How can B2B marketers put the old adage of focusing on what you can control to the best use, and why will 2023 be an important year to boost efficiency with better focus?
We’ve all heard the saying that it’s better to focus on those things that you can truly play a part in changing than spending time worrying about so many of the things that really are outside the scope of what we can change.
Knowing where to put our efforts to the best use and which areas to skip are skills that generally improve as we mature and grow, in both our personal and professional lives.
Let’s jump right in and take a look at how to boost B2B marketing efforts with better focus.
Improved Focus For Better Marketing & More
No matter what stage of the journey we’re on, it can be valuable to take stock of where we’re at when it comes to where we place our focus, and how we can improve these important skills.
Today’s helter skelter always-on social media digital marketing lifestyle is riddled with endless avenues vying for our attention, making it a harder task than ever to filter out the things we can’t control from those where we should be directing our full focus.
Over time most of us generally know what our strong areas are, and where we tend to struggle, and building better focusing skills can often start simply by turning a mirror back onto ourselves, to be reminded of our inherent strengths and weaknesses.
Embracing Our Strong Points
With that refresher, we can confidently move on to applying our efforts to our strong point areas. What if those areas are perfectly aligned with our strengths, but aren’t ones that we can have an effect on? Or, on the other side of the equation, what if we’re facing areas where we can have great impact, but they’re not aligned with our strong points?
This is a fairly common scenario, as we all have to tackle tasks that aren’t exactly in our top areas of expertise.
When this happens, it can be helpful to recognize it as an opportunity to boost those skills and become a more well-rounded B2B marketer — especially with today’s roles requiring more of a full-stack skill-set than ever.
In B2B marketing, learning where not to focus your energy can be an important discovery, along with the subtle power of brevity.
In today’s short attention span digital-first world, a finely-tuned short message can often significantly outperform a comprehensive missive or manifesto, especially when it comes to content shared on social media platforms. I wrote more about this phenomenon in “You Have 8 Seconds – GO! Brand Messaging Secrets With Debra Jasper.”
“In B2B marketing, learning where not to focus your energy can be an important discovery, along with the subtle power of brevity.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Share on XAligning Focus With Skill
It’s important to recognize that even if a particular task is squarely aligned with one of our strongest skills, if that task falls in the category of things we can’t control, no matter how much effort we put forth, the work will usually be for naught.
The magic happens when we know our strong points and are also able to apply them in areas where our efforts can have a direct impact.
We can optimize our focus by making it a regular practice to ask ourselves four key questions:
- Is this something my efforts can have an impact on?
- Does this task align with my strengths?
- Can I use this situation as a learning opportunity?
- If not me, who would this task be ideally suited for?
Riding The Focus Wave
When you find yourself in an especially productive period, take advantage of it and ride the productivity wave to get as much done as possible while the creative B2B marketing iron is burning hot.
Unfortunately, we can’t control when we’ll be at our peak combined levels of energy, productivity, and efficiency. By quickly recognizing when such a period hits us, however, we can get in as much work as possible before the big wave eventually peters out.
How can you take advantage of these times? Here are three strategies:
- Turn off anything you can that normally distracts you, such as alarms, notifications, or whatever may cause you to break stride while working at your best
- Try to include short micro-breaks — even if just for a minute — to keep the overall energy up and use the time to focus on what you want to accomplish next during the session
- When your very productive period comes to its inevitable end, take a little time to write down what you think made for such a good working session, and what you’d do differently next time to make it even better
Laser Focus Builds Better B2B Content
By using these focus-building techniques you’ll have a jump on the competition, and be able to elevate your own B2B marketing efforts in new ways.
You can learn more about increasing productivity through focus in our own Nick Nelson’s “5 Ways B2B Marketers Can Boost Productivity and Focus,” and how B2B marketers can build a super-stack of marketing technology skills to create the most value and efficiency in 2023 and beyond in “20 Ways to Build a B2B Marketing Super-Stack of Skills.”
More than ever before, creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Reach out to learn how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and many others.
