Mind Your Business and Know Where You Are Going

The key to success in any business is to know where you want to go and how to get there. Easily said but very hard to put into practice. Some of the very best of plans and programs go astray because we rely on gut feelings and instinct instead of actually acting in response to hard data concerning the effectiveness of what we are doing. You work your tail off. Formulate business, promotional and advertising plans and do your level best to follow those plans. Unfortunately this is not enough. You must find a way to test the effectiveness of these plans and programs as you go along. To do this you must have a means to obtain feedback from consumers plus the means to test the effectiveness of your advertising. A sad truth in advertising is that some ads appeal to some people and some to others. The same holds true for the advertising media selected to get your message out to the world. A killer ad for one segment of the market is a dud for another. That