Effort and Committment
November 28, 2009
Welcome back!
Are you prepared to get up early, go to bed late, and put it in the time, effort and committment to your current project(s)?
Or is it a struggle to get out your bed in the morning, to fire up your levels of enthusiasm, put on a smile, and cracking on with the task in hand?
The author of “The Road less travelled” (Scott M. Peck) got paid just $5000 as an advance from his publisher to write his book. In the first 365 days that the book came out, he did 1000 radio interviews to help promote the book.
He then committed to doing 1 radio interview every day for the next 12 years.
Was all the effort worthwhile?
He sold over 10,000,000 copies of the book, it was translated into 20+ languages and it was on the Times Best Seller List for over 540 week. (That’s over 10 Years !)
So how are you going the extra mile in order to get your message out to others?
How have you been, are and will be promoting your products and services?
Are you just battle weary, tired, run down and can’t be bothered, or have you got a system, and a plan?
What IS the next marketing objective that you want to achieve?
The Benefit of Failure
November 28, 2009
As you reflect back on the year, and each of your marketing experiences to date, it’s worth noting that if everything you attempted, tried or tested worked out perfectly, then just think how little you would really learn.
The learning experience isn’t in what works, it’s actually in what doesn’t.
Failure allows us all to reflect on our skills, talents, experiences, qualities and attitudes and to accept failure somewhat philosophically, and safe in the knowledge that the experience has been a lesson in growth and understanding about ourselves.
One thing’s for sure, if you feel you’re being unfairly tested, or that life is harsh, then be rest assured you are in fact, preparing yourself for the next great step in your development and you next greatest achievement.
There’s an old saying that those who refuse to learn from their lessons and failures - are doomed to repeat them. So, if you didn’t get the response you wanted to an advertising campaign, or get the ROI from your PPC campaign, get the sales you wanted from the tradeshow you attended, or generate the revenues you thought you might from your JV, partnership etc, then stop and consider how you could do better next time.
It’s time to stop and think what you’ve learned, what you did wrong, and how you can improve as you go forward. Remember, each failure is an opportunity for improving your character, and chances are if you didn’t have the minor setback, you probably would have missed the real opportunity that is now presenting itself to you.
Your current circumstances
November 27, 2009
Many people become concerned about their current circumstances, when it comes to their marketing:
- Lack of sales
- Lack of Pipeline
- Declining market share
- Lack of referrals
- Etc etc
Contrary to what you may think, my advice at this point is….
Stop wanting to change your circumstances.
Marketing Focus
November 27, 2009
When you think of the word “focus” in marketing terms, what do you think of?
- Goal setting?
- Objectives?
- Marketing Strategy or Marketing Plan Document?
Whilst all of them are “true” to an extent, the real essence of “focus” is not on some external tool resource, or activity.
It’s about your feelings, and that which you want to “experience.”
Marketing: The internal process
November 27, 2009
Many people who hold traditional beliefs about marketing will focus all their attention on external stimuli or factors.
They focus they’re attention on various “external” things like:-
• Their website
• Their marketing collateral
• Their sales presentation
• Who their prospective clients are
• How they will reach those clients
• What additional resources they need to manifest the results they crave.
Many become obsessed about the results they want.
However, the mere act of wanting something confirms to their subconscious that they don’t have it already. All their worries, concerns and trepidations about external matters are in fact the outer manifestation of their inner conflict, doubt and guilt in not aligning their thoughts, feelings and actions to create a congruent plan of action.
How often have you:
• heard someone say one thing, but do another.
• done one thing, but thinking it wouldn’t work.
• Felt one thing, and thought something differently.
The same is all true when it comes to your marketing.
Marketing DNA: Is your 5 Strand Marketing DNA inactive?
November 26, 2009
Your 5 Strand Marketing DNA maybe inactive.
Many people simply don’t know of the 5 fundamental principles of marketing endorsed by many marketing professionals. They are -
- Positioning
- Packaging
- Promotion
- Persuasion
- Performance.
In other words. You need to know who you are selling to, and what it is you really offer.
Choice
November 25, 2009
This blog is about “Choice”.
( See what happens when you give a human “free will” ;) )Interesting. Well, let’s see where it takes us. All I ask is that you read this blog in its entirety (and don’t jump ahead) before deciding whether to add a comment, whether to “like” it or not, and whether to follow through with the possible outcomes of having decided to read this blog. Fair? If so, lets begin….
Which Broadband supplier do you use?
The Marketing Evolutionary Process
November 24, 2009
When it comes to your marketing, there are 4 parts to your evolutionary process:
- Automatism
- Awareness
- Understanding
- Knowing
Automatism
You start your marketing evolutionary process by responding automatically to situations and events, based on your conditioning about marketing to date. Your understanding of marketing is based on generalisations, and social conditioning. You do what you think you should be doing, and what is deemed acceptable and the “thing to do” by others.
The more diagnosis you do, by way of a marketing audit, the more you will begin to question whether what you (and everyone else for that matter) have been doing, are the correct tactics. More importantly, this aspect of your marketing is nearly always down to the unwillingness to accept responsbility and test new marketing approaches. An aversion to risk, to be unpopular,, face criticism, or to stick your head above the parapets, can all prevent you from waking up from your slumber of non performance and lack of results.
Quite often people in this phase of the marketing evolutionay process don’t understand why they think the way they do, or why they hold the opinions or views they do about marketing. Many are too busy responding to the symptoms of poor, bad or selfish marketing to awaken to the recognition or realisation as to why they’re not generating the results they want.
Marketing: The Vicious Circle Part II
November 24, 2009
If you’re not generating the results you want from your marketing, then you need to change your thinking and feelings towards you, your business and your target market.
In real terms its not the tangible asset or thing that you want from achieivng the progress and results you want from your marketing, it’s the “Experience” - it’s the feeling that those goals and objectives represent.
Remember the goal setting exercise I took you through to identify what it is you want to Be, Do and Have? (It’s HERE) Well consider the feelings you would like to experience having achieved each of these goals. Now think of similar experiences that can give you the same feelings or same sense of that which you wish to experience. It doesnt necessarily mean you have to continually stress yourself about discounting your services to get the deal you want so you can pay this month’s mortgage.
Try this
Marketing: The Vicious circle part 1
November 24, 2009
When it comes to your marketing, your existing circumstances don’t cause your suffering. They are merely the symptoms or effects of bad, poor, selfish or ineffective thinking and planning.
The root cause of your existing circumstances is your thinking and programming.
Afterall, Thought leads to words which leads to action.
So it goes without saying that the the wrong thoughts, can lead to the wrong words and the wrong actions.
That is why, when most people want to generate more leads, more appointments, more referrals or more sales, they are often going about it in the wrong way.
They often want the tactics or know how to generate the results they want, without actually looking for the root cause of their lack of progress to date. So they don’t break the vicious circle they find themselves in, they do, in real terms only just perpetuate it, compounding it to make it worse.
It starts with…
1. MINDSET - ( The Why ),
2. Then the PLAN/STRATEGY - ( The What )
3. then the TACTICS - ( The How ).
