Marketing is Like Exercising

I recently realized that marketing is like exercising. It’s so easy for people to give up on marketing, just like they have given up on exercise. They don’t know where to start, and when they don’t see instant results (cue the scale) they give up.

Dr. Stephanie is someone I know and follow on Instagram. While on vacation in Canmore, I watched a simple series of videos she shared, showing how to do an arm workout with weights.  The videos were done slowly, working one area at a time. She detailed precisely how many reps you should do for each, and how many sets you should do for best results.

Watching her made me feel like I could do it. And it also made me think about you and how you might feel about marketing.

Marketing is Like Exercising

Let’s look at exercising:

#1 Exercising takes time. 

If you want to see a difference in your body and your overall health from exercising, you need to commit to the long term and stick with it for what feels like a really long time before you see signs of physical success.

#2 Exercising is overwhelming.  

You can lift weights, do yoga, add in cardio, or even do something as intimidating as Crossfit. The choices around what you can do are overwhelming, and often, the volume of options available to you can create analysis paralysis.

#3 Exercising is hard and makes you feel like you’re not doing it right. 

I worked with a personal trainer for years but send me to the gym and expect me to know how to choreograph a workout, and I am completely lost. I don’t know what body parts to work, or how often. And I lack the ability to know how many reps and or how heavy my weights should be.

All of this, combined with the length of time it takes to see results, makes me want to throw in the towel and not bother.

Marketing is like exercising - it's so easy for people to give up on marketing, just like they have given up on exercise. Click To Tweet

Now let’s look at how marketing likely feels the same:

#1 Marketing takes time.

#2 There are too many different options which create inertia.

#3 You likely often question if you’re doing it the right way because you do not see the results you expect fast enough.

The length of time it takes to get results along with the social media options changing every day, combined with website complexities, SEO, video and more, you likely often want to throw your hands up in the air and find someone to do it for you.

But here’s the thing…just like your personal trainer can’t do your push-ups for you, a marketing person can’t do your marketing either, without your participation.

This is why you need a plan, and you need to stick to the plan for at least 12-18 months before you expect to see giant results.

When you stick to a proper exercise plan for an extended period of time, you improve your health, gain more energy, and build up your self-confidence.

When you stick to a proper marketing plan for an extended period of time, you improve your sales, you gain more customers, and you build up your self-confidence too.

Just like with exercise, you can build your marketing muscle memory and tap into it over and over again to generate results in your business, if only, you don’t give up too soon.

I’m going to start exercising, and I hope you’ll agree to start marketing.

Leave me a comment and let me know what frustrates you the most about marketing.