is it important to us (the business conversations and interactions rather than anything we might do for family, friends, or fun)? Do we think it’s a viable way for potential clients to find us and learn about what we do that ultimately might lead to a contact from them? Is it a good way for existing clients to stay connected with us? If the answer is that we want a social media presence, which sites are we on currently, which ones are the most important to us, and which do not really matter for us? If we haven’t used this yet but think we should, this might be a top priority item for this week. Either way, select the top one, two, or three sites that will work for exposure, interaction, reach, and potential new leads. Then work on those.
Other types of information we need to have are business cards and tri-fold brochures. Examine the colors used, the point size and legibility of the typeface, and how easy it is for someone to tell how to reach out to us if all they have is our business card. Business cards just need to contain a minimal amount of information, and brochures should create an interest in what we do to the point that someone takes the next step and reaches out to us. Let’s make sure that they have a clear path for doing so.
All this said, the most important priority for this coming week might be to complete the job we have already agreed to do or the one that is underway. This certainly ranks up there in importance. We can’t promote ourselves as the solutions provider if we don’t finish the jobs we have started.