As you plan for business success or work your company or individual marketing plan, are you finding the need to constantly tweak things? Do you read an article and think you need to adjust your plan or do you constantly look for return on your activities and tweak when not seeing results?
There is a lesson in Petunias.
Anyone who has grown Petunias knows that old blooms that die remain on the stem and you are supposed to remove them in order for the plant to continue to grow and flourish. This is called deadheading or removing the dead blooms drying on the plant.
I have tried many summers to successfully grow Petunias in the hot Texas summer heat. What is tough to manage in Texas is the hot afternoon sun which anyone who has been to Texas can attest to. But back to flowers and business success. For several seasons I diligently watered, fertilized and every few days removed the dead blooms that were ready to be pulled. And for several seasons they would toward the end of the season become a little thinner, not as lush and not as many blooms.
This season I have not had the time to constantly remove the dead blooms and have only done it 2 or 3 times this whole summer season. But voila they have been more lush and healthy and have bloomed beautifully all summer long. A much healthier plant.
The constant picking at the plant and focusing hard on a successful summer bloom led to stress on the plant. It could not flourish as well with so much attention.
Stop fidgeting with your plan and marketing activities.
What I learned this summer is that I was paying too much attention to the plants in the past. Constantly checking on them and “fixing” the plant. This summer I let the process breathe a bit more and actually did less “fixing” and fidgeting with the Petunias and they did so much better. So much new growth!
I think this can be so true in marketing and business strategy. So often you are chasing the optimum result and goal for your business or your practice but you are constantly changing and tweaking. Many times you focus on certain market segments or target clients and instead of expanding your reach you focus harder on those targets. Many times to a lack of success.
Data and analytics can also cause a few issues. If you are constantly checking your data and results you may not be giving your marketing efforts time to work. You stress over doing the right thing so you tweak and alter your marketing. By constantly changing your marketing it can lead to a lack of a consistent, solid and powerful branding message to your audience. You need consistency for success.
Back to the Petunias.
That picture was taken today. End of summer in Texas. The lesson in the Petunias is for marketing and business success you should not constantly tweak and change your marketing activities. Keep the momentum going but allow the process to breathe a bit, allow time for marketing to work and allow your networking and relationship building to have breath and space.
