When I was a little boy, my mother and I spent a summer on a lake in northern California. We had a cabin that was pretty darn rustic for 1970-something. It was an idyllic summer in many ways. My best friend Bill Murray and his family were across the lake, and as young boys will often do, we went collecting crayfish. I have a vivid memory of a plastic bread bag half filled with these creatures and bringing them home for mom to cook up.
I didn’t realize at that time just how much of an aversion to fish of all types mom had, and these qualified as fish in her mind. The more pressing issue though was that the stove was a wood burning stove, and in order to cook up these creatures I had to bring in wood so that we could boil them up.
Anyone who has ever been camping and used a wood fired stove, knows that you can’t make ANYTHING until you have a fire started. We have to make the effort to go find the wood, get a fire started, and let it grow hot enough, before you can really get cooking.
You can’t stand there and say to the stove, “Okay, you get hot and THEN I’ll put in some wood and build a fire.” It just doesn’t work that way. There’s an order for things to happen, and you have to follow the order.
I’ve found that it’s the same with my dreams and goals. I have to put in the effort before I can get the results. It’s not fun, but it’s the way it is. No matter what we want to accomplish we have to put the effort in first, then we get the benefits.
Whether it’s my podcast, my writing, or my public speaking, I have to work before I can reap the rewards. The farmer doesn’t look to harvest, and then plant his crops. He plants, he waits, he harvests.
It’s the same thing with digital marketing, and client development. We have to put out information and then the customer or client will call us if we’ve provided good content and helped them solve their problem. There are many people who forget this and have unrealistic expectations of what they should be reaping. They want instant results, immediate success and a return on investment that involves no waiting – well, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Digital marketing is more like a slot machine than a gumball machine. The gumball machine is satisfying in that we put in a quarter (used to be a penny!) and out comes a gumball. This is a one to one relationship, however, it’s not the way marketing works.
A slot machine works on its schedule. You put in a dollar, pull the handle and maybe it pays off, and maybe not. This is much more apt as a metaphor for marketing. It might pay off immediately if you’re super lucky, or it may take hours and thousands of dollars. There’s no way of knowing what the result will be until you just play.
The big lesson is really that we never get before we give. Whether it’s effort, sharing knowledge or just dropping a coin in a slot machine – we have to make the first moves if we want the results.
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