Consider the following cautionary tale. There was a business owner who produced excellent widgets. His widgets were high quality and were the best you could buy in the market. The business owner said to himself, ‘I need to sell my fantastic widgets to everybody. They are so good people just won’t be able to live without them. I better advertise.’

He anxiously glanced around the marketplace and noticed that his competition was selling a lot of his inferior widgets with a coupon offer in the newspaper. He thought to himself, ‘They seem to be getting a lot of business, so it must be working for them. I’ll try the same thing.’ His next step was to hurriedly come up with a similar offer, create a similar coupon, and place the ad in the same local newspaper.

The response to the ad was miserable. The owner quickly became frustrated and decided not run any more ads. ‘Marketing’s just a waste of money. It never works, he cried. ‘I make the best widgets so people should know the difference and just buy from me!’ Meanwhile, his competitor continues to run his little coupon without pause over the next several weeks and watched orders roll in.

Eventually, the business owner noticed that his widget sales were not doing so hot and that his competitor’s were still flying out the door. ‘Well, I’ll build myself a website and tell people how great my widgets are. My competition has one, so it must work for him. Then, they’ll be knocking down my door to buy them from me,’ he confidently proclaimed. He hired a professional web designer who created a beautiful website for him that explained all about his widgets. The business owner was very pleased. The competitor, on the other hand, persistently kept running his coupon, week after week, in the newspaper.

After about a month, the business owner got very few visitors to his beautiful website. Sales continued to be sluggish and the business owner became desperate. ‘What a waste of money that was,’ he grumbles. ‘Everyone told me I needed a website! It tells how great my widgets are and nobody still wants to buy from me?’

‘I know what I’ll do,’ he declared. ‘I’ll mail out a postcard to everybody in the city. Somebody will be so impressed with my widgets they’ll order some on the spot!’ A little while longer and many dollars later, the business owner was once again disappointed with the response he receives. And, of course, the competition continued to run his coupon over and over, taking away sales from the business owner.

Finally, the business owner ran out of money and closed his doors while his competitor continued cranking out the inferior widgets and selling a ton of them.

What did the business owner do wrong? Why didn’t his marketing tactics work for him? Why was his competitor more successful?

The answer is quite simple. The business owner was not committed to a strategic plan and the competitor was. The competitor created rain!

It may have been a simple strategy, but the competitor was always consistent, patient, and relentless. His successful rainmaking depended on regular exposure with clients. He developed familiarity with the clients which led them to becoming comfortable with his offer. Eventually, they bought from him even though his widgets were not as good. His methodical, planned approach gave him a distinct advantage over the business owner because the competitor took the time to establish a relationship. He understood that being committed to the process of marketing is very important.

The business owner, on the other hand, lacked commitment and was after the quick score. He had no concept of taking a strategic approach with his marketing. He relied on intuition and guesswork when he needed to market. His attempts at rainmaking failed. His marketing lacked staying power because he failed to realize that a relationship needs to be built before someone makes a purchase.

However, the business owner must be given credit for his effort. But when he took a reactive stance to his marketing, he was playing catch-up from the start. At best, he was doomed to mediocrity because he skipped the crucial step of planning. This is often caused by many factors; lack of marketing knowledge, feeling overwhelmed by all the choices, not knowing where to start, not enough money, too busy making widgets, or not believing marketing will work.

The most important reason, though, was a lack of commitment to marketing. Granted, the business owner tried some well proven tactics to sell his widgets. His downfall started with his disregard for the importance of marketing his widgets. He was reacting to the forces within the marketplace that he felt he needed to address---his competition.

To make matters worse, when he did decide to market, he copied the methods and tactics of his competitor! How will his clients be able to tell what makes his widgets superior? Confusing clients and prospects is never a good strategy.

The first thing the business owner should have done was to commit to a strategic marketing plan and work on it each and every day. His next step would be to decide to become proactive and create the marketing his widgets needed and not the react to the competition.

Being a rainmaker and creating successful marketing is something that can only be accomplished when you are committed to making it happen.

“The only place you’ll find success before work is in the dictionary.”