“You can’t steer a parked car!”

I was at a business breakfast last week that included 2 speakers, one an author that was very interesting to listen to and one a politician – enough said. The author was doing a quick “how I got to where I am” rundown and it was an interesting tale, one of the statements that he…

Digital Marketing

I was at a business breakfast last week that included 2 speakers, one an author that was very interesting to listen to and one a politician – enough said. The author was doing a quick “how I got to where I am” rundown and it was an interesting tale, one of the statements that he remembered to us was this….

“You can’t steer a parked car”.

The context was that if you’re a business owner and you want to move your business forward you have to do _something_, you can’t be in control of your direction, push your business forward – steer it – if you do nothing.

I think it’s an excellent statement that sums up how a lot of us feel in business sometimes and it’s a pretty good motivator.

Often when we come in contact with new potential customers they are in this quandary; just spent a lot of time and money on setting up a venue, dealing with all of the other headaches (read: suppliers, staff etc…) and the result is that they are simply doing nothing to promote their venue, be it restaurant, bar etc.

They’re definitely not steering the car, in fact they’ve parked it in back alley and hoping that it’s not going to get pinched while they focus on everything else.

If you’ve had anything to do with the I.T. industry over the years you may have come across the notion “build it and they will come”. What it’s referring to is companies building software applications without doing much if any research on what users want in the fond hope that once they put it on sale the clients will come. Many a software company has lost a packet with this mentality, to say nothing of the dollars venture capitalists have thrown away.

The relevance to this? Well when I was in I.T. industry around 2000 I thought this phenomenon was just peculiar to that industry, it’s not. Now having worked with many operators in hospitality it’s just as prevalent there.

So here’s a two pronged challenge for you.

1)Do something this week to move your business forward – make the time for it, it’s important

2)Refer to point 1 because if you’ve built it and you want them to come, you’re going to have to work at it.

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