How Good Business Practices Can Help You Improve Your Golf Game

In this busy age, effective time management is critical for business. Just as with work, so too with play. An avid and competitive golf player, I’ve come to learn how proper time management can also help you improve your golf game. Using your time before a round just a little more effectively can lower your scores without any additional practice.

The first tee mulligan is not permitted under the rules of golf, but is used by a large percentage of recreational golfers. Stiff from the drive to the course, or from a bad night’s sleep, golfers start to play stiff and unfocused. Their first shot is wasted and the entire round starts badly.

Poor early play is the result of poor time management. Too many rounds of golf begin with players pulling into the lot and dashing into the clubhouse minutes ahead of their tee time. There, they tap their feet nervously as they wait for the checkout, then rush back to the cart and, from there, on to the first tee. There is no time for stretching, no time for visiting the putting green, no time to hit a bucket of balls on the practice tee. All that is there for the players is tension and stiffness.

With proper time management, players should schedule their alarms to give themselves plenty of time before a round. A player should arrive at least half an hour before the scheduled tee time. In an ideal world, arriving 45 minutes early would be even better. That will leave you with the time to be properly prepared.

Upon arriving at the course, take the time to check and double check the contents of your bag to ensure you have everything you might require.  Nothing can create more tension than having to dash back to the car just before teeing off to get something you forgot.

Stretching is good use of time...

  

Once you have paid your greens fee, take a few minutes to stretch. Whether it is a morning round, or one after a day of work, your body will not be ready for the rotation needed to create an effective golf swing. Your bed and your office chair are the enemies of the golf swing. Even the drive to the course in those bucket seats will work against you. Stretching is time worth spending.

There are a large number of resources in golf magazines, books and on the Internet on golf stretching routines, so there is no need to detail them here. Suffice it to say that you can do some very effective stretching exercises with just the tools in your golf bag particularly your clubs and your bag. You might even want to toss a small and lightweight latex stretching band in your bag.

After stretching, hit a small bucket of balls to loosen up. Make loosening up your only goal. Trying to fix your swing faults before a round will only mess up your game later. Try to get your feel grooved. Work on your rhythm. Be sure to rotate properly. Start with the short irons and work your way up to driver. Try half swings, then move on to full ones. Don’t swing violently; you risk hurting yourself. Similarly, don’t try for distance; you risk losing your rhythm. You want to use this time to develop a flow.

Stop at the putting green...

Next, stop at the putting green. On most courses, the speeds on the putting green are indicative of the speed on the playing greens. Do not worry about getting the ball in the hole. You will not learn anything about any one hole’s breaks on the practice green. Instead, just try to get it close. Imagine a two-foot circle around the hole and try to get the ball inside the circumference.

The goal of your time on the putting green is to develop a feel for the speed of the greens. If you can get your ball inside “gimmie” range from a variety of distances on the practice putting green, you will be more relaxed and confident when you get to the real thing.

Finally, as you get set to tee off, talk to the starter. Often the starter has valuable information as to course conditions. In particular, ask about hole locations. He should be able to tell you in what zone of the greens the pins are located. This is really useful information on those visually deceptive holes. Knowing flag locations will keep you from leaving a ball short, or going long.

If you follow these tips to manage your time before a round, you are guaranteed to play better golf.  You’ll be relaxed, loose, confident and informed.

4 Key Marketing Factors that Even Experts Forget

As a marketing consultant, I have worked with a lot of different businesses. Both with past employers and my own company, I have developed many business-marketing strategies.  One thing I’ve experienced when it comes to marketing is that companies (from small to high-profile) can get in their own way of their success by being so locked into the “driving home” of what they want to push to their customers; and in the way they want to do it.  They can forget the basic crucial elements that drive success.

Here are a 4 key factors that are important to building your marketing strategies and should not be overlooked:

Listen to Customers

Many companies see marketing as a one-way street. They put their message out for customers, and then stop before an exchange can occur. They talk to consumers without listening themselves.

Proactive listening, however, can do wonders for a company’s marketing campaign. This means listening to current customers and their responses to the company’s marketing and products. This also means listening for potential new customers expressing a need that the company can fill. Online social media makes this listening easier than ever.

Connect as a Human

Successful companies are massive organizations with lives of their own. As such, it’s easy at times for marketers to present the company as a hive mind. But consumers are all individual people. Connecting with them as such means a better chance for a company to actually get heard.

For marketers, this often means approaching campaigns with authentic, simple messaging.  Do not talk over your customers’ heads with your promotional language and positioning. Talking to customers frankly about a product and what it does is what will get results.

This also means remembering that consumers have lives and commitments outside of consuming. However much they love a brand, they are not thinking about it constantly. Businesses shouldn’t expect them to. Instead, marketers should focus on making the brand relevant to daily life in regular conversation. This requires approaching customers as one group of humans to another.

