你知道美国总统Garfield有关margin的故事吗？| 总统Garfield有关margin的故事可以教你挣更多的钱，教你享受你生活中更多的成功乐趣。 | What President Garfield's story of "margins" can teach you about making more money and enjoying more success in your life |
James Garfield出生在一个小木屋里（log cabin)。家境贫困，父母也没什么文化。然而他自己后来却成了一位学者、内战时的一位英雄，接着当了十八年的国会议员，最终还当上美国的第20位总统。 小时候，他在学校里有位对手，每次人家拿的分数就是比他高。他很迷惑。谁也不比谁更有天分，谁也不比谁受到更好的教育，或更聪明，那到底是怎么回事呢？一天夜里，它揭开了那孩子的秘密。 那天夜里他熄了灯准备上床睡觉。不经意间从窗户望出，跨过校园，发现他的对手仍然在挑灯夜战。他连续观察了几个晚上，天天如此，他的对手每天晚上总是要多学上一会儿。 Garfield认识到他的对手就是利用每天多读一会儿而超越了他。因此他决定，每天自己也要多读那么一会儿，而且每天比对手再额外多读15分钟。到了学年结束，Garfield发现自己的成绩比对手好了一点。 在现实生活中，作每件事都一样，成功和失败之间的区别就那么一点点。对于体育竞技和娱乐比赛，其实大家相差无几，赢者也就是赢了那么一点点。我们要说的事，不是说谁比谁更聪明或更有能力，而是说你如何去开发这些能力和如何去用这些能力。 | James Garfield was born in a log cabin to poor, uneducated parents, yet he went on to become a scholar, a Civil War hero, a U.S. congressman for 18 years and, eventually, the twentieth president of the United States. When he was a young boy, Garfield had a rival student at school who consistently received higher marks than he. This puzzled and frustrated him because he knew that the other boy was no more talented, educated, or smarter than himself. Then one night he discovered the boy's secret. Garfield had put out his lamp and was getting ready for bed when he looked out his window across campus and noticed that his rival student was still up studying. He watched him every night after that and noticed that this process continued; his rival was putting in several additional minutes of study every night. Garfield decided that it was by this small margin that his rival was beating him and decided to not only match his rival's extra study time, but to make sure he added an extra 15 minutes more every night. At the end of the school year, Garfield found himself ahead by a small margin. |
Success in business is just like that
How is it that one small consulting firm can double or triple its revenue when others in the same area, marketing to the same customers, using the same vendors, remain stagnant or even decline?
Go to any event in the IT industry two years in a row and talk to the same business owners you spoke to at the previous year's event. Why do most report only a tiny increase in growth, clients, profits, and success year after year and continue to complain about the same problems, while only a small few report exponential gains?
Why do so many consultants settle -- even resign themselves -- to owning a "job" that commands them to work 60+ hours a week without breaks, significant rewards, or the promise of a big payout?
That's because success in business -- which is the ability to get things done, to persuade others, and to develop a master plan and execute that plan -- is in direct proportion to the owner's ability to invest that little extra marginal time and effort into mastering the key skills every business owner must learn to be a success.
Obviously one of those skills is selling and marketing. Truth be told, it's the "Achilles heel" of most smart, hard-working, small business owners in the IT industry. It seems that no other aspect of running a profitable, thriving business stumps them more.
And if you are reading this, you would probably agree that your lack of expertise in marketing IS significantly harming your income, profitability, and overall success in business to some degree.
But I've got some great news that is actually a "secret" most don't know about marketing
You don't actually have to be a marketing master to generate significant gains in your business; you only have to be />marginally/> better than your competition.
Do you know the old joke about two men walking through the woods who stumble upon a bear? Realizing the immediate danger they are in, the one man starts to run only to notice his friend is bent over tying his shoes. He yells to the other man, "What are you doing? Why are you tying your shoes instead of running?" The other man replies, "I'm tying my shoes because I don't have to outrun the bear -- I only have to outrun you."
The same is true in marketing your business. You don't have to be a Zen master at marketing to win -- you only have to be marginally better than the competition.
Just imagine being able to be only five per cent or 10 per cent better than your competition at attracting new customers and closing sales. Imagine being only marginally better at marketing online and creating web sites that really sell. Imagine knowing only a handful of "tricks" for attracting new clients with direct mail, networking, and partnering that your competition wasn't even aware of.
Just think about what that would do to your income. The effect would be astounding.
Quite honestly, I don't like to tell my clients this little "secret" because I truly want them to master marketing. I want them to know what I know and invest serious time into studying the "art" of persuasion. But truth be told, they only need to make a few changes to see results; that's because most of their competitors are so severely lacking when it comes to marketing.
-----By: Robin Robins,
