I know you’re not supposed to say it, but I’ve always been pretty good at every job I’ve ever taken on……
…..Except one.
A few years ago I came back from a job interview certain that the boss was going to be difficult to work with.
But the job itself sounded fabulous. I accepted it anyway.
Big mistake!
Within a month, I was ruing my decision. I hated the working environment so much that I couldn’t sleep. I dreaded going back to work each Monday. I have never been so stressed in my entire life.
In hindsight it seems ridiculous, but at the time, I tortured myself over whether or not I should quit.
Yes, I was miserable…. And no longer performing anywhere near my best…..
But I just couldn’t bring myself to admit defeat. Quitting seemed so momentous, and I’d worked so hard to get this position!
I promised myself that if I only waited for the end of the month… The boss’s holiday… The new assistant…. Everything would sort itself out.
Needless to say, it didn’t.
Luckily the story has a happy ending. The day I finally walked out of that job, I felt like a new person – and ultimately it led me to creating my own business, the best and most rewarding decision I’ve ever made.
So why am I telling you all this?
Because the dilemma of when to quit when things are not going well comes up in online marketing all the time.
I recently met with a company who had invested thousands in a sales funnel that wasn’t generating any new clients for them. It was clear that fixing it would take so much work that they were far better off starting again.
And yet, they had put so much time and effort into it that they just couldn’t bear to let go. What if they tweaked this? What if they tweaked that?
You could actually hear the pain.
It’s a similar story for so many companies who have sunk money into websites that do nothing for their bottom line, or built up Facebook audiences that are irrelevant, or paid for marketing automation software that is too complicated to use. (Often rhymes with “Confusionsoft”.)
Whether it is fear of failure, fear of losing an investment or simply “better the devil you know”, it is too tempting to stick with failing tactics for far too long.
So first, we need a paradigm shift.
Dropping an online marketing tactic that doesn’t work for you is not failure.
It is often the smartest thing to do….
…The only way to free up time and money to invest in things that do work.
In Seth Godin’s short book on failure, The Dip, he argues that being savvy enough to know when to quit is the hallmark of companies that ultimately dominate their niches, because they don’t get bogged down in failure. Many are serial “quitters”; they flit from one tactic to another until they find the one that really works.
The problem, of course, is knowing which of the things you’re doing are really hopeless, and which you should persevere with.
Check out the three questions you should ask yourself before dropping any online marketing tactic here… http://ow.ly/4mJ57T
