Listen to an audio recording of this post!
What in the world do country singer Charlie Rich, online entrepreneur Seth Godin, and your Gano Excel business have to do with one another?
Charlie Rich is one of the all-time great American crooners, remembered best for his timeless ballad "Behind Closed Doors," a huge hit in 1973. But Charlie Rich's greatest performance was recorded at the very beginning of his career, way back in the late-1950s. The song, "Time and Again," tells the story of a man unlucky in love finally confronting his frustrations:
And all my dreams simply tease
'Til I find my one and only,
Oh, Lord, to put my mind at ease
How many times have you felt like that? It's not just about love; it's about dreams, aspirations; our careers, our friendships, our life's ambitions. For many, it seems our "dreams simply tease" -- that our ultimate goal is just a few feet ahead of us, jumping away every time we think we've finally got it.
When you're starting a small business, the ramp-up to success -- to fulfilling your dreams -- can be frustrating. "Time and again," you might say to yourself, "I'm not getting the results I want. Why am I in such a slump?"
Marketing guru and blogger Seth Godin has come up with a name for it: "The Dip." Godin knows so much about it, he even wrote a book on the subject, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When To Quit (And When To Stick) (Order it from Amazon here, or download the audio book from Audible here.) When you first start something -- say, sharing the awesome Cafe 2.0 experience with others -- it's fun. It's like a great first date, an inspirational speech, and the rush of a new career all at once. Then, as Godin writes, "The Dip happens."
"The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery. [...] The Dip is the long stretch between beginner's luck and real accomplishment. The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out." (p. 17-18).
In other words, "The Dip" is all those bad dates and heartbreaks poor Charlie Rich has gone through in "Time and Again"; it's all the unreturned calls or slumps in sales that happen after your first successes in referral marketing. It's all the crud you've got to fight through to get where you need to go.
Godin explains that what sets the best apart from the merely average is their ability to not just survive The Dip, but take it on:
Sounds awful familiar, right? Last week, Robert Hollis told you all about how he succeeded in the business -- and a lot of it had to do with shouldering through the Dip. Funny how so many people are saying the same thing, isn't it?
Godin's advice -- that successful people have to lean into the Dip -- is especially true in marketing:
Hence the Dip in market acceptance. The marketers who get rewarded are the ones who don't quit. They hunker down through the Dip and galvanize and insulate and perfect their product while others keep looking for yet another quick hit." (p.48)
"The marketers who get rewarded are the ones who don't quit."
That's some awesomely powerful advice, if you think about it. Instead of balking at the challenge of fighting through the Dip -- instead of resigning yourself to mediocrity -- it's your job, as a marketer, to stay in for the duration.
So, yes, Charlie Rich was right: dreams do often tease. But up on the other side of that DIp, beyond the frustration and hair-pulling, is the goal you always dreamed of. Shouldering into the Dip, soldiering ahead despite fear and insecurity, is the only way to succeed -- in love, life, business, or anything.
Comments