If your business is suffering from MADD chances are you’re all over the map when it comes to your approach to marketing. Similar to Attention Deficit Disorder, you may find yourself jumping from one strategy to the next. You place a single ad in the newspaper and expect a flood of calls. But no one calls. You try direct mail and send one round of post-cards to thousands of homes but don’t get one bite. You post flyers in your neighborhood which generates a few calls but not the droves of people you were expecting. You keep searching for the magic marketing combination and keep shifting from one thing to another.
This is what I call marketing attention deficit disorder or MADD. Flying from one campaign to the next in a scattered and unfocused attempt at trying everything you can to attract more business. The downfall to this approach is that you never really give your campaigns an opportunity to take root because you move too quickly. You expect that one a time effort will yield a flood of interest but marketing doesn’t work that way. You can’t expect to see results overnight. It takes time and consistency before your marketing starts to pay off.
Here are four tips to avoid marketing attention deficit disorder.
It’s no easy task trying to hire the right person for your team. Candidates sometimes have great presentation skills and interview well. Asking good interview questions gives you an opportunity to start weeding people out of the process. The better your questions, the better the pool of candidats that will be left to choose from. There are many types of questions you can ask. The ten that I choose allow candidates to speak about past experiences and require them to tell a story. Their stories should provide clear information about their past performance.
Here are the ten powerful interview questions;
Being an entrepreneur has many advantages. You get to be your own boss. Set your own schedule and have more control over your future. The downside is it can be very isolating. You probably go from training a client to spending time running your business without much contact with other people. Perhaps every once in a while you attend a networking event but then things get busy and that quickly drops to the wayside.
Just recently I was asked by a conference attendee what it took to become an elite level personal trainer. She was inspired by other trainers she connected with during the conference and the vast knowledge of the presenters. I pondered this question for a while trying to consider what someone had to accomplish in order to reach elite status in their field. Here are five points to consider on your road towards becoming an expert.
1) 10,000 hours or ten years experience. While it may seem incredible to think that it takes so much time to become an expert, think about the people who you consider to be at the top of their game. They didn’t magically get there overnight but in fact it most certainly took them years to develop their expertise. Bill Gates for example, spent years and thousands of hours learning how to code computers before he ever founded Microsoft. If you want to be considered an expert you are going to have to put time into it.
2) Become a life-long learner. Experts are life-long learners who don’t have a know-it-all attitude. They concede that the more they know, the more there is to know. The elite spend time reading, learning and engaging with other experts in order to continue to build their knowledge. To become an expert commit to learning or practicing something new everyday.
3) Network with other experts in your field. If you want to be good at anything you need to model yourself after people who have already achieved what you are setting out to achieve. Find a mentor who has achieved elite status and learn as much as you can from them and others within their circle of influence.
4) Maintain your professionalism. Experts not only have a high degree of professionalism but also an exemplery reputation. Take the time to build a solid reputation and be professional.
5) Do what others don’t take the time to do. I’ve observed that experts spend a lot of time doing what others simply do not take the time to do. For example in Lance Armstrongs’ book It’s Not About The Bike he talks about training on the worst weather days. He knew that other cyclists wouldn’t be out on those days but he was. It’s those extra things that others don’t do on a daily basis that serve to set the elite a part from the ordinary. How will you go above and beyond today to do the things that other trainers don’t take the time to do?
To be truly successful and call yourself an expert you have to continuously seek to improve yourself not only personally but professionally. Look for ways to give back to the fitness community and help build the success of others. That’s what true experts do once they have achieved elite status.
With a plan and solid focus you can set yourself on the path towards becoming an expert at the top of your game.
That’s right, everything you have learned and know about marketing is a lie. Lose thirty pounds in thirty days, lie. Lose weight quickly, lie. Lose weight without having to exercise, lie. As consumers we have bought into the greatest lie of all which is the lie we tell ourselves when we buy into these bold face marketing fibs.
What we are really buying is the story. The story of how much better our lives would be if we were the perfect weight. We would magically be happier and life would be glorious, another lie. So why do we lie to ourselves? Because we like to feel better and confirm that we are right about the stories we tell ourselves.
It’s no easy task to keep yourself organized amongst chaos and a very busy training schedule. But did you know that eight out of ten businesses fail because owners are disorganized? That’s right! The simple fact of being disorganized can have a negative effect on the growth and sustainability of your business.
In order to avoid this common pitfall here are a few tips to keep you organized throughout your day and on the road to success.
