The Dangers of a “Home Run” Mentality When Marketing by Mark Bullock

{3:08 minutes to read} Clients may sometimes think that there is a magic formula to marketing — and if it works, then marketing efforts do not need to continue. This could not be further from the truth. Marketing is the lifeblood of any business. It’s like fitness  — if you want to be healthy, lean, and fit, you have to workout to stay with it, not just make a single herculean effort.

For Example

A prospective client relayed their story of preparing & sending out an e-newsletter for the first time in years. It was a truly herculean effort on their part that took months & countless hours to create a perfectly a crafted, multi-page newsletter. After sending it out to a small list of past clients and business associates, they didn’t receive an immediate new client from it. So, they threw up their hands and claimed, “newsletters don’t work!”

What they didn’t understand is that a single overstuffed newsletter is not how it works. Newsletters work when they are concise, valuable, and above all consistently appear in your COIs’ inboxes — to keep you top-of-mind with your readers.

Don’t Bank on Home Runs

Home runs are infrequent and only possible with practice. So in a business context, what defines practice

  • Providing your professional services; and
  • Marketing your professional services. 

Like any athletic skill, practice requires both regularity and consistency. Even if the home runs are only occasional, the practice and performance otherwise is what makes a better player. The trick is to keep swinging — pushing through obstacles in order to get to the next level.

If at First, You Don’t Succeed…

Try and try and try again! Consistency and practice is how you grow and advance as a professional. Remember: Home runs don’t win games — it’s all the plays combined that help you to win.

In professional services, when working with a client, you don’t call it quits if you don’t initially achieve the desired outcome — you continue working at it.

It is important to view marketing with the same perspective. A softball player will swing her bat many thousands of times — resulting in a wide range of outcomes (from strikeouts to base hits to occasional home runs). Focus on what works to produce the results you are after.

Practicing — Practice Marketing! — is the only way to ensure success. And remember, you will miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I.E., if you’re not practicing marketing, you won’t get any results.

In the world of marketing, the game is never over.

Mark Bullock
Telephone: (631) 754-0800
Email:Mark@phoneBlogger.net
Website:phoneBlogger.net

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