Action over Argument

Marketing is a creative endeavor that requires a constant influx of ideas. Some of these ideas will work better than others. However, marketing teams can often disagree within themselves on the value of any given idea. There are two ways to go about this disagreement.

The inefficient way is for marketers to argue with one another over ideas. Even polite and relevant debate gets a marketing campaign nowhere.

The better method is to test the idea empirically for its effectiveness. This shows the whole team just how good or bad an idea really is. Argument then becomes unnecessary. Instead, marketers can move right on to implementing the idea or brainstorming a new one.

Content is King

Content makes up the bulk of any marketing vehicle, from advertisements to homepages. Marketing is often represented in terms of a funnel. At the top of the funnel is simple brand awareness. The bottom is where responses from customers occur. In the middle is the content of the marketing campaign.

Many companies focus their attention on the top and bottom of the funnel. They pour resources into spreading brand awareness. They optimize feedback avenues for customers to get in touch with them. But they neglect the middle of the funnel, which is where the real work happens. Content is where hooked customers come to learn more before responding to a campaign.

A flashy homepage with no information on it tells consumers nothing. Neither does plastering a brand everywhere without saying anything about why consumers should care. This is why good content is absolutely vital to a marketing campaign.

For more on content marketing strategies, check out 5 Quick Tips for Great Content Marketing.

Essential Do’s and Don’ts for Building A Successful Business

It takes a lot of work in today’s economy in order for a business to succeed. There are many do’s and don’ts that can help (or hinder) the growth and acceptance of a newly launched business. Here’s a few do's and don'ts to help you avoid early mistakes and lead you to a prosperous venture.

The DO’s

SAY HELLO TO A FRUGAL LIFESTYLE:  The first step for an entrepreneur to take is to immediately start living a frugal lifestyle. Starting up a business requires capital. An entrepreneur who wishes to avoid taking out loans will need to build up their own funding. Living an economic lifestyle means cutting down on luxuries and learning how to eliminate unnecessary expenses.

KNOW THE INDUSTRY: Before an entrepreneur jumps into their own business, they will want to learn exactly how it operates. This means that they should take up employment at a similar business where they can build up experience.

WORK TO YOUR STRENGTHS: Successful entrepreneurs have created prosperous businesses because they worked to their own strengths. It is difficult to learn a whole new trade from scratch, so magnates should make it easy on themselves and work with what they already know. This provides an advantage over competitors. If they build up their own talents, entrepreneurs can outperform others in their industry by utilizing their expertise.

SUB-CONTRACT: This is more applicable towards businesses that are manufacturing a product. Hiring out low-cost subcontractors will allow businesses to create a high quality product that is manufactured by professionals. It also divides up the labor so that other parts of the company can focus on different aspects. For example, entrepreneurs can have one team dedicated to manufacturing while the rest of the workers focus on sales and marketing.

TEST AND ADJUST: Testing a product is the next step to be completed before the business expands. One way is to sample the product or service to a small audience and seeing how it is received. Any feedback can be used to determine what the next step should be. If there are improvements needed, then the product can be re-worked. If the is met with approval, then it’s time to look into expansion.

HAVE A  PLAN TO GET THE WORD OUT: Plan marketing and communications to let people know that your services or products exist. You cannot assume that people will automatically flock to you. There are simple and cost effective ways you can build your marketing in the early days, check out MarketingSuccess Tips for Startup Budgets. Networking will also help businesses acquire powerful business relationships. These can be advantageous in the long run when further expansion or mergers are possible.

The DON’TS 

DON’T GIVE UP YOUR DAY JOB: It is important to never leave a stable job until the startup is completed. Many people have found themselves in financially awkward situations because they left a secure job to pursue a business venture before they even had a plan. While it is good to take risks, these need to be tactical risks. Quitting a job without a safety net is unwise and highly discouraged.
DON’T MAKE IT ALL ABOUT MONEY: Another mistake made by some entrepreneurs is that they do not carefully consider what business they are about to go into. Don’t make your business idea all about the money. Of course, it is not a bad idea to aim for a prosperous market, but entrepreneurs do not want to get stuck in a business that they do not enjoy. Running a business should be as much enjoyable as it is profitable.
DON’T RISK IT ALL: Any risks taken should be calculated risks. This means that entrepreneurs should never risk entire assets. Many unfortunate business owners have made a crucial error that left them with little money after their startups failed. Starting a business is risky and one should always have a safety net in case something was to happen.
DON’T GO HIGH RISK: Entrepreneurs should not try to champion the most difficult industry for their first business venture. It is okay to start small and work upwards. That way, you don’t have to invest too much capital. When you start small, you are leaving the rest of the field open for improvement. Once you have secured a stable startup, then you can begin to grow and scale your success.