This weekend my seven year old and I decided to try out a few new recipes. I am internationally
famous (hey, U.S. and Canada counts!) for my wicked, awesome, “cookie bars” – but this time
we decided to try something without chocolate, gasp!

We selected Oatmeal Lace cookies. Now, usually I stick to the recipe when baking, so everything
works out. So we did, until we got to the part about using 1 tsp. of dough – spaced apart. I
thought I would speed up the process and make bigger cookies, and instead of the pretty lacy
cookies in the picture, we got a huge glob of cookie that spread out all over the pan.

Getting them off the pan was extremely difficult and we ended up with cookie chips or in our house,
what we call “Goulet cookies” – the broken ones we get to eat when baking for Christmas.

I got to thinking about what went wrong, and how I see business owners doing the same thing with
their marketing. They take a proven system or strategies and decide to do it their way. What they
end up with is not the end result that they were looking for.

Some examples of this: doing direct mail but deciding not to put an offer with a date, or having a
sales script – but cutting parts out, not being consistent or not following the plan. As a
business owner, you have to stop looking for a magic marketing pill. Create a strategic marketing
plan with a proven system and then follow the steps laid out consistently, without skipping steps,
without making changes that could affect your results and your ROI negatively.

Having a plan and following it are two different things and having a coach to point out the pieces
that you are missing and hold you accountable helps you get the results you want from your
marketing, more clients.

Action Step: Pull out your marketing plan and evaluate how well you are sticking to the recipe for
your business growth.

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