MARKETING - Preparation and then . . . Nothing

MARKETING

Preparation and then . . . . Nothing!

By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting January 2008.

I was reading an article (and yes I do read, I don’t just write articles) by Martha Beck in which she said “To fail is divine she (Martha Beck) has repeatedly, and she has nothing to show for it except freedom, serenity, and a sure –fire recipe for success.”

Yet we all have a frighteningly huge fear of failure.  The really crazy thing is that we fail on a daily basis, no matter how successful we are, we still experience failure on a daily basis.  The missed or late arrival for an appointment. The missed or late deadline. The closed bank teller.  They are all failures on our part, in one way or another.  Even though we all fail on a daily basis, our fear of failure is so great that it often overwhelms us and we go to great lengths to avoid it.

How do we try and avoid failure, well we prepare and organize and research and then we prepare some more, and we organize some more and then we do some more research and so it goes on!  Pretty soon we are so busy preparing and organizing and researching and running around like lunatics, to prevent failure that we don’t ever get to the point of actually getting started.  How scary is that?

Think about a baby who is learning how to walk.  No child that I have ever seen, got up onto his/her feet and walked after doing only crawling for the better part of their lives.  They all fall down and then with immense cheering and motivation and yes, even a little bribery I suspect, they get up again, only to fall down again.  Along the way however, their tenacity pays off and they start to walk.

Starting a new business is much the same, we all fail a little, adjust our thinking, pick ourselves up and get going again.  Remember tenacity will pay off, but you still have to take that first step.

It is a good idea to remember two basic points, I would actually write them down somewhere where you can see them every day.  They are:-
•    Just because you are running around frenetically all the time, doesn’t mean that you are actually achieving anything.  So Activity is not productivity!
•    Just because you have this brilliant idea for a product or a service that you think you can sell one to every individual on the planet – you still have to sell the first one, before you can sell the rest!  So make the first sale!

Bottom line, preparation and research are very important, but just get going!

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za