Curate. Create. Share. Wow. Grow.

Flagrant efforts to canvass sympathy and man flu now partially abated, I decided to take a stroll through the streets of Mancunian suburbs to fill the well of inspiration anew.

As you know 2012 is pretty much a year of experimentation and evolution for myself and Word And Mouth. The essentials have been bubbling under for a couple of years, scratching hard at the walls of my mind to be set free.

And you know what? I think they might finally be banished from the darkness and brought into the light!

See that title up there? That’s the five step process that we all, as business owners of 2012, need to follow. That is essentially your recipe for success.

Share isn’t in the middle for kicks and cuddles alone. It’s at the heart of every success-focused business.

I don’t particularly care whether you do your sharing on Facebook or Twitter. I’m not obsessed with creating a web radio show over bringing your message to life through video or even (ah, the nostalgia…) blogging.

What does fuel me, though, is you getting out there and proving you care. That you know your stuff. That together, you and your customers are destined for greater things.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

Yet so many of us forget the basics. That back in the day, noone really spoke of word of mouth marketing because it was the accepted norm. Sure, mass media brought your Cokes and Unilevers brand awareness – but when it came to the SMBs and SMEs, customer evangelism was everything we had.

Then the internet came along and we threw away the playbook (if you’re a Blackberry product owner, you probably did it twice!).

Well, it’s time to hit the bin and salvage what’s left. To rebuild what we once new, and start over empowered with the best bits of tech and an opportunity to reach millions of new customers by impressing them with what you know, and your compassion to share.

That’s all I’m giving you right now.

I could go into the HOW, WHAT, WHY, WHERE and WHEN. But that’s for another day. This year is all about simplicity, as well as transparency and accountability and personality.

Let’s play the two-way thing and tell me what you think in the comments below.