I have become a fan of Mark Miller’s blog Great Leaders Serve. Mark teamed up with Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager to write Great Leaders Grow: Become a Leader for Life. A great book that I recommend to everyone. You will know the name Ken Blanchard as author of the Wood Badge for the 21st Century Syllabus.
In his post How To Be Successful… Mark shared a talk that Dr. Henry Cloud gave on the principal of EASY HARD vs. HARD EASY. An example he gave of this principle was If a student takes the EASY path in their youth and neglects their studies, it will be HARD to get into the college of their choice. However, if the same student does the HARD work of studying, their career path is often EASY.
It made me think about the reasons people give for not having a marketing program or more specifically an inbound marketing program. Here’s an example.
If a business owner takes the EASY path and depends on word of mouth to market he might find it HARD to consistantly grow his business. The converse is if the owner does the HARD work of continually marketing, producing content and engaging his “fans” online he may find that growth and increase income will become EASY.
Here is another example of someone in the service industry. This someone could easily be me.
Who hasn’t thought “I have so much work right now that I will take the EASY path and not market.” But when the work dries up, and it will, it will be HARD to get back on track with no work lined up. The best way to handle this situation is to realize that It will be HARD to produce content and market but when the current projects end it will be EASY to replace them with new projects I have lined up through my inbound marketing program and other efforts.
When it comes to marketing and growing your business the choice is yours. Do you choose to follow HARD EASY or EASY HARD?