It’s the time of year when people are reminded that they should be reflecting on the past year and planning for the new one.

I’m not too proud to jump on that bandwagon—

What did you do right last year, and what could you have done better? What did you not do at all that you should have? What did you do that you shouldn’t have?

For this year, how will you have a better year, personally and professionally? What improvements will you make? What changes? What will you start doing that you know you should have started last year–or way before that? What little thing will you do just a little better or a little more of this year?

Speaking of “little things”, there’s a wonderful little paperback entitled “The Slight Edge.” It’s all about how little improvements in what you do, and how just taking small actions and taking the first step can make a massive difference in your life. It’s a book to read before you read the “how to” and “self-improvement” books. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Anyway, here are a few marketing questions to ask yourself as you think about how to build your business:

• Are you capturing the names, contact information and email addresses of your prospects and patients? If you have a website, marketing your business with an autoresponder starts with offering something valuable in exchange for an email address.

• Are you following up with patients, offering them additional products and services?
  

• Are you building a solid, long-term relationship by sending your patients thank you notes and occasional gifts? Are you offering a free service or product now and then?
  

• Are you following up using multiple contact methods such as direct mail, phone, email, text messaging, and even fax?
  

• Are you making it easy for patients and referring physicians and others who are centers of influence to give you referrals?

These few steps, consistently done, will almost assure a successful and profitable business.

There are several dozen similar things you can do, that are really support steps for the above. Some are little and easy, some are more involved. I’ll talk about some of them in a future post.

Happy New Year!