Happy with 2017? You're About to Repeat It.

We're all familiar -- overwhelmingly, mind-numbingly familiar -- with the aphorism that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over, and expecting a different result.*

I prefer a somewhat different formulation: If you want something you've never had before, you're going to have to do something you've never done before.**

Either way, the thought is particularly true when it comes to business -- and especially when it comes to marketing your business. Your Field of Dreams marketing plan -- if you build it, they will come -- will continue to not work, while the mediocre ideas, products and services of your competitors will succeed simply because people know about them, and not about you.

If you want something you've never had before, it's time to do something you've never done before.

Otherwise, I hope you're happy with your business outcomes from 2017.

Because you're going to repeat them.

*Very often misattributed to Einstein, for which no evidence exists.

**Another frequent misattribution, this time to Thomas Jefferson -- but the Thomas Jefferson Foundation says it ain't so.

*** Image from the hilarious (and often profound) webcomic XKCD at https://xkcd.com/1657/