Sometimes Mother Knows BestI work with marketing numbers every day in my business, but sometimes I like to break it down to an individual level and gather more specific opinions. I can’t be brilliant every day so some days I rely on my dear Mother. I did that today, and I asked her about marketing. Ironic, isn’t it?
Since my mother remembers the days before television, and when telephone lines were shared across multiple households, I figured she could provide a good representation of “old school” thinking about marketing. I asked her a very specific question as follows: “If you were going to market a business, where would you focus your efforts?” She did not even ask me what kind of business before she replied “On the Internet.” I asked her, “Why do you think that some businesses still don’t think that way?” She said “I think they do, don’t they?” I told her that overall market spending spend says yes, but that I still find some companies marketing as “usual” … as if it is 2007. I wanted her opinion of why this could be the case. She said something that I have thought many times, and her reply was “It is foreign to them, and they probably just don’t understand how it can work for them.”
Thanks Mom!
The Monsters Disappear When You Turn on the Lights
Now do you agree with my Baby Boomer age mother? Nod yes. Most people agree that the Internet is the way to go for marketing. It is the most measurable venue for marketing of all, but I sometimes wonder if people realize that fact. The Internet provides enough data that marketing efforts can be accounted for down to every “click” and every dollar. You simply must look at enough data to create statistical significance. Anybody who does not grasp the value of measurements in marketing probably just does not understand it, and may be just a little bit scared. It seems that Internet marketing comes with a fear that many people have a hard time overcoming. The fear can be proven irrational using facts, but some people are just too stubborn to pay attention long enough to learn. They hear it, and they think it, but until they take the time to know the facts, they don’t fully believe it. I think of it like a kid with a bad dream when you turn on the lights, all the monsters disappear.
Many people want to achieve huge success before they actually make a reasonable and well calculated effort toward online marketing. They can read case studies of how others have done it, even in their industry, but as soon as the lights go out, they see monsters again.
Marketing Like a Goldfish in a Shark Tank
Fear and disbelief are big reasons that most companies using the Internet for marketing are doing it terribly unsuccessfully. They want to dip their toe in the water and test it out with a goldfish sized budget. What nobody tells them is that there are sharks in that water. If you don’t swim like a shark, you are likely to be “bitten” and fail miserably. The sad result for many business people is that once they are bitten, they will blame the water or the sharks, but they seldom ever blame the real culprit … themselves!
The alternative to having a shark budget is to shrink the tank using a more focused and creative marketing approach. It requires significant marketing talent to create success, even with a shark budget, but talent is even more important with a goldfish budget. In every case, it still requires more than a toe in the water to avoid the shark bite of an unsuccessful marketing attempt.
If you want your marketing to be successful, you can be one of the sharks or you can shrink the tank with focused marketing enough to take away the sharks’ advantage. Either way, you will have to address the sharks!
Bolstering the fears associated with Internet marketing is the fact that most Internet marketers (SEO, SEM, SMM, Guru, Expert, Maven, Evangelist, et. Al.) really stink at their job. It should also be noted that even the good ones will suffer if they have a client who bucks them at every turn, already knows it all, or asks them to jump through flaming hoops with a goldfish budget in a shark tank. Of course, successful marketers will usually not put themselves in this position. We understand the numbers, and we know that the chance of failure due to under-marketing is statistically significant.
We have surely all seen the overwhelming data, or at least heard a huge frenzy about newspapers, television, radio, and telephone book advertising sales each dropping like lead balloons. There is a reason for this, and the reason is that the Internet is far more effective. Still, I find it shocking to witness companies that have not shifted their efforts and their budget where it can make an impact.
I went on talking with my mother and we discussed business marketing budgets. I was curious why a company spending “x” dollars on ineffective marketing will often try to take a small fraction of that same amount of money to market on the Internet. I asked whether, as they shift their efforts, if it made sense for them to plan to spend less money and effort in the place it could really work. I asked her “If you were going to budget efforts between television, newspapers, phone books, and Internet, which one would get the biggest portion?” Without regard for industry, she said “the Internet, because you can reach anybody there”, and she was right. Of course, she did not have the fear that I was going to sell her something. She could be honest with me about what most people already know, but are afraid to address.
Juan Martin Diez: 18th Century GuerrillaIf you struggle to produce the money needed for marketing, you had better learn some guerrilla marketing, and fast! You should always assume that somebody else in your market segment has deeper pockets and the longer you wait the harder it will be to reach the customers. When marketing a business with a small marketing budget or no marketing budget at all, you can still improve your chances of success using free or very low cost guerrilla marketing.
