Don"t Blame The Market - Blame The Marketer
The mortgage crisis, foreclosures, Iraq & Iran, etc.
seem to have quite a few people in a panic these days.
Many are seeing the glass half empty and some are hunkering down, pulling back from spending on their businesses and generally waiting for the sky to fall.
I agree there are signs that could signal a recession and I think the spending of our government is out of control.
I also have concerns about what is happening to our environment and how that could affect us in the long term.
It's only sensible to have appropriate alternative strategies personally and for your business.
But, are you using these fears as an excuse for failure? I remember many times over the last 40 years that if I had let myself be restricted by the events out of my control, I would never have gotten out of bed in the morning to go to work.
Very few businesses fail because of a poor market - but lots of them fail because of poor marketing.
Too many people seize on bad news as a reason to justify their lack of success and their lack of even trying.
When I first started in sales for 3M I was given the worst territory in the region.
It was a small county in northwest PA that had been decimated by steel plant closings.
If I had listened to all the "smart guys" in the company I would have known I could not succeed there.
Instead, I went about meeting people and talking to them about their businesses.
We talked about the positive attributes of the area.
I got to know them as people and I built relationships.
And, you know what I learned during that time of double digit inflation, double digit interest rates and double digit unemployment? I learned life still happens! People still bought houses.
People opened new businesses.
People still made things and people still bought things.
And, I learned that if I engaged in good marketing and positive thinking, they bought from me.
They bought enough for me to set new sales records for the company out of that county that wasn't any good.
The salespeople and businesses that failed during those challenging economic times bought into what other people were saying about the market; they bought into a justification for failure.
Don't fall into that trap! Next month - next year - there will be more calamities (just listen to all the talking heads on the network news).
It's how you think about them and the action you personally take that will make all the difference.
seem to have quite a few people in a panic these days.
Many are seeing the glass half empty and some are hunkering down, pulling back from spending on their businesses and generally waiting for the sky to fall.
I agree there are signs that could signal a recession and I think the spending of our government is out of control.
I also have concerns about what is happening to our environment and how that could affect us in the long term.
It's only sensible to have appropriate alternative strategies personally and for your business.
But, are you using these fears as an excuse for failure? I remember many times over the last 40 years that if I had let myself be restricted by the events out of my control, I would never have gotten out of bed in the morning to go to work.
Very few businesses fail because of a poor market - but lots of them fail because of poor marketing.
Too many people seize on bad news as a reason to justify their lack of success and their lack of even trying.
When I first started in sales for 3M I was given the worst territory in the region.
It was a small county in northwest PA that had been decimated by steel plant closings.
If I had listened to all the "smart guys" in the company I would have known I could not succeed there.
Instead, I went about meeting people and talking to them about their businesses.
We talked about the positive attributes of the area.
I got to know them as people and I built relationships.
And, you know what I learned during that time of double digit inflation, double digit interest rates and double digit unemployment? I learned life still happens! People still bought houses.
People opened new businesses.
People still made things and people still bought things.
And, I learned that if I engaged in good marketing and positive thinking, they bought from me.
They bought enough for me to set new sales records for the company out of that county that wasn't any good.
The salespeople and businesses that failed during those challenging economic times bought into what other people were saying about the market; they bought into a justification for failure.
Don't fall into that trap! Next month - next year - there will be more calamities (just listen to all the talking heads on the network news).
It's how you think about them and the action you personally take that will make all the difference.
Source...