In my last post, I gave some background about my relationship with my dog, Kailee, and Kailee’s trainer, Susan. I had been struggling with the dog training process. Kailee, Susan, and I had been out walking together when I had the thought, “This is the feeling that I used to have before I outsourced all the areas of my business that I don’t like and I’m not good at.”

I was having a de ja vu moment that all entrepreneurs go through when they hit the wall from not working in their strengths. With my clients and those I teach, I always talk about creating a business that you will love. And doing tasks that are not in your skill set will drag you down faster than anything.

In that moment I knew why I was such a champion of outsourcing.

I said to Susan, “If this were my business, I’d outsource this because it’s not fun, and I’m not doing a very good job at it. Plus I’m super frustrated!” If it were a business task it would definitely be a thing to turn over to a trusty VA, don’t you think? That was so powerful because truthfully I have such an outsourced business today, that there are very few things that I do that I don’t love. So in that moment, I felt the pain that many of you may be going through if you don’t have a team to take away some of the tasks that are dragging you down.

Now let’s fast forward. The next time Susan was over I proudly shared the parallel that dog training and delegation meant to me. And she had a brilliant response the deepened my entrepreneurial connection and understanding of what to give away. She said, “Yes Therese, you can outsource having Kailee exercised…

“But you cannot outsource being the leader.”

In that moment, it all shifted for me. I had recently watched a colleague’s business almost go down the drain because this person didn’t embrace being the leader when things got hard. And I realized that we are all at risk if we take this too far.

I’m excited to share with you in my next post the final lesson that I was able to take away from this experience, and how it has impacted my business.

Blessings,
Therese

Are you doing the “spray and pray” method of marketing? Is your business suffering from the lack of a marketing strategy? Join me in this series of blog posts that will offer 7 ways to get you on the road to getting your ideal clients and having a marketing plan that works for you.

Do you “Spray and Pray?” You know what I mean. Maybe you pump out an email blast to get people to sign up for your program, then create a flyer you are leaving around town, then go to a few networking events to generate some buzz….then you pray like heck that someone shows up!

What’s the problem with that? Well, for starters, if you are scattered and jumping all around with different marketing pieces, you have no idea what did or didn’t work. Remember the old days when Chrysler rolled out about three new cars a year? The whole town came out, there was a parade and it was a BIG DEAL!

Fast forward about 50 years and now we are slammed with information, new ideas/products, and constant stimulation. It’s been said that we are blasted with over three thousand marketing messages a day. So while six years ago having the newsletter you sent out was a great idea and got lots of visibility, there is now so much competing for the ‘brain space’ of your market, that very often just doing a single mailing or marketing piece will fall on deaf ears.

You may have heard it said that it takes seven to nine exposures before someone says, “Hey…maybe I’ll give him a call.” This means that one email blast is not a marketing campaign!

Over the next few days, I’ll be outlining the antidote to “Spray and Pray” called the Plan and Persevere Method. Be sure to check back to discover tips and tricks to dramatically improve your marketing efforts.

Blessings,
Therese