Recently I was at the San Diego Safari Park, where I realized there a lot of lessons that can be learned from some of the animals on display…
Lesson Number One
comes to us courtesy of the tiger, which is to pounce when you have the chance.
You see, things change really quickly in marketing and in business; especially when it comes to digital marketing.
So you want to take advantage of every opportunity as soon as it becomes available, because if you don’t seize and capitalize on the opportunities presented to you, they might be gone tomorrow or they might go to your competitors.
So there’s always that first-mover advantage of being the first one in your industry or market to take action and to capitalize on what’s available.
An important point to remember though, is when you’re going to be quick to take action, you’re gonna miss a lot more times than you hit.
But that’s okay because the times that you do manage to successfully capture an opportunity early, will more than make up for all the missed opportunities along the way, or the all the times that you didn’t quite hit the market.
Lesson Two
Let’s talk about big horned sheep.
Big horned sheep don’t exactly have a lot to work with, and sometimes that’s going to be the case in your marketing and in your business.
You may have limited resources or limited time, and you’re gonna have to make the most with what you’ve got, but that’s okay.
If you’re resilient, if you’re resourceful, if you’re creative, you’ll always find more than enough to do exactly what you need to get done.
Lesson Three
Let’s talk elephants.
Obviously they’re huge, they’re beautiful, they’re majestic animals, but they’re also incredibly tough, and that’s exactly what you need to be in your marketing as well.
First of all, anytime you put yourself out there, you’re going to experience some criticism.
So it’s important to be resilient and to stay true to who you are and make sure that you’re following your values, your mission, and your vision, because you are going to be presented with challenges, and it’s going to be important that you’re strong enough to overcome them.
Above all, stay committed to your business, stay committed to what you’re trying to achieve in the world and don’t let a few haters or a few negative comments throw you off track.
For Lesson Four
Let’s talk about one of the weirder animals you’ll come across, which is the Abyssinian ground hornbill.
(Totally not one of your normal animals like what we’ve talked about so far, like the elephants and the tigers and all that)…
But the Abyssinian ground hornbill can teach us some good marketing lessons, specifically the fact that they lead a pretty busy life and constantly explore their surroundings and interact with each other.
That is an important marketing lesson, because it’s really important to get out there and to interact and to start being social, rather than hiding behind the computer and pretending that you’re marketing is gonna do itself without actually getting out there and engaging with your customers and with your clients.
It’s important to get out in the world, to get that real world data, and that real world engagement.
That’s going to allow you to become a much more effective and a much more connected and convincing marketer and entrepreneur.
For our Fifth Lesson
Let’s talk about gorillas…But not just any gorilla…
Here I wanna highlight my good buddy Winston, an adult male silver back.
We already talked about the importance of acting fast and seizing opportunities, well the flip side of this is to take an approach like Winston, by laying back and taking a slow look at things and evaluating the situation before diving in.
This is kind of like a slow-adopting approach, which is the complete opposite, obviously, of acting fast and pouncing on opportunities.
This allows you to scope out opportunities, see how the market responds, and then decide whether or whether not to invest your time energy or resources in them.
The Sixth and Final Point is…
Overall, just like in the animal kingdom and just like in business, there is an important element of BALANCE, which means you’ve got to focus both long-term strategies with short-term strategies.
You want to do some direct marketing, but also some long-term content marketing.
You want to take advantage of pay-per-click advertising, but you also want to focus on organic marketing, and again, it all comes down to balance…
Making sure that you’re well positioned for any market turns and that you’re well represented across all the different channels that are gonna mean the most for your business and for your customers.
