What You Do, Not Why You Do It

I'm Glad You Read A Book

One of my favorite comedians, Patton Oswalt, has a great and profane bit about religious beliefs (warning: really NSFW), and the relative impossibility of respecting them equally.

Which has led me, in my own small way, to a significant point about day to day marketing and advertising tasks.

I've worked at places where engineering gave marketing everything they ever wanted... not because anyone on staff had a particular proficiency or taste for that work, but simply because management made it a priority. I've also been at places where you pretty much had to make do with whatever was already in place, because the priorities or human bandwidth just were not what you'd hope for, and patience is one of those things you are taught over the course of a career. Whether you want the lesson or not.

The same goes for sales pros. Some would give you all of the feedback you could ever want on how prospects were reacting to materials. Others wouldn't, because they just didn't see the merits of spending their time that way, when they could be, well, selling. Even to the point of grousing at the length or frequency of mandatory company-wide meetings, even when those meetings served important functions. Because, well, when a third of your income and your continued employment depends on making the numbers, time spent talking to co-workers is time spent not selling.

Similar experience with account management, AKA the key to client retention and growth. I've always found that good pros in these roles were worth their weight in gold, because they drove as much new business as the sales pros, but with the added benefit of generating case studies and evangelists for your business. Many would steer clear of marketing if given their preference, since that was, similar to sales, time spent not talking to clients... but you needed their feedback to make sure that your messaging and branding wasn't turning any existing business off.

The point of all of this, just like with Oswalt appreciating the good work, if not the beliefs, of someone who was convinced that vengeful aliens would commit acts of violence on those who did not behave virtuously... is that your reasons for doing anything in this world are, well, just that.

Yours.

If the reason why I provide excellent service to my clients is out of love for what I do, that's lovely and life-affirming... but if I also do it out of nothing more than a desire to provide for my family, and for those of my associates, it's pretty much the same thing to a client.

My reasons are my own. Ever-changing, unknowable because even I don't think about them very much, and irrelevant to the task.

The flip side of that is, well, the same thing goes for excuses.

Clients don't need to know why you do the work. They also don't need to know why you didn't.

What they need is for you to do it.

And those who don't get it done... needs to change that fact ASAP, or get out of the way for someone who will.

For reasons that should be obvious to everyone...

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