How to Grow a Business Without a Marketing Budget
I do not want to let you down, but the truth is that it absolutely cannot be done. You will have to budget something, and if it is not money, it will be time … probably a lot of time. Be ready for that, and budget your marketing time. Set aside a scheduled time to learn more, do more, and earn more. This is your business we are talking about and if you have a family to feed, like I do, it really starts to seem worth it to make it a success. Budget your time well, because although you may think you are too busy to budget time for marketing, the truth may be that you are just busy with the wrong things. If you are marketing your business well, time in other areas will almost surely free up for you. While you are budgeting time, be sure to budget enough to finish reading this article. I have some guerrilla marketing tips for you.
Useful Guerrilla Marketing Tips
I am going to give you some free and effective guerrilla marketing tips that you can start using today. I will also welcome your thoughts and additions, but if I try to add more than a short list, I will be writing this all day. This is only intended to help prime you for the task of marketing your business.
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number One: Get Uncomfortable
If you are sitting back in your easy chair feeling comfortable about your marketing, you are not ready for this. If you are marketing without a budget, and you are comfortable about your marketing, you are really not ready for this.
One of the first things I would suggest for anybody trying to grow a business is to get uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable you are, the more likely you are to take serious measures to do something about it. If you relax and think things are just fine, you are just asking for that comfortability to all slip away. I have been in business for over 20 years and I have seen the good times and the bad times. I remember joking with my wife while living in my ivory tower and having a whole lot more time and money than I ever thought I could want or need and saying “I’m tired of living like this.” I actually joked but also kind of meant it, because while earning more per year than an average family does in ten years can be fun and all, a fall can also happen a lot faster. I have seen it … the hard way. Never get too comfortable, and always find reasons that you are “tired of living like this.”
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Two: Find Success and Follow It
Find success and follow it! Look for what successful people have done and learn from their experiences. I am not saying to imitate their every move, but rather to learn what they know and find ways that it can be applied to your marketing efforts. Many successful people will blog about their experiences and are happy to share what is in their head. Read blogs until your eyes hurt! Although it may seem like a waste of time at first, look at it this way; if you want to know how to do something better, doesn’t it make sense to use what others have learned instead of trying to learn it all the hard way?
Do not believe everything you read, but choose carefully and read a lot. Pay attention! Pick out a handful of blogs and spend some time to do more than just scan and click. Your competition is scanning and clicking through a lot of information. You want to learn and improve your business profitability, so what you should know is that even a little of the right information is better than a lot of average information. Get involved and find information pertinent to your industry. Find information from marketers who know marketing. Find things that challenge convention, because conventional is what everybody else is doing. Here are some blogs to help you get started, and of course I should mention that I have a blog archive with many nice trinkets to share.
Don’t just sit there! Learn opinions from other readers and add your comments. Note that while you are commenting that there is a place to enter your web address URL and it will create a link back to your website. If you are active in blogs, those links can add up to a lot. It is also a great way to become familiar with other frequent readers or people who had a common interest. Reach out to them and find out what works for them. Also be sure to read “10 Really Good Reasons to Blog” … seriously, add it to your time budget and read it!
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Three: Look Where Your Market is Looking
Look where your market is looking. I want to be really clear on this when I say that your customers are using the Internet. I was recently visiting with an old client of mine who is in the railroad construction business. They came to me about a website several years back, because they knew that they were supposed to have a website. They did not really know why, and their biggest focused use of it was to find job applicants. Even today, they still find it hard to comprehend that the people out there who make decisions about who will build their railroad bridge or railroad extension are using the Internet. Think of it this way, if you were running this company, even if they are not using the Internet to search for where to buy a railroad bridge, you should be there to increase their awareness of you. The company spends virtually zero money or effort in marketing, yet they want more business. This is what happens when you stop saying “I’m tired of living like this.” The moral of the story: Don’t get railroaded by thinking that your customers don’t use the Internet. Unless your potential customers live in caves without computers and no cellular signal, they are using the Internet every day. Just because you do not sell the product online or receive immediate gratification does not mean you can slide by without it. Selling more of what you offer does not always mean you are pitching them your next deal. There is a reason that Mc Donalds runs ads that say “You deserve a break today” and not just “$.99 Big Macs for a limited time at participating locations.” Branding is important, and the company the potential purchaser has heard of will have the upper hand.
