A large cheeseburger with condiments is approximately 600 calories. An hour of high impact aerobics for a 200lb man will burn about 600 calories. A slice of pumpkin pie is about 350 calories. An hour of ice skating for the same man will burn about 340 calories. We know we need to eat better, work out more and take better care of ourselves but (on average) we don’t do that. We eat the cheeseburgers and the pie then get acquainted with the couch.
Often companies will look at the success of a certain campaign or promotion to get a sense of customer reaction or appetite. This kind of strategy is both flawed and short-lived. Patience is a virtue but rarely a business plan.
Open for Business
Unless you have won the lottery, have rich parents or are independently wealthy, you need new business all the time. It’s admirable to see some who have as many customers as they will ever need but the rest of us need to constantly build our business. Not for a week, not once in a while, but every single day.
We want the customers now but can have trouble seeing the long term benefits of a sustained effort throughout the year. We wonder how these available channels can help us without realizing our contribution is critical to the equation. We want the quick wins to sustain our revenue line forever.
Downside of Now
As a business and marketing strategist, I am asked often if I can help companies improve and increase revenue. I can but I don't have magic dust to solve all their problems in an instant - no one does.
If you are in business, you have made some mistakes and enjoyed some victories but neither happened in a day or a week. It would be arrogant for anyone to claim they can help you improve in those areas in a short amount of time. You may want to find some quick wins but they are fleeting and impossible to scale.
We are not built for strategy or long-term thinking. If things are bad, we want them to be good, right now. If money is tight, we want money, right now. If someone promises that this campaign will help us get us out of this slide, we are happy to listen, right now. We want the burgers and the pie without the waistline.
Do you want wins or business growth?
Kneale Mann
image credit: directresponse
original: Mar 2011
