I got scammed. (A lesson about focus).

I got scammed at the weekend.

And it's a useful lesson for any business owner who is struggling to get to grips with making their marketing work right now.

Let me explain.

We'd been looking for a used runaround as a second car for a while, but made urgent by our children now going to different schools.

Now, I don't know anything about cars.

Not interested, not bothered.

All I'm interested in is whether it gets from A to B (and, if I'm honest, how much it costs to fill it with petrol/insure it/tax it).

That's why my wife was the perfect person to take charge of the search in this case.

(She works in automotive, so she's kind of the obvious choice :))

Needless to say, she found someone selling a VW Golf online, arranged to see it and give it a test drive. She even took her dad with her, as he's a bit of a mechanic himself (self-styled).

When she got back, she had a glowing report about the car's performance.

"It drives beautifully". Her words.

So we went to collect it on Saturday. Arranged the tax and insurance and looked forward to driving it home.

Just one little problem.

The back doors didn't open.

That's right. They didn't damn well open.

During the whole time they were checking out the car, they didn't check to see whether the back doors opened.

Now, the cheeky scamp who was selling the car never mentioned it so, of course, knew what he was doing. And he nearly got away with it...

Fortunately, I'm not now in possession of a highly defective car and we made sure we kept our money, ready to splash on another - hopefully fit-for-purpose - vehicle.

What it goes to show is how focus can blind you.

When you put your focus on one aspect of your life, your business, your family or whatever, you sometimes forget to see the bigger picture.

My wife and her dad were focused on performance.

They wanted to know how well the car ran and how its engine performed.

By focusing so carefully on that aspect, they missed the bigger picture…

… can we actually even get the kids into the car?

The same happens when it comes to your marketing.

You can become so obsessed with metrics in your campaign - click-through rates, opens, likes, engagement and reach

Or you can hammer away at creating more and more marketing assets - lead magnets, podcasts, white papers and videos.

And you can completely end up missing the big picture.

Does this activity result in sales?

Does this activity result in the company meeting the specific objectives we had?

You can become so blinkered by the performance of campaigns or the rush of creation, it's easy to step back and look at your marketing as a whole and ask the question:

To what extent has this helped us achieve our objectives, if at all?

If it doesn't, it's time to fix it.

If your marketing activity and your business objectives aren't aligned, then something needs to be fixed. I've helped fix the marketing strategy of hundreds of businesses and I can help yours, too. 

Book a 30-min strategy call today and we'll get to the bottom of what's not working so you can be clear on the path ahead. Book your call right here: https://www.bookmystrategy.com 

Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash