Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Marketing and Marine Boot Camp
My son, Ben, is home after successfully completing Marine boot camp. His graduation last Friday was quite an event. Recruits go through three months of the most grueling training—mental, physical, and emotional—you can imagine.
Not everybody makes it. Nearly 20% of the recruits who started with Ben got put back into another unit either because of injury or to redo training they hadn't passed the first time.
But those that make it through have changed. And they have a deep sense of pride in what they've accomplished. They've been pushed beyond what they ever thought they were capable of and have come out the other side stronger and more confident.
Now, Marine boot camp might not seem like it has much to do with marketing, but there are some significant similarities. No, we don't generally find ourselves tested physically by our choice to run our own business online. But we do get tested mentally and emotionally—and, for that matter, financially.
And just as a recruit cannot succeed without being changed by the obstacles they overcome, you cannot succeed online without being changed, as a person, by the obstacles that your business faces. Let me repeat that: you cannot succeed online without being changed, as a person, by the obstacles that your business faces.
So many new business owners start out with the same erroneous idea: "I'll put up a website or auction a few products and the money will start pouring in."
The vast majority launch their business with the expectation that everything will automatically fall into place. Then they find that it's not as easy as they expected, and they throw in the towel.
But those who succeed wrestle those obstacles. They deal with things they never expected. And they find that they must change their whole approach to business from focusing on trying to manipulate people into buying to focusing on finding the needs that others desperately want filled and then filling them.
Just as no recruit can become a Marine without becoming more than what he or she went into boot camp as, no business owner can succeed without experiencing a fundamental change in the way he or she views business, life, and themselves.
Are you up to the challenge?
Jeff
My son, Ben, is home after successfully completing Marine boot camp. His graduation last Friday was quite an event. Recruits go through three months of the most grueling training—mental, physical, and emotional—you can imagine.
Not everybody makes it. Nearly 20% of the recruits who started with Ben got put back into another unit either because of injury or to redo training they hadn't passed the first time.
But those that make it through have changed. And they have a deep sense of pride in what they've accomplished. They've been pushed beyond what they ever thought they were capable of and have come out the other side stronger and more confident.
Now, Marine boot camp might not seem like it has much to do with marketing, but there are some significant similarities. No, we don't generally find ourselves tested physically by our choice to run our own business online. But we do get tested mentally and emotionally—and, for that matter, financially.
And just as a recruit cannot succeed without being changed by the obstacles they overcome, you cannot succeed online without being changed, as a person, by the obstacles that your business faces. Let me repeat that: you cannot succeed online without being changed, as a person, by the obstacles that your business faces.
So many new business owners start out with the same erroneous idea: "I'll put up a website or auction a few products and the money will start pouring in."
The vast majority launch their business with the expectation that everything will automatically fall into place. Then they find that it's not as easy as they expected, and they throw in the towel.
But those who succeed wrestle those obstacles. They deal with things they never expected. And they find that they must change their whole approach to business from focusing on trying to manipulate people into buying to focusing on finding the needs that others desperately want filled and then filling them.
Just as no recruit can become a Marine without becoming more than what he or she went into boot camp as, no business owner can succeed without experiencing a fundamental change in the way he or she views business, life, and themselves.
Are you up to the challenge?
Jeff
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