One day a man pulls into a gas station. He goes inside seeking help, “Excuse me but I’m lost and need help.”
The lady behind the counter says, “Do you know where you are?”
“Yes, I saw the sign coming into town.” he replied.
“Do you know where you want to get to?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Well then darlin’, you’re not lost, you just need directions.”
How true is this for each of us in our lives? We know where we are, and where we want to get, just not sure of the path and the turns to take. That is why coaches, mentors and consultants can be so valuable and useful on our journey to success.
When I work with my coaching clients, the single biggest take away that they receive is having a roadmap to their success. It’s not always a simple task to see our way through the forest, and oftentimes that’s why we need outside help because there is so much that is overwhelming and confusing.
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In today’s world where we have multimedia outlets for all of our marketing opportunities, if we don’t know the strengths of what each one is, and how our product or services can best be presented, it is easy to spin our wheels and not get traction. Trying to figure out how and where to focus to get the biggest bang for our efforts can be a disheartening experience.
Trying to figure out how and where to focus to get the biggest bang for our efforts can be a disheartening experience.
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That is why when I am working with someone I like to find their strengths and weaknesses, not just in their business but in their personalities. I was working last month with a man who knew he wanted to grow his marketing presence and had heard that YouTube was the way to build an audience – which it can be for the right person. As we were talking though, he’s painfully shy about photographed so being on camera was not going to be a solution that would work for him. We could work around it with whiteboard videos or using B-roll compilations while he did voice overs – but those seemed like bad solutions that would become time intensive and expensive to pursue.
I have experience with podcasting and I know that it is an extremely effective and sticky form of marketing. My podcast has generated over $150,000 in revenue for my business, and it only cost less than a $1,000 over the last 3 years. That’s a pretty awesome rate of return! So I suggest that we consider developing a podcast for his business. It allows him to push his message out there, in a permanent way, and he can do outreach to experts in his field, and he doesn’t have to feel the embarrassment of being on camera.
He knew where he was -not busy enough. He knew where he wanted to be – more in the public eye – I just gave him the directions to get there.
Are you really lost? Or do you just need some directions to get where you want to be?
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Photo credit: Getty Images