This last week will go down in history for all the people that love football, the American kind. This was the week when the replacement refs made their last mistake in NFL football by causing the Green Bay Packers to lose. All because they missed a call on the final play and, in many peoples mind, made the wrong call on whether the final catch was a touchdown or an interception. America has been in an outrage. http://bit.ly/V10qDE (cnn blog article) Even President Obama was compelled to comment. Just look at the comments on this article. But as of today on CNN http://bit.ly/QrhstL it has finally been reported that the replacement refs have been axed and we, the fans, are so relieved. All of us are thrilled and my favorite parts were the over 60,000 calls made to the commissioners office this week and the fact that Vegas actually refunded money to people because the game was so clearly screwed up. I wonder how much pull Vegas has? Hmmmmm.
So how do NFL replacement refs and internet marketing for small businesses relate to each other?
Whether you’re a one man shop or a company with 200 employees (yes both are considered small businesses) our decisions about what is a good decision and what is not is based on both the rules we are evaluating everything by and our experience and ability in applying those rules. Just like the replacement refs we need to understand how to evaluate the parts of our small businesses. If we don’t understand the rules or standards to properly evaluate then we come to inaccurate conclusions. Just recently Kathryn and I (my partner and wife) were meeting with a small business that had not incorporated much marketing other than face to face networking. They especially had not incorporated social media or other forms of internet marketing. Why? While they have begun to wonder if it has value to them as a small business they see it as a sink hole for their time and energy. They believe that if they go there, meaning social media, it will overwhelm them and consume their time. They are making decisions based on their lack of understanding of how to wisely use social media and the internet to effectively build their small business and keep themselves top of mind in their potential customers mind.
To state it more clearly, they don’t understand the rules so their conclusions are not accurate and it is going to cost them business/market share in the future, unless they go back to the beginning and ask the right questions about how internet marketing and especially social media works. It’s not easy. It will take time. There is also a lot of hype and misinformation that you have to sort through and they have started the process with us. And, it’s worth it! Whether they choose to market using social media and the internet or not is less of a concern to me than if they make the decision on the rules that govern that arena rather than what they think the rules are based on their lack of understanding.
Our friend Michael Drew knows it. He has helped over 70 small business authors get their books on one of “THE” top four best sellers lists because he understands how to use internet marketing to promote the authors. His new book, The Pendulum, that he co-wrote with Roy H. Williams is about understanding the rules of culture and how they shift. Both Roy and Michael have been successful because they understand the right rules and the right questions.
Many of the replacement refs in the NFL came to us from college football. Yes they had years of experience coaching football and yes it seemed to many people that football was football and they would do fine, but that was false. They didn’t understand the complex rules of the NFL and they didn’t understand how different they were than college football. They also didn’t have the understanding and experience to judge correctly when time was of the essence. Not knowing the correct rules to apply and knowing them well enough led to not knowing what to look for on the field, which led to at least two major mistakes.
1. Missing numerous fouls that should have been called and were not
2. Making incorrect calls that ultimately caused a team to clearly lose a game.
Here is the question for you. Are you evaluating correctly the issues and situations in your small business from your finances to your marketing and everywhere else? If not it could be costing you time, sanity and ultimately money.
The replacement refs made lots of mistakes over the last few weeks. Some of them happened and didn’t get noticed but finally one happened at the final moment of a heated game played on a Monday night with the whole world watching. You never know if the next mistake is going to be the big one so it’s important to know the right rules to judge by.
Let me know what you think and if this applies to you for your small business internet marketing. I want to know.