It’s 2 A.M. You’re sleeping soundly in bed. All of a sudden the peace and quiet of the early morning is shattered by the head-splitting cries of your little pride and joy. You go try to calm her down but two hours later she’s still screaming as loud as ever.
You’re beyond exhausted. You have a headache. You’re near tears. You’re desperately grasping for anything you can think of to get that baby to stop screaming and go back to sleep.
You’ve tried the usual mix of bouncing, swaying, rocking, coddling, dancing, singing, feeding, and changing diapers.
You’ve resorted to more desperate measures like holding her on the dryer while it’s running and taking a drive in the car, hoping the vibrations will do the trick.
Back at home, rattled to your very core, you head to the bathroom to get a drink of water. Your hand misses the light switch and instead turns on the vent. And then . . . silence! The quiet hum of the fan did the trick!
Relieved, but still a bit frazzled by the ordeal, you put the baby back in her crib and go to sleep. Success!
So what can you learn about marketing from this torture that 1000s of parents of infants go through on a nightly basis?
1. Get it wrong . . . quickly! If you’re rocking that baby and she doesn’t stop crying, you’re not going to keep rocking her for very long. You’re going to move on to something else that will hopefully yield better results – and fast!
The same principle applies to your marketing efforts. If you’ve launched a new marketing campaign and are not getting the results you want – don’t go down with the ship. Bail quickly and move onto something new.
Test out new marketing ideas on a small scale. If it works – build on it. If it doesn’t – try something else. The quicker you go through this process, the quicker you will find the marketing ideas that will fuel your company’s success.
2. Make mistakes. In my little story, the usual tricks didn’t work. It was missing the light switch and turning on the fan instead that was the life saver that rescued our desperate parent.
A lot of business owners are afraid of making mistakes. That’s a, well, mistake. Being afraid of making mistakes hampers creativity, makes it difficult to stand out from the competition, and won’t doesn’t lead to any big breakthroughs for your company.
Mistakes have led to some monumental breakthroughs in the course of human history. For more on mistakes, read Scott Ginsberg’s blog post “10 Mistakes That Changed The World.”
Now go make some mistakes of your own!
3. It’s not about you – the business owner, it’s about you – your customer. If you tried some of the things that calm you down (ie. a glass of wine, meditation, deep breaths, spa treatments) on a baby, you wouldn’t be too successful (and depending on which of those you tried, you could end up in jail!).
In business, it doesn’t matter what works for you, what you respond to, what you like. As we talked about the other week, it only matters what your customers want. Give them what they want and they’ll respond by giving you what you want – their business.
Can you think of some other lessons entrepreneurs can learn from a screaming baby? If so, please share them in the comment section below.
And please join me as the “What You Can Learn About Business From a Baby” series continues. Next we’ll explore why in business and parenthood it’s important to have a big bank account. But not the kind you think.
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Awesome post, there Adam.
What I like about the screaming baby metaphor is that it does not matter what you say, the baby is unhappy and unable to truly communicate the root of the unhappiness. This is much like a customer. Usually, what they think is wrong is actually not the problem. While some parents argue that they could tell an “I’m wet” cry from a “I had a bad dream” cry, I was never so lucky. Often, in my stupor, I would try in vain to quiet her. This forced me to pay close attention to her needs and put my fatigue and agenda aside for the sake of comforting her.
Also, much like the customer, they cry because they need you. Your undivided attention. Mine would not even let me watch baseball on mute. If she figured out that I was not completely devoted to her, then I was done for, and she would launch into another fit of crying. Much is the same in business. Often, clients and employees don’t need to be dazzled, they need your care…they need you.