Getting Results in our Own Time

I've learned this same lesson at least a thousand times.

Good marketing is really allowing clients to get results in their own time, not in mine. When we force it, the result gets muddy.

While I feel it's my job to help clients speed toward results, in fact they have lots of obstacles to balance, new skills to learn while ramping up their marketing muscles and time management magic. I know because I've done it. Several times, in fact. I worked full time in television as a stage manager while working as a marketing director for a film lighting company, because I owned the company with my partners.

One client wrote me today about the hurdle of having two careers--the one I am helping him with and the one he does to pay bills in order to someday retire the old career. He was concerned about splitting his time for radio interviews and his unreliable schedule at his other career.

Fearing he'd not be able to even begin his publicity because he'd have too many radio hosts demanding his time right away for interviews, he wrote me:

"This is the only thing that gets in my way, emotionally. If all I had to do was market my [rear end] off with no concern or thought about another job I would fly through this marketing stuff. Emotionally, I simply get caught up in the juggling act of two careers when it’s time to start promoting something."

I thought him so wise to realize it was emotional--the fear and confusion of juggling both jobs rather than his marketing ability (since he has my help, after all). Once I reminded him the PR groundwork would take some ramp up time he could do on his own schedule, it was so simple to begin. No overwhelm, no fear, in control of one's own time management. ahhhh. It's just all about the knowledge, the perspective. Once you know what to do, you can relax.

After all, knowledge is bliss.

In my unquenchable thirst for knowledge, I'm trying to learn how to shake loose these patterns without doing actual 'marketing therapy' like a shrink, but using it to speed past issues for easier results.

Or maybe things just happen in their own time. My favorite example of that is the 15 [seemingly simplistic but really salient] point summary at this blog: http://civpro.blogs.com/civil_procedure/2005/12/15_things_13_th.html