I absolutely adore this time of year and the exciting times ahead it brings. Glorious fallen leaves, the joy of a blue sky after a day of rain, wearing thick, bright jumpers in the office, lighting the fire when you get home after a long day…bliss.
The last few months of the year are a great time to look at your business and what works and what doesn’t, make moves towards a new career or even consider setting up your own business. All too often, we launch into January full of ideas and plans but all too often things fall by the wayside. Forming new working habits and plans now means when everyone else is struggling to get going in the New Year, we’re full of plans already put in place months ago and ahead of the game.
A natural pause
A number of our clients have large projects each autumn, so it always seems to be a natural pause for us when events culminate. After months of hard work, we get the chance to stop and look ahead to what we do differently next year. New clients often approach us in the autumn to get their business in shape with marketing campaigns for Christmas and we always seem to get a flurry of new businesses brimming with ideas.
I use this time of year to look forward, think about what we want to achieve the following year and how we need to go about it. We think about the type of clients we want to work with and what we can do to attract their attention.
Every project has the potential to become interesting. Whether that’s to bring us enjoyment, raise our profile and reach new clients or make our fortune, it’s all there for us.
When we get approached by potential clients we look at whether it fits and the time and resources we have available as an agency. It’s hard to turn work down but it’s even harder to consider letting people down and that’s something you can never do if you wish to stay true to your values and be successful at what you do.
Variety and fresh challenges
Running your own business is hard but when it gets really tough I’m lucky that I can usually get back on track relatively easily when I stop for a moment and look at what we have. It’s the sheer variety of clients, the different types of sectors we work with and the occasional challenge that keeps us fresh.
This month alone we’ve been commissioned to do live editing and produce a series of videos for Midwich at their showcase event, Technology Exposed. We’re designing and developing a new engaging and responsive website for independent funeral directors Rosedale Funeral Home. We’re the marketing agency for Durrants working on a huge range of projects from their auction rooms site to designing adverts for their estate agency department. We work with Norfolk Constabulary in managing the Norfolk Safer Community Awards held in just a few weeks and we’re also working with one our London clients, a private investigations agency with clients across the globe. Their Director is President of the World Association of Detectives and we’re producing videos and exhibition materials for their annual conference in Las Vegas. Sadly, we didn’t get a trip there as part of the deal!
If you need to freshen up your marketing to attract new clients or look at why your current website just isn’t bringing you the right type of business at the moment, don’t leave making plans until January. Bring things forward a few months and you’ll hit the ground running in 2019.