What do dogs and cats have to do with marketing and business success? Well as business owners, I find we tend to be like cats, actually more like kittens. We’re easily distracted by those bright, shiny objects. Have you ever seen a kitten when a new toy rolls past or they spot that fluffy ball dangling from the ceiling? They’re continually chasing something new, something more interesting.

Often, in business, we’re the same. Examples in business of new and exciting objects to chase are product opportunities, new classes of customers, different marketing strategies, our desire to build a new website, maybe some TV advertising. We get distracted by so many different things and the temptation is to go off chasing what we think are great ideas. Things that we believe will solve our problems and make us more sales, increase profits, or get more customers.

The thing is, if you truly want to achieve success in your business you need to be more like a dog with a bone.

Give a bone to a dog and you won’t see him for at least two or three hours. Matter of fact, if you give a bone to my dog, you won’t see him for two or three days! A dog will just keep chewing and chewing and chewing until either the bone’s or until he’s decided that he cannot possibly get any more flavour out of it… and even then it’s a struggle to give it up!

Marketing is a classic area I see business owners chasing those ‘bright shiny objects’. This is where your canine persistence can really pay off. For example, if you’ve got a strategic alliance or referral partner strategy, how many strategic alliances could you have in place? Imagine if you had 10 referral partners or 10 alliances in place versus just one? What about your blog? Have you set it up and just done a couple of posts? It needs to be consistent and frequent to get results. Think of it in terms of ‘going deep’ on your strategies. Same goes for your product or service offering. You might think you need more choices for clients but have you maximised the reach, exposure or development of your current products?

So there you have it, cats and dogs. Bet you didn’t realise they had so much to do with business success. Be more like a dog with a bone, and less like a cat with a new toy…

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