Wishing you a year full of good luck and good deals. May your life be blessed with peace and prosperity in the new year and all the years to follow. Happy new year!
That’s the message I got today from probably my favorite contractor of all time, Joana, from Manila. By the way, if you ever need a fabulous part-time executive assistant, let me know and I’ll make a referral.
Aside from acknowledging the plain fact that success in business is partly about luck – in the short term – here’s what I loved about Joana’s message: “and all the years to come”.
There’s this number range that keeps bouncing around my head. It’s about 5 years. Consider these three common business remarks and observations:
- According to the Gartner Hype Cycle, a technology, language, or technology platform usually stays hot and leverageable for about 5 to 7 years. ((https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-trends-appear-on-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2019/)) Java, 3-D Printing, Ruby on Rails, iOS, the list goes on. Many platforms, such as Salesforce, stay hyped for longer, but the 800 lbs automaton-gorillas like McKinsey and Accenture dump cheap offshore labor on them and they cease to become leverageable
- “Referral chains tend to decay over a period of 6–9 years” – David C Baker. And David wrote that about 11 years ago, so I am going to cut the range down to 4 to 7 years because job tenures are shorter than ever. ((Job hopping is on the rise https://www.nbcnews.com/better/business/job-hopping-rise-should-you-consider-switching-roles-make-more-ncna868641)) Your former clients and coworkers referring you – this depends on them not quitting their formal career and starting a yoga studio in Costa Rica.
- “People overestimate what they can do in 1 year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years” – Bill Gates. Cut that range in about half and you have: about 5 years.
This last observation should be the motto of every content marketing agency, by the way. And for that very reason, the five-year range is where the highest focus of your marketing strategy lies.
I’m all for short-term marketing and a balance between inbound and outbound marketing. But the tricky part is that those don’t exist in parallel. A marketing strategy should tell you what to do next month but also set forth five-year goals.
To be specific: what will you do on Thursday, Jan. 2nd, 2020 that will create warm, inbound business opportunities in the fall of 2025?
This is a content marketing question.
In the meantime, I’m also wishing you a year full of good luck and good deals!!
Rowan