I was watching the last 30 minutes of The Biggest Loser on my TIVO last week and Darius had just ran a 26.3 mile marathon in under 5 hours! That’s a heck of a feat for anyone, not to mention someone that 7 months ago weighed something like 360 lbs! Anyway, after the marathon, the final 4 contestants had to weigh in to see who would be eliminated. As a side note, I really find it unbelievable that people can lose 10 to 26 lbs every week. I don’t care how big you are, that’s a lot of weight!! Sorry… I’ll get back to my story…

So Darius gets up on the scale and he gained 2 lbs… after training for and running in a marathon!! He then proceeds to tell Jillian, Bob and the rest of the contestants that he was only worried about running the marathon, not his diet. Jillian starts chastising him (not nicely, but well deserved) and accuses him of lying about his intake of food, because he should lose weight not gain when running.

To make my long story short, Darius finally breaks down crying, admitting how he laid in bed stuffing his (previously) fat face! However, I wanted to point out (and the purpose of the whole story…) that he started out in complete denial…

Denial Is Not a Strategy

Whether you are losing weight or marketing your business, denying the outcome will never give you the results needed for success. Many of my clients, on their initial consultation with me, flat out deny that their current marketing, frankly, sucks. They typically cannot tell me the hard numbers or actual outcome of any of their advertising. They also cannot tell me who their best customers are, or the niche that works best for them if they are marketing business to business. They just tell me their marketing “works” because they don’t want to look like a fool who spends money on a sinking ship. They are in total denial…

Eventually, after prodding and pulling, I steer them to accurate thinking, where they finally admit that some strategies are absolutely not working, and as a result, become realists of their situation… just like Darius.

Accurate Thinking

To become an exceptional business person and company leader, we must all stop denying what is in front of us; whether it be our short comings, bad employees, financial or personal situations. Accurate thinking must happen and we must not deny what’s going on in both our business and personal lives.

The book that made me re-think how I am treating my present and past customers

Mark Rummel of Mancino’s, an Independent Pizza and Grinder take-out restaurant in Michigan, states,
“I have such an unbelievable system that New Customers Now has created for acquiring new customers. I’ve been using your birthday system for over a year now and am still receiving redemption rates that are off the charts!”

PS.. Economy??? 2009 was my 3rd biggest year EVER and biggest since 2002!!!!!

Everyone should be emulating Mark’s success, even in this recession by asking how he did it…

Well, unlike most Michigan small businesses, Mark decided he wasn’t going to participate in Michigan’s Sluggish Economy. He very quickly figured out that increasing his marketing efforts to both existing customers and also acquiring more new customers without spending tons of cash was possible. To accomplish his needs, he went to direct response marketing which can be brutally and honestly measured in both his offline and online marketing.

Consequently, Mark has switched over to exclusively what the marketing gurus call Direct Response Marketing. He knows for every dollar spent, 6 dollars come back, so his ROI was a 1 to 6. Mark can also accurately tell you his exat numbers including what each marketing piece cost, how much money was collected and how many people came in.

But, the most amazing thing is Mark has had his “.. best year yet” after being in business for 15 years and asks.. “What Recession??”