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Four: Guerrilla Marketing is a Stepping Stone
You should be aware of some basic assumptions about companies that try to perform marketing without a budget. You need to know this before you can overcome it. If your marketing budget is small, we can make a couple of accurate assumptions. Whether these assumptions are right or wrong, it is very likely how your prospective customers and your competition will perceive your business, so be aware of this. Here is the first assumption about marketing without a budget: If you do not have a marketing budget, it is pretty likely that you are broke. Successful companies that can afford marketing do not flinch at the idea of investing in growing their market share to squeeze you out of the picture. This brings me to the second assumption about marketing without a budget: Wouldn’t you, if you were them?
You could just try the old line that you don’t spend money on marketing because you are trying to keep your cost low. Sorry, anybody who has ever been in business will see right through that one. Let’s face it, your cost is lower when your company is productive and making money. Marketing does not create a net loss … it creates profit, money, business, customers, growth, market share … you know, all of those things you want more of. Marketing lowers your cost by making your business successful.
Guerrilla marketing is a good way to get started, but businesses that do not reinvest in professional marketing services will often fall into a wasteful trap that they are not able to get out of. Once you have seen the benefits of good guerrilla marketing, use it for professional marketing. You probably answered affirmatively when I asked “Wouldn’t you, if you were them?” Stop imagining that you are above this one very basic law of successful business: It takes money to make money. Remember that without experienced marketing talent, it will be much harder to get your hands on money. It is like a chicken and egg question, only worse: What came first, the money or the money? The more you invest, whether time or money, the more you will receive in return. If you use guerrilla marketing as a stepping stone to grow beyond your current constraints, you will then understand why you did all that reading i assigned you.
I will have some more tips for you soon, so budget your time and keep coming back.
Brian Forsythe of Suture Express, a leading Johnson & Johnson Ethicon surgical suture supplier that promotes “cheap surgical suture supplies”, made a decision to rejuvenate the failing sutureexpress.com website. Naturally, he contacted a search engine optimization provider to suture the damage. In fitting with Suture Express’ core value of “cheap surgical supplies” he contacted a friend with whom he could make a great deal. What he did not realize is how much “cheap” can haunt a company, and especially as it involves selling surgical sutures and outright lying to the SEO provider and not paying him. Note: Stealing information from a search engine optimizer and website developer is not a good way to do more business. What amazes me is that some companies still fail to grasp the reach of the Internet or the power of truth against fraud.
Suture Express Cheap Johnson & Johnson Surgical Sutures? Yes Cheap Surgical Supplies!
Brian Forsythe claimed that Suture Express paid $150,000 to build sutureexpress.com and admitted that they made some pretty big marketing mistakes. Forsythe set out to make it right, but only made it worse when he contracted with a skilled SEO and did not pay the bill. The prior costly marketing mistakes made by Ed Kuklenski, Suture Express’ CEO at the time of the $150,000 disaster yielded only $50,000 gross revenue in the following year according to Forsythe. Forsythe stated that customers had refused to use their website and that it was too slow and ineffective in meeting the Suture Express customer needs and expectations.
It seems that cheap did not fit the bill in this instance, so the fax machine is still the primary method of taking orders. Forsythe claimed that the CEO, Ed Kuklenski had refused to present the proposed budget for site redevelopment, search engine optimization, and social media marketing services to the board for approval. Forsythe cited that since Ed Kuklenski had previously made too big a mistake on the website development that it would shame the CEO to request further money to rectify the mess. Instead, the company CFO, Brian Forsythe, decided to structure payments toward the proposed services in smaller amounts that would each come under the limit that must be approved by the board. Forsythe signed what was to have been the first of multiple contracts and claimed that payment had been sent. Brian Forsythe lied, the checks never came, and he stopped taking calls.
Is Suture Express a Fraud?
I am not an attorney, but what Brian Forsythe did on behalf of Suture Express as the CFO would probably stand out bad in any court of public opinion. Not only did Forsythe agree to a series of contracts to circumvent his board, he also signed a contract and said that the check was in the mail. Brian P. Forsythe
With a signed contract in hand and the Chief Financial Officer’s word that the check had been sent, it seemed safe to produce a report and a plan to achieve Suture Express’ Internet marketing goals. I provided the report, and Suture Express received the benefit of initial plans to improve their search engine ranking. Again, I am not an attorney, but I do recall hearing terms like “Theft by Deception” and “Fraud” somewhere. I am not sure what legal terms apply, but in any case, good business ethics do not seem to be this company’s strong point.
