Don’t know if you caught the Red Bull Stratos space jump coverage on Sunday but if you did, there was a real lesson in getting things done right. Something you can use when your profits aren’t exactly where you want them to be.
I’ll get to that in a sec.
I hollered down the stairs to my 26-year-old son that the jump was on and he joined me in front of the TV for the event.
The countdown to the jump lasted over two hours so there was plenty of time to switch back and forth to NFL Countdown and not miss too much.
But I’ll bet Felix Baumgartner wasn’t wondering if the Bills could possibly find another way to lose. Nope. I’m sure he was sitting there strapped into his pod as it was ascending thinking about all kinds of stuff from ‘I’ll be famous for sure now’ to ‘Why did I ever let those Red Bull guys talk me into this?’
As Felix got closer to the jump point (over 125,000 feet!), the man who was on the ground at mission control informed Felix that he was going to go through a checklist prior to the jump. He started off with some pretty predictable stuff like ‘is the blah blah in the neutral position’ and then, about halfway though, he said something to the effect of ‘Okay, Felix, things are starting to get serious now.’
Check me if I’m wrong Scotty but if I’m in a balloon that’s 50 feet in the air, things ARE already serious.
Anyhow, after each item on the checklist, he asks Felix to confirm that it is done. Then, when he reaches about item #18 or so, he asks for confirmation like he has done for the previous items. He waits. Nothing. Then some garbled, but indiscernible reply. If I had been in charge, I might have been tempted to accept the reply, as unintelligible as it was, as a cue to move forward. (Anything that gets us closer to the jump right?!)
But the guy on the ground is insistent. He repeats the item and with a little forcefulness, asks again, ‘Felix, please confirm such and such.’
Finally Felix confirms that the item is in place and only then, does the man continue with the next item on the list.
And that’s the point. The success of the mission depends on having a system in place.
Sometimes we’re so busy getting caught up in the day to day, we drift away from the marketing basics that have to be in place for us to succeed. Basics that sometimes need to be tweaked to stay current with changes taking place in the market.
In the back of our minds, we know that it might be time to rethink that marketing plan we wrote out awhile ago but it’s not like we’re starving.
Okay, maybe there have been a few little developments over the last three years like social media, mobile marketing and smartphonemania but we’re still keeping the doors open.
It’s never a bad idea to step back from time to time and go over a checklist to make sure your marketing is focused on your mission.
Is your target market still the same or has it changed?
Are you speaking your current prospect’s language?
How is social media affecting your business?
Are your prospects still gathering around the same watering holes?
If your profits have fallen off, it’s possible your marketing basics may need some tweaking.
Maybe you’re not 125,000 feet up in the air about to jump out into space but your mission depends on a large extent on making sure your marketing is as efficient as you can make it.
