I almost died this morning.

At least I felt like I was going to die.  My heart was racing.  My face was bright red.  I was dying of thirst.  I have to reluctantly admit that taking the Advanced PowerStep class after a 4-month hiatus from the gym was not a wise idea. 

How did I get so out of shape?  What make me think I could just jump right back into it?

(sigh)

My story is sadly typical.  And it doesn’t just happen with the gym.

The same thing happens in business.  All of a sudden (it seems) you realize – My pipeline has dried up.  No fresh leads are coming in.  What happened?  I better get MOVING!  So you put forth a BURST of activity, but if you are out of (marketing) shape, you could damage your business instead of helping it.   You might do the wrong things, and instead of generating leads, you are just blowing your marketing budget. 

Ooops. 

Big oops.

If you find yourself in this spot, I want you to start taking action, but start slowly.  Test what you are doing before you blow it out onto a larger scale.  Make sure it works!  For every product, every service, and every campaign, you need to ask these simple questions:

• Who am I targeting?
• What problem am I solving?
• What makes my solution better or different than everyone else’s?
• What is the next action I want them to take?

Once you have crafted your messaging, test out subject lines and offers using email marketing, Google Adwords or a simple business letter that goes out to a small group of people.   Once you have validated that your marketing message is on target, that’s when you can start expanding your campaign.

Think big. But start small.  Make sense?  I’m taking that advice myself.  After I take two Advil.