Creating Change in Marketing: Do Nothing. Change Everything.
In life, in business, and in marketing, change can be exciting. Creating change in marketing can create new opportunities for your business, increase your profits, and lead to greater success. Creating change in marketing your business can keep people, products, services, and relationships looking and feeling fresh. Whether it involves technology, messaging, practices, or products and services, change can be profitable physically, mentally, emotionally, and of course financially. This is reality.
But is it yours?
Creating change in marketing strategies can be just what the doctor ordered. Yet, just the idea of changing how you promote who you are and what you have to offer can bring on enough stress to make you sick.
Whether it involves changes you know you need to make to your brand, website, social media, or advertising, the need to take new action in sharing your messages is like an itch you can’t scratch, or a toothache you hope will magically go away. It will nag at you and send you constant reminders until you take the action you know is necessary. It can make you less productive, angry, and make others less productive but angry with you.
Fighting change in marketing changes you. It changes everything.
For many, change can also be intimidating as well as overwhelming. In fact, change can be so scary it actually stops many people and businesses to the point of paralysis. Even during times when people know change is desperately needed (and inevitable), they choose fear and denial. They choose to do nothing.
There is a price to pay for the choice of doing nothing.
I’ve dealt with business owners whose resistance to change hurt them badly. It hurt their brand, online presence, hurt employee morale, and relationships with customers. Each of these changes caused by resistance to change had a negative impact on the bottom line. I’ve seen businesses throw more time, money, and resources into old tricks which had proven they no longer did the trick. But, they were familiar. They were comfortable. And in the end, they were failures.
Relying on yesterday’s solutions creates new failures today and tomorrow. This hurts employee morale even more. This turns off and turns away bored, unsatisfied customers. This hurts the brand and the bottom line even more. This widens the gap with competitors. Seeing less customers and less sales and interaction is one thing. Pretending stale marketing efforts are just a long slump everyone is facing, blaming it on the economy, Washington, D.C., illegal aliens, or aliens from outer space is another thing. Those types of excuses are piling problems on top of the problem. What is needed is a solution. What is needed is change.
“Unless you’re living on the edge…you’re taking up too much space.”
I love that saying. I love the visual image it creates. I use it at times when I’m feeling scared or stuck. It lightens the situation. It works for me.
While the idea of going out on the edge may seem extreme to you, resisting change in marketing, advertising, and promotion simply brings the edge closer to you.
Your competitors are creating change in marketing. Your competitors are taking action. Guess what? Your customers are doing the same. You already know you want and need a positive change. The first step toward your solution is to do nothing more than own your fear of change.
If my earlier “living on the edge” gift wasn’t received well by you, try this one on for size. It might be a better fit. A wise spiritual teacher of mine helped me to look at fear in simple but successful ways. Here is what I’ve come up with and have shared with many people. It has been well-received. Now the above funky photo of my hand should make sense.
An Exercise for Overcoming Fear of Creating Change in Marketing
If you’re right-handed, hold out the palm of your left hand. (Lefties do the opposite). Look at your hand and say, “Okay. You’re fear. But you’re just fear. That’s all you are.” Now hold out your power hand and say, “I choose you. You’re my Power. You’re all of the Possibilities I haven’t considered. You’re my Hope. Everything else in life including my solution is right here in the palm of my hand.”
This exercise puts you in a much better place. Here you can breathe. You can see, hear, and think more clearly. You can feel power and hope. Now you can take action or reach out and listen to others who know how to help you create positive changes. Here you’re within reach of your solution for improving the marketing, promoting, and advertising of who you are, what you have to offer, and why the world benefits from you.
If I can help you further with ideas, and putting positive change into action, just put your smart phone in your power hand and let me know. Email me at AZ STRONG or call (602) 535-2320. By Thomas Baldrick Google +