Beating the Surgical Suture Supply Competitors
Suture Express’ ill-considered plan to one-up the competing surgical supply companies had all the making of failure from the very beginning. Stealing from a top-level SEO just sealed the deal. This should be no surprise from a company that claimed to produce between six and seven hundred million per year in revenue (you believe that, right?), yet bragged in their marketing about using duct tape to fix an office toilet seat rather than buying a new one. That is how cheap they are, and they are proud of it. Ladies, can we hear from you on this topic? They are using duct tape to fix a toilet seat, but spent $150,000 on a website that does not work and irritates customers. Sorry ladies of Suture Express, the money for your toilet seat is at sutureexpress.com. Go there when you need to pee, like the rest of the surgical suture supply people around the world.
I am I kidding? No, they actually used the duct taped toilet seat in their marketing. Sure, people having surgery and hoping to live through it probably want that kind of “cheap”. That makes up for wasting $150,000 on a website, for certain.
Suture Express Cheap Sutures Acquired by “Diamond Castle Holdings LLC”
In what I can only imagine as a panic, Brian Forsythe and key operatives in the Suture Express marketing team decided that after costly failed attempts at selling surgical supplies online, they had to do something to advance their cheap surgical supply company. Instead of doing business with integrity, such as honoring a signed contract with the SEO, maybe the best thing to do was to sell the company again. I imagine it to sound something like this:
“Let’s sell Suture Express again! Selling a surgical suture supply company seems to work well. It has worked before, and to heck with Suture Express’ reputation, this is millions of dollars. We can buy a new SEO with that kind of money, and the new shareholders will never know better. Shareholders don’t get the Internet anyway.”
I can actually kind of expect this kind of logic from these people, because the company who purchased Suture Express in January 2010 is named Diamond Castle Holdings LLC. Really, a diamond castle is what people want to build when they buy cheap surgical supplies, right? Diamond Castle acquired Suture Express in a leveraged buyout from Code Hennessy & Simmons LLC. Does anybody want to guess the shareholders of Code Hennessy & Simmons LLC and Diamond Castle Holdings LLC? I’ll bet we can find some pretty classy cheap surgical suppliers in there somewhere. I can imagine the pride they all shout about at the shareholder meetings. Can you make up a good cheer to suit this?
Ethicon Surgical Supply Truth, with Suture Express
What I know today answers a lot of questions of how America’s health care system is in shambles. I waited well over a year from the time that Brian Forsythe at Suture Express told me directly that a check was in the mail before I decided to share the truth. I never wanted to battle with the huge health care industry or to hurt a one-time friend who suckered me into it. In over a year of waiting for that check to arrive and watching Suture Express being sold twice for millions of dollars each time, I had to shake my head and wonder what went wrong. There were many instances when I missed what I knew as my one-time friend, Brian, who had served as the CEO, CTO and CFO of Suture Express, and any other position he could regain in the next sale of his company. He gained millions of dollars by selling a company and effectively reselling it multiple times. Some people call this genius, but some people would call him a conman. I did not judge him, because I knew him as a friend who came to me when he needed to market a company that had made huge and costly mistakes.
I should explain that Brian Forsythe was one of the people I credit the highest with my learning to drive race cars. I met Brian when I was learning to master driving Corvettes. As you can imagine, I trusted Brian Forsythe. We have been just a few feet apart in our Corvettes at 150 miles per hour and taken high speed turns where mistakes count dearly. I don’t do this with people I do not like or respect. After all, I have a family to come home to.
Brian Forsythe Porsche Club and Corvette Race Car Driver
Brian is an amazing race car driver, and he instructed me in driving to the absolute limits a Corvette can withstand. He has been in a car with me at 150 miles per hour and has coached me when I placed 4th in a competition with top drivers from all around the world. He was the guy who once said “Mark, you made the quantum leap today, and you will never see that much improvement in your driving skill again.” He was also the guy who consoled me as I frantically worried that I had finished a time trial at less than my capability. He had been timing me and assured me beyond my tears that I had done a smashing job. Yes, race car drivers are close like brothers, so it actually does trouble me to say how badly this man conducts business. It means that I will never see my friend on a racetrack for fear that he will treat human life the way he does his business … like a true liar and cheat.
