If you’re like me, it’s time to start planning this year’s garden. It’s not time to plant yet (I think it’s the coldest day of the year in Dallas as I write this), but it’s time to think about it.

When we first built our garden in 2008, it was fantastic! We had a big raised mound with the best soil we could find. We had a perfect sunny spot. We planted everything carefully and lovingly nurtured it every day. And it paid off. We had sweet potatoes, herbs, carrots, peppers, and bowls full of little yellow tomatoes.

My first instinct would be to do what worked so well in the past. But, I tried that last year. In fact, the past few years – minus maybe the perfect nurturing. And my results were pretty abysmal. I did get a few carrots and a few tomatoes, but they didn’t taste as delicious as they used to. And there certainly weren’t as many.

So what changed? That amazing soil has gotten depleted by those super-abundant crops. The insects have found the beautiful little plot, and the weaker plants are more susceptible. But the biggest change? All that good nutrition and water has fed trees all around three sides of the garden, so now we no longer have perfect sunlight. In some ways, the garden was a victim of its own success.

This year, things will be different. (As a lifelong Cubs fan, I know that sometimes that really is true!)

Sometimes, we need to tweak little things to get great results. More water. Less water. Soil amendments. Worm castings. Plant earlier. Plant later. Tweak, experiment, try again. Tweak again. Repeat.

But sometimes, we’re trying to grow vegetables in the shade and it just will not work. Sometimes we need to start over in a whole new place, in fresh soil with the right conditions. For my garden, this is that time.

So why am I talking about this? Because sometimes the same thing happens to our marketing. Sometimes, what we’ve been doing stops working. So we need to step back and see what we can do to fix it. Or decide that circumstances have changed so much that we need to start over with a whole new plan. January is a great time to take stock of where we are, what we’re doing, what is working, what isn’t working, and how we can fix it.

Call me if you’d like a fresh, objective pair of eyes to help you design an abundant, beautiful marketing plan.