As marketing people or business owners, we tend to be pretty good at starting new things that we know will grow our business. We aren’t however always very good at abandoning those things that aren’t working.
Choose something today that isn’t working and stop it.
Too many leaders waste too much time trying to make things work that end up being more effort than they are worth. Add in all of the new things you are working on and you’ve likely found yourself short of time. Take some of your time back by stopping some of the failures. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes but I talk to people in business all the time that complain about all of the things that don’t work that they are still doing.
Once you’ve eliminated one of your big time or money wasting initiatives – find yourself something new and exciting that you can begin. Too many of us think that we have it all figured out and that some things are just the way they are and that will always be the way. Referred to as rigidity of character – we know how to do certain things certain ways and the other ways we just won’t consider, feel aren’t right or won’t even recognize.
I get stuck in my ways too, but years ago I read a small article in Men’s Health magazine that spoke of a different way to use the mirrors in your car to eliminate your blind spots. It sounded goofy to me considering that we all use our mirrors the exact same way and how could a new way exist to set your mirrors that nobody has figured out until now. What I discovered was that a better way to set your vehicle mirrors really did exist and now I’ve completely changed my view on the right way to view the world around me. Who would have thought that it could be done differently? It took me a few days of driving with this new configuration before my brain switched from how it had always expected to see the traffic around me. Now, I cannot believe that I always used my mirrors the way I did.
Business is the same as those car mirrors. Times have changed and many of us haven’t. Discoveries have been made that we haven’t uncovered. With vehicle mirrors, we might want to spread the secrets of the discovery but in business many owners and marketers want to keep that advantage for themselves. Those who concentrate on changing with the times are more likely to find it than those that simply accept that they have blind spots.
In the case of Marketing, I’ll share any secret with you. In the case of your car mirrors, you can do a search for articles at Men’s Health and find a slightly different post than was in the magazine. You can then use your side mirrors in a whole new way – which is better! Drive Safe and when you get to the office, concentrate on getting rid of something old and starting something new!
