My grandmother used to love to tat. Tatting is a form of lace making that some say came about in the 17th century. In traditional tatting, one uses a metal oval-shaped shuttle that has a point (hook) at one end. To make the lace, the tatter wraps the thread around one hand and manipulates the shuttle with the other hand. No tools other than the thread, the hands, and the shuttle are used. The lace is formed by a pattern of rings and chains formed from a series knots and gaps. Patterns, like coded messages, provide instructions for achieving a certain look or piece.

For example, to achieve a star, your pattern may look something like this:

Star: use shuttle and ball, size 10 thread
R: 5-4-2-(long picot) 2-4-5. rw
C: 4-3-4 rw
R: 5+(to last p of prev. R) 5.
R: 5-5. rw
C: 4-3-4 rw
*R: 5+(to small ring)4+(to 4th p of large R)2+(to long p of large R) 2-4-5. rw
C: 4-3-4 rw
R: 5+(to last p of prev. R) 5.
R: 5-5. rw
C: 4-3-4 rw
Repeat from * until you have 8 chains. Join last chain to base of first large ring. Cut and tie off.

When you sit down to tat, you make sure that you have gathered thread you need, your shuttle and your pattern. You plan by reading through the pattern until you have a good feel for where you are starting and where you are going to end.

Personally, I never could quite get tatting. It always seemed tedious to me and I wasn’t patient enough. I always wanted to just jump right in and in an hour have a finished product. As I got older, I realize that very few things work this way. Most things require planning and then following through with the plan, stopping periodically to evaluate the plan to see if you need to make a change or two as situations change. A Last Will and Testament is a great example of something that starts one way and may need tweaking as you continue through your life, but how many of us actually follow-through?

Marketing our services is another area were we often feel like we often only have time to react to situations that are in front of us, like when your last project is almost complete and you realize you don’t have anymore incoming work. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Ps of marketing, although experts can’t agree on how many they are, 4, 5, 7. If you want to have a pot to piss in as the old saying goes, the only marketing Ps you need to remember are these: Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.

Most people don’t create a marketing plan because they live in fear of it. Be ye not afraid. A marketing plan doesn’t have to be the huge beastie that many of us think it is. We jump on the web or we visit the bookstore and we overwhelm ourselves thinking that our plan has to be loaded with research, analysis, goals, objectives, etc. We scare ourselves out of doing any planning at all which is just so unnecessary. Now, I’m not knocking you or your company if you actually create an in-depth and very detailed plan. I think the more information you have, the better able you are to make the appropriate decisions as situations in the marketplace change.

If you don’t do any marketing planning at all, don’t be put off by what you read. If you have been following these articles, you have already been preparing yourself for planning. You have your clients divided into market segments, you have contact information for them and you have information about where they hang-out. You also should have some press contacts on your list. The easiest thing to do then is to plan to release announcements. If this is your first time planning, although it seems hard, it will be the easiest time. You have nothing to measure your plan against. In subsequent years, you will have measurements in place based on past performance which means you can make the new plan more detailed. For this first year though, just focus on setting realistic goals.

1. Break the planning period in to chunks which work best for you.
Be honest with yourself. Are you the type who can make an annual plan and stick with it, making quick changes as necessary when the marketplace demands a change? Would your business be better served by planning quarterly or semi-annually? You know your business better than anyone. Does your marketplace dictate a time-frame for planning? You pick.

2. Set obtainable, realistic goals.
Again, be honest. There is no point to setting lofty goals that you good intentions to keep, but just can’t. You will be setting yourself up for failure which can further influence your marketing planning procrastination. For example, if you think you can send out one press release per month, then go for it if you really think you can.

A Simple Way To Plan

I like to use a spreadsheet tool and start planning for the year by creating a simple plan. Later, I fill it in with more details such as precise schedule and budget info. In other words, by using a simple plan, I get to look at the forest before checking out individual trees. Like the tatting, I am looking over the complete pattern before concentrating on the individual knots and spaces.

This link will take you to an Excel spread sheet that you can tweak and use to get started on your simple plan. If you do not have Excel, you can download this pdf file so that you can see how to set it up in software you already have.

In a nutshell, you will find that the activities are set up in categories on the main page, then each category has its own worksheet with room for you to fill in details such as scheduling and budget information. The more you tweak it, the more discoveries you make regarding how many activities you can actually accomplish. For example, you may have stated to yourself that you want to do one client direct mail piece per month. Then as you are going through the activities, you realize that there is no way you can possibly meet that goal while completing other activities or getting out existing work. What good would it be to tat an intricate pattern only to discover at the end that you have run out of thread? Think of the time you wasted moving the shuttle around creating nothing. This is why planning is important to the health of your business. You will know about when and where you are running out of thread and you will be ready to make sure you have your needle pulling thread.

We will be discussing planning more, but I want to give you time to look over the material and get started with your own simple plan. Please feel free to post questions or send me email if you need more explanation.

 

© Copyright 2005 Lisa Duty