Yes, you read it correctly, and I will defend it in a court of law … Brian Forsythe of Suture Express is a liar. I cannot say how often he does it, but I can prove multiple instances of Brian lying to a friend, so you go ahead and make your judgments how you like. I always figured that if a man will lie to his friend, it is generally a reflection of how he will treat people in business as well.
My opinion is that Ed Kuklenski, Brian Forsythe, Kurt Rall, Steve Boyer, and the rest of the executive team and marketing staff at Suture Express probably could have done well to just own up to their contract instead of selling out the little guy who just wanted to help his racing buddy.
When people tell the truth, there should be no harm to the person reporting it. Fairness is subjective, but factual data should never hurt. The day that the truth becomes damaging to the truth-teller, is the day I will give up and stop doing business. If you do not like the truth, stop reading my blog right now, because you would probably not like me. If you are in the Ethicon surgical sutures supply industry, the truth may either upset you, or it may delight you. In the end, it is only the truth.
I wonder how Diamond Castle Holdings LLC’s shareholders will feel about their acquisition. I don’t wonder too much, because I think if anybody facing a life-saving surgery knew that their sutures were building a diamond castle, that their holdings would perhaps include holding their breath and waiting for some surgical supplies by a company with more integrity. Really … Diamond Castle Holdings? Are you kidding me? Is that part of the big healthcare reform thing we keep hearing about?
How many people here on my blog want to finance a Diamond Castle when they get sick and need a doctor to stitch them up?
A Surgical Supply Question for Johnson & Johnson
Do you generally do business like Brian Forsythe at Suture Express? I wonder if you can sell any sutures that can stitch up this surgical marketing mess Brian and his coworkers made. I really wonder how Johnson & Johnson looks at companies promoting their Ethicon line of surgical sutures in this way. Will I get any answers?
About Surgical Suture Suppliers
I doubt that surgical sutures suppliers are all so shady. I would be delighted to assist a suture supply company like Ethicon by Johnson & Johnson, Suture Direct, Novartis, Angiotech, MPS Medical Supply, DemeTech or others.
I would like to add that I do not often say unkind things about companies or friends. This is an instance where I believe that it is in the public’s interest and that Suture Express’ shareholders, prospective customers, and even competing surgical suture suppliers should know what happens when you treat people with dishonesty. Especially the ones who already proved they know their way around SEO. Just see my comment on the article “Ethicon Sutures: Endo Surgical Sutures” to see what I mean.
Will Your Customers Wait for a Flat Tire?Do your potential customers know that they need your product or service offering? You may be surprised to find that many marketing shortcoming are not only in lack of exposure, but also because potential customers failed to see a need … or enough need to do business with you. Maybe you have addressed this question before, but perhaps I can help you with a different spin.
Imagine First Generation Drivers
Back when cars first gained popularity as a mode of transportation, most people did not know much about them. The first generation drivers were pretty clueless about the new “horseless carriages”, but they sure were eager to learn. They had a lot of crashes back in those days. I can imagine why they crashed. Just picture the kids back then having to actually hand write their text messages on paper!
Try to imagine the days before anybody had a father to nag them about checking their tires. Cars need maintenance, but in the beginning, most people didn’t know anything at all about tire care. Drivers overlooked maintenance and had a lot of breakdowns. My father told of his first car, which was a Ford Model T Roadster. Stop right there, I am not all that old. My dad was about a hundred and twenty something when I was born. Anyway, he said it seemed like he blew a tire every time he turned a corner. This created a need for better tires. Not just a need for better tires, but also used tires, tire repair, tire changing, and of course some good tools for changing the tires. All of the sudden, there was an emerging market. It became a pretty huge market that made many people such as the Firestone family abundantly wealthy. Tires were expensive, and people tried to use them as long as they could. They would drive them until they blew out. It is why the term “tire kicking” is still used today. Back then, people would kick the tires because if the tires had been repaired, kicking them would help them to know if there was a “boot” in the tire. No, not the kind of boot on your foot, but a piece of rubber that was used inside the tire to repair it.
Now, back to the Firestone family, the Firestone’s did not get wealthy only because there was a market need. They helped people to understand their need, and they did this better than the rest of the tire companies who competed with them.
How Would You Market Tires?
When you imagine your market, try to think like the earliest tire companies. Pretend that you are the first company to try and explain to people about tires. What would you do, and what would you say? Would you wait until their tired blew out and they knew they had a need, or would you try to help them to be safer by knowing when their tires were getting too old? Would you teach them about tire pressures and how to make their tires last longer, or would you hope they wore them out sooner so you could sell more? TIP: Even tire companies selling the same tire but who help customers prolong their tire life have “better tires” because they last longer.
