Contrarian viewpoints are always fun. It takes a lot of guts to stand up and speak out against what is conventionally accepted. And this is exactly what makes it interesting to listen to. If someone is going to stand against the crowd, they must have some strong evidence to get any credibility. Could all those people who tout the current thinking be wrong? Well, you only need to think back to the mortgage debacle of 2008, or perhaps to the dot.com bust of 2001. So yes, all those people could be wrong.
I recently read the Scott Adams’ Secret of Success essay,in which the famed Dilbert creator talks about his personal experiences. One of the topics is passion. As in, “passion” is the driver to making things happen. Not so, states Adams. From his personal experiences, passion does not have the fortitude to make things happen. In fact, passion stays strong when things are working out, but really scales down when things are not working out. One of the interesting supporting facts was that Scott Adams was at one time a commercial loans officer. And the data supports the fact: passion is not a good bet for the loan. What is a good bet is the applicant who has a system which looks good on a spreadsheet and they have the commitment to grind it out. When I think of all the boring and profitable businesses out there, his credibility rings true.
When it comes to marketing and generating demand, there are just a lot of choices. And it is an easy trap to get pulled into approaches that may work for someone, but will not work for you. It often happens that incumbents in a market will look around to see what their competitors are doing. If they see a lot of players doing the same thing, it is feedback that those things are working. Of course, it is not often possible to look under the hood to see the innards of how well things are actually working.
The whole concept of social proof has been well researched by Dr. Robert Cialdini and presented in his book: “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”. The fact is, it is both a conscious and subconscious element that causes people to look to others for signals on what decisions to make. So don’t feel bad if you pride yourself in being an independent thinker. It’s just human nature to see what the other guy is doing. But, don’t let yourself be convinced too quickly, just because it is working for someone else.
The key is your system. That is, the process which can be executed and produces predictable results for you. Your system will have a distinctiveness that is all your own. There can be a lot of factors to shape that distinctiveness. It could be your location, your skill set, the nature of your product offering, the dynamics of your team, or something else. But a multitude of factors will shape it. Along the same line of thinking, your starting point can be from many directions. It is not as critical where you start, but it is important that you garner the right measurements to decide on effectiveness of each step. In the end, you will have produced your own “spreadsheet”, metaphorically speaking. The passion for your product or service will only get you so far, before it gives out on you. Build your system and keep it grinding.