Ask the Wrong Question, Get the Wrong Answer

If marketing is like over-cooked spinach, you’re going to avoid it. If marketing is like pitching when you can’t throw, you’re going to dislike every moment on the mound. You may begin to enjoy as you get better at it, but you’ll still feel frustration if the way you’re marketing isn’t yielding results. And if marketing is like selling used cars, you’re going to feel slimy every time you sit down to do dreaded “M word” tasks.

If these are akin to some of the ways you think about marketing, it’s time to reframe marketing in your mind. Those perceptions are outdated, outmoded, or belong in the outhouse.

Mediators who dislike or fear marketing tend to approach the building of a marketing plan with these kinds of ineffective questions:

• How can I learn to like marketing more? That’s like asking, how can I learn to like over-cooked spinach? Why on earth would you want to?
• How can I make myself do more marketing? That’s like asking, how can I get more of that over-cooked spinach?
• Why do some people do this so well and I’m getting such poor results? That’s like asking, why am I such a rotten baseball pitcher?
• What am I not doing that I should be?

As a mediator you know this already: When you ask yourself less useful questions, you lead yourself to less effective answers.

I want you to ask yourself different questions about marketing so that you don’t need an updated version of the cafeteria monitor. If you need a Marketing Monitor to stand over you and make sure you do it, you’re in trouble before you even begin.

Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.