Think about how you would reach those early drivers. How would you let them know, not only that you exist, but how you would impress upon them that they need your tire store and not just the closest tire store to where their next tire blows out. How far would you reach to grow that market if the big obstacle was to help people understand that they are safer when you are their tire guy?
Exposure is a huge component of marketing, but never forget that there are already a lot of people who know about you, but do not realize how much they need you, or why you sell “better tires” than the others.
People Don’t Repair Good Tires
People do not repair good tires that hold air. This occurred to me as I consider the Internet marketplace. A lot of people who really need the marketing services which I provide just don’t know how much it can help or how bald their tires are. Do you need a better tire seller?
Do Doctors Get Sick?Being too good at your job can damage your vision. What I mean is that when you are too closely involved, it can become easy to miss something that is right under your nose. It seems that a lot of people are their own worst enemy when it comes to their business, and especially as it relates to their marketing. I hear it all the time that a client will hold onto delusions that they know their market inside and out. They blame the industry, their customers, or the economy for problems instead of realizing they have made some mistakes. The truth is that they are often just too closely involved. I am sure you have seen something that you can relate this to, right?
I even feel this way in my job a lot of times. Since I know a lot about Internet marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), I forget that a lot of people are just not so familiar. If you are good at something, it is easy to forget that the world is made up of all types and that the more you specialize, the more you become blinded. Addressing this with clients is an interesting challenge to me, because I frequently provide concrete evidence to show them just how wrong they are and how much business they have been missing. Then I have to present it in a way that does not make them feel stupid for not seeing it and addressing it sooner. People hate feeling stupid, and I don’t always have such a soft hand at pointing things like this out. I am that guy who will tell people what they need to hear rather than candy-coating a turd and telling them what they want to hear. I am a great marketer but because of that, I lack the wasteful schmoozing that some people expect to get when they spend a lot of money. This is my example of being so focused that I don’t see so well. I hope that you can realize it if there are instances like this in your work, too. Recognizing it is a good step in the right direction … I think … or rather, I hope.
It is common to use bad judgment or to be complacent when addressing matters within your own industry. It is why people use the analogies of a cobbler with barefoot children or a plumber with leaky pipes. It is easy to just think we are so good at something that we know how long we can put a task off before things break. It can also be easy to think we are doing all the right things, while we are actually just making things worse. Allow me to share an extreme real life example.
Jeff is Too Good at His Job to be Sick
I am reminded of many years ago when I had a roommate who was a physician. He woke up one morning and he was very sick. He could barely stand up, but of course he didn’t need a doctor. He figured that since his abdomen hurt that he just needed some antacid. He swigged a big dose of about three different over-the-counter antacids and headed to work.
Later that day as he was doing rounds at the hospital, it got worse … a lot worse. I got a call from an old school friend’s mother that evening. It kind of surprised me because I had not spoken to this woman in the prior 15 or more years. She was calling for professional reasons, as she is a nurse who worked with Jeff (the roommate). She called to let me know that while Jeff was at work, he had become so sick that he needed an emergency surgery. His appendix had perforated and he was in really bad shape. He made the mistake of diagnosing himself and it finally took a doctor friend to force him to go to the emergency room where a formal diagnosis was made. His condition was worsening fast, and if not for the intervention, it would have been life-threatening in very short order.
Jeff is a sub-specialist with over 15 years of post-secondary medical training from some of the most prestigious medical schools in the world. He is extremely talented in his field of medicine, but he was just too close to see the problem. I am not a doctor, and even I knew enough to tell him to stop by the emergency department to drink a GI cocktail just to see if the pain went away. If not, it would be a sign of something worse. He didn’t take my tip, nor several coworkers advice throughout the day, and he suffered a lot for it.
Jeff’s instance makes a good example of just being so good at a job or too closely involved to have good judgment. I see business instances similar to this often enough to believe that most people can find a similar oversight in their work.
My work involves a lot of different markets, and I am always thinking about how to best reach my clients’ prospective customers. Not so unlike Jeff, I am my own worst patient. I think a lot of us are this way but we become too blind to recognize it. We get so wrapped up in our respective jobs that we put things off or make costly mistakes.
It is very likely that you are overlooking a lot of potential in your business, too. Recognizing the ailment is an important step to recovery. Don’t be a “Jeff”! Putting things off will often make for a much longer recovery.
