We all make New Year’s resolutions for our personal lives: lose weight, spend more time with family, read more, watch less TV, drink less caffeine, etc. What about for our work lives? I spent my last work day of 2014 cleaning my office. Not necessarily because I wanted to, but because Zywave is growing again, and we have outgrown our current office space. I’m starting 2015 in a new, temporary office space along with the rest of our greater development team. In fact, I am writing this the night before returning to work after two weeks off (spending more time with family), and all of my professional belongings are currently on a moving cart.
My first task in the morning will be to unpack and put away 12 years of professional artifacts. You know how much time I blocked to do this? One hour. That’s right, one hour to unpack my belongings. “How is this possible?” you might ask. Well, you see, I threw out old materials, publications I had reviewed and no longer needed, release notes from projects released a long time ago, etc.
What does this have to do with you?
On the last couple of market research trips I made in 2014 (thank you to many of our partners in Nashville, Boston and New Hampshire for taking time out of their crazy December calendars to meet with me!), I asked folks what their initiatives for 2015 would be. Most responded with plans to set up drip marketing campaigns from Broker Briefcase, make some cold calls to educate prospects on the Worker’s Compensation Mod and its impact on an employer’s bottom line, or reaching out to prospects to challenge the effectiveness of decision support and communication during open enrollment.
What do these initiatives have in common? They require a solid prospect list.
Outdated contacts, out of business employers, and the absence of nearby employers who opened their doors in 2014 will dramatically lessen the effectiveness of any of these efforts. Beyond that, what about your current clients? Were any of your accounts impacted by mergers or acquisitions in 2014? Did key contacts retire or change employers? Does your account list in Zywave’s Account Management Center reflect these changes? If not, might I suggest you start compiling the appropriate list of relevant prospects, accounts, and contacts? We just made it easier for you to tidy up AMC with our all new mass delete functionality (partners, find out more in January’s Champ newsletter), so get started on cleaning up your data today!
Back to personal resolutions. Many of you were immensely supportive of my resolution 4 years ago to become “Fit by 40”. I did lose over 100 pounds in 20 months and felt great. I documented this journey in previous blogs, and feel that I owe you an update. A month after my 40th birthday, in 2013, some personally devastating changes occurred in my family of origin. Given the tremendous stress around this situation, I released a pressure valve and chose to allow my fitness goals to be compromised. I have gained back all but 13 pounds of the weight I had lost, and feel the negative impact of my decisions. 2015 is my time to take accountability and start anew. 40 has come and gone, so my focus now is fitness for life. You can follow my new journey (and other professional and personal musings) on Twitter @MJ_Analytics #Fit4Life. I’d love to hear about your personal and professional resolutions as well, and I look forward to seeing many of you in 2015!
Hi Michelle,
Really enjoyed reading your post. I currently use Zywave for running Mods, but i do not utilize all that Zywave has to offer. I would love to learn more about the drip campains. We have a lot of clients who definetly could use our help when it comes to experience mods. So any insight you could offer i would greatly appreciate it. 2015 is the year for a change. Keep positive thoughts. Thank you.
Matt