There’s no “6 Minute Abs” in marketing
It’s easy these days, especially if you spend any time on LinkedIn, to think that there is a quick fix or easy solution to every business and marketing problem out there.
Scroll your LinkedIn feed and you’re likely to see the content marketing equivalent of the fitness industry’s “6 Minute Abs”, with plenty of promoters promising simple, fast (and cheap!) solutions to all your business challenges.
But take a step back and consider this – if all these quick and easy solutions work, why isn’t everyone doing them? In which case we’d all be retired and spending time on our yachts, not doom-scrolling LinkedIn.
Of course, it’s never that simple.
Success takes work – a lot of it
Chances are, anyone who invests any time (or God forbid, any money!) in the “6 Minute Abs” of marketing is likely to soon be back scrolling their LinkedIn feed, unsatisfied and in need of a real solution to the problem they still have.
Maybe they had a small spike in improvement for whatever it was they did, but inevitably, it turned out to be a short-term sugar hit, with no foundation for reliable and robust improvement over time.
Because success doesn’t come easy. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of work, and yes, a lot of time. Every shiny new thing that promises fast results with little effort is a time-wasting distraction that puts you even further behind where you were (because of the opportunity cost of your time).
Zoom out and take a look at how far you’ve come
It’s understandable that when you are buried in the day-to-day pressures of marketing and selling, fighting off the competition and looking for any sort of edge, that a quick fix is appealing.
But zoom out and take a look at how far you’ve come in the years or decades that your business has been around. Good marketing isn’t a short-term goal or program – it takes commitment and a healthy dose of good habits and time to create something that is successful and sustainable.
Your business needs to be visible and accessible to your prospects during long buying cycles, and that means it’s a long haul for your marketing efforts.
Make a little progress every day
If there’s any big secret or insight to share, it’s that the work is never done. You need to build the habits and processes that keep you in market all the time. This ensures you’ll be top of mind with prospects during the many months that they are not in the market to buy in your category.
But if you are top of mind, you’re a good chance of getting on that short list when your prospects become active buyers.
Once you build good habits and take small but sure steps every day with your marketing, you’ll be able to zoom out and look back to see how far you’ve come.
Just like that classic Pantene ad – it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.
Give yourself a break from the shysters and hucksters selling you instant success on LinkedIn and talk to us about building something with solid foundations that will set you up for long term success.