Naturalist Charles Darwin’s famous quote regarding stronger species and survival rates has been misrepresented for years.
What Darwin actually said was, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Believing his truism, Darwin would be a fantastic marketer in these changing times! Will you?
So how do you cope with marketing changes?
Well, while I was pounding down my 3rd cup of coffee this morning (my Keurig coffee maker rocks), I came up with 50 ways to cope with all of the marketing changes swirling around you and to help you survive and thrive in marketing:
- Face the facts – change will always be a constant throughout your life
- Pay attention to warning signs, study trends and read a tea leaf or two
- Strive to remain calm at all times
- Anticipate change – learn to take advantage of it
- Accept control – control your controllables – that means controlling YOU
- Read, study, put a plan of study in process, chart your course
- Think more
- Worry less
- Do more
- Create a “to don’t” list
- Clear your mind
- Clear your desk
- Work out
- Go for long walks
- Meditate
- Take long baths
- Sit in steam room
- Do deep breathing exercises
- Do progressive muscle relation techniques
- Embrace Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People
- Create good, positive reasons for change for your business (believe them)
- Create good, positive reasons for change for yourself (believe them)
- Think of yourself as an independent marketing assassin and that all of the changes taking place will only make you stronger and more valuable with more arrows in your quiver to deliver more success for your firm, your family and for yourself
- Get together with like-minded people to enable the changes you or management seeks
- Provide financial and emotional benefits when successful change goals are met
- Monitor your progress and celebrate achieving key milestones – small and large ones
- Make sure the people on your team share the same values
- Recognize that to get “there from here,” everyone may not get a seat on the bus
- Understand that your career and life is a marathon, not a sprint
- Understand that if you do not evolve you will dissolve
- Listen more
- Discuss more
- Be more open
- Join groups, chat rooms
- Read more
- Study more
- Create a plan of educational achievement
- Be a student of your profession
- Subscribe to online educational webinars, newsletters
- Be more in the present – don’t be so consumed with the future
- Don’t be consumed with having all of the right answers
- Be consumed with having all of the right questions
- Have fun discovering the answers
- Realize that you’re not perfect – you’ll never be
- Realize that you’re not an expert – you’ll never be
- Don’t give yourself unrealistic time periods to achieve your goals
- Don’t be unrealistic and give yourself too many goals to reach
- Focus on your desired outcomes, not just timelines and constraints
- Don’t be so hard on yourself
- Enjoy the ride realizing you’ve overcome past changes and you’ll succeed again
I’m sure there are more ways to cope with marketing changes, but I’m too busy to think of any more because of all of the changes going on around me!
Seriously, this list helps keep me grounded.
Hope it helps you too.