26 Sep Patience is a Virtue
It’s Monday morning and my patience is already being tested. I am sure I’m not alone in that feeling. It started with the regular commute to the office. Who likes traffic?
As I was driving in, I started to think about the topic of this week’s blog. Patience. When I walked in my office, I was greeted by a cricket who decided to take up residence over the weekend. Joy. When I tried to fire up my laptop, the battery and run all the way down. My only choice was to wait a few minutes until it had enough juice to turn on. How poetic.
The real spark to my blog this week was a conversation I had last Wednesday. I was invited to attend a baseball game with some other business and local leaders. On the drive to the ballpark, I met a business owner who builds tornado shelters in people’s homes. He can take a closet and convert it into a tornado shelter that will survive an F5 tornado. Did I mention we are headquartered in north Texas? Very cool concept. Naturally the conversation led to me asking how he marketed his business. Mind you, he had no clue what I did for a living at this point.
The gentlemen proceeded to tell me about how he spends all his marketing budget on SEO. He mentioned another agency in town that he has worked with for 13-years. That’s great! I encouraged him to continue down that path, and then mentioned that I ran a content marketing agency.
As the conversation progressed, he confessed that the first six years with this agency was rough. That it took about six years until he started to see consistent results. But that the past seven years he has seen a steady flow of new leads. I told him that most business owners don’t understand that marketing takes time, and that it was good that he was patient. He admitted to complaining a lot during those lean years but stuck with the plan.
Marketing takes patience. Most business owners don’t understand the concept of frequency and consistency. They want results yesterday.
That is true with any marketing strategy. In this businessman’s case he chose to spend money on SEO, but the same is true if you spend dollars on traditional marketing avenues like newspaper, radio, and television. You can buy podcasts, social media ads, or billboards. Marketing takes patience. Most business owners don’t understand the concept of frequency and consistency. They want results yesterday.
Think of marketing from the consumer end. How many times do you see an advertisement before the product registers in your brain? The national average is between seven to 14 times. Once you understand the commercial, does that mean you are ready to make a purchase? No. I don’t run out a buy a FORD every time I see a FORD commercial. But when I was ready to purchase a used car, I bought a FORD.
Marketing works but be patient, if you stop your marketing spend after only a few weeks, you have just wasted your marketing efforts. Want to know more, click on the contact us and we would be happy to have a conversation about your marketing needs.
Scott Miller is the CEO of Centerpost Media, host of the Create. Build. Manage. show (seen on BizTV, heard on BizTalkRadio, and available wherever you listen to podcasts,) and a member of the Forbes Agency Council, Entrepreneur Leadership Network, and Dallas Business Journal Leadership Trust. You can find Scott on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter via “@scottmillerceo” or on LinkedIn via “@scottmillermedia.” Centerpost Media is a content marketing agency with a vision to help every business they encounter with their media needs by providing outstanding quality, service and value. Centerpost Media is the parent company to BizTV, BizTalkRadio, BizTalkPodcasts and Bizvod.