In my last post I wrote about the difference between learning marketing strategies, selling approaches, and the like as compared to learning how to get yourself to actually apply any of those strategies and approaches.
The point is that faced with marketing/selling tasks -- especially when we realize we have been neglecting those activities -- the first response for many, perhaps most of us, is "research." We decide to read another book, skim a few more blogs, sign up for another newsletter, participate in a "teleseminar" or "webinar," "get up to date on the latest ideas," and so on.
We don't pull up some simple marketing activity we already know how to do and execute it regularly, faithfully putting in sufficient effort on a timely basis. We put that off while we learn just one, or two, or three new ideas.
And there's a strong reason behind that approach ...
Fear!
It comes down to measurable, accountable results. It comes down to personal judgments, of ourselves by ourselves. It comes down to being embarrassed to talk about what we tried to do.
You see, you really cannot fail at learning. If you finished the book or stuck through the seminar or attended all the coaching sessions or understood the blog, you did not fail. Nobody is going to say, "Too bad you didn't manage to read that book you started"!
Learning a little more, just a little more, before you jump into action is something you know you can do. You're not going to feel embarrassed to talk about it, and you're not even going to criticize your own results. The only result is to finish the learning activity, and every consultant can do that.
But when you send out a mailing and get few responses, when you make calls and get very tepid reactions, when you put up a flashy new web site and nobody comes -- at the core, when you implement marketing/selling activities and your business does not improve -- then you latch on to the perceived lack of results. Then you feel embarrassed that you told your peers that you were launching that web site, because they ask you how it's going, and you have to fudge the answer. Then you feel incompetent because you tried something and it didn't work.
How much safer, how much more comforting it is to just stick with learning mode!
Solutions
This is a big topic, but I'll just quickly point out two things about this pattern:
- Revenue, response rates, site visits and the like are not the only measures of results. Just as with the learning activities, completing marketing/selling tasks is a positive result in itself, and many initiatives fail to help the business only because they are not continued long enough. If you see "sustaining regular weekly activity for six months" as a "result" to be achieved, you can probably expect to get some of those other "results" to improve as well.
- Fear of failure explains why we'd rather learn more than do more, when it comes to tasks that we don't enjoy or where we lack confidence (marketing/sales falling in both those categories for many consultants). But it is no excuse. Running a successful business depends on overcoming that fear, not through "willpower," but by being "sneaky" about managing our own behavior.
If you really need to learn about a method or strategy or approach, then do it.
But be honest about it, and do not be too patient with yourself when it comes time to turn learning into action.
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