What Would YOU Rather Make - Excuses, or Money? (And, Yes, That IS a Penis)

As my good friend and business mentor, Steve Sipress, is fond of saying, "You can make excuses or you can make money – but not both!"

 And, yes, that is a picture of a penis in a business related blog post. 

 It means something and will prove an excellent point, I promise. 

 The firearm and outdoor industry is in a tizzy right now. 

Gun company stocks dropped the day Donald Trump was elected president. Millions of dollars of firearms orders were canceled within the Weeks after SHOT Show and the presidential election. 

Gun Stocks Aren't doing so hot...

 Everywhere you turn you hear the same thing… "Our budget is already allocated."  Or "we love what we hear- come back and talk to us in October." 

Or, my favorite excuse making phrase, "The industry is changing. Sales are down. We need to cut our marketing budget in order to SAVE money."

 Long term agencies are being cut by their clients. 

 Long-term advertising partners are being reduced and eliminated. 

… And it's all completely ridiculous.

 I know – that's a bold statement. 

 I'm a bold guy.

If you want to "save money," turn off every other light in your building. Turn your thermostat a few degrees up in the summer and down in the winter. 

Don't over water your grass or run the faucet while you brush your teeth. 

If you want to MAKE MONEY, you need to MARKET EFFECTIVELY. 

Remember – you can make EXCUSES or you can make MONEY… But you can't make BOTH. 

Every phrase above is an excuse. 

 Really. Look at each one. 

Think about it. 

Now...

 Remember the movie that came out last year titled, "Greater?"

It's a great movie. 

"Greater" is the story of Arkansas Razorback football player Brandon Burlsworth.  Brandon was "A Division I football player in a Division III  body."

Anyway, it's a great story about someone who "accepts every excuse," never lifts weights, hardly does a running drill, really doesn't do much of anything, and "waits to see what happens" - and, miraculously, makes it as a starter for the Arkansas Razorbacks football team and becomes an all-star player....

What's that? 

That's not what happened? 

Wait… 

He didn't "cut back on his exercise regimen" so he could "save energy" and improve? 

When he received one low-level school scholarship, he didn't "sit back and wait and see what the college football market was going to do?"

 I'M  ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED! 

 If you seen the movie,(and, if not, I highly recommend you do so-and then watch "Rudy" and "Hoosiers" and "Remember The Titans", "Ali," "Rocky I,II,III, IV, V, and Rocky Balboa"-and every single other "Overcome extreme hardship/Obstacle/Work/Challenge to reach glory movie)  you know that Brandon became the  EPITOME  of work ethic – getting up in the dark to run and do drills. Spending extra time in the weight room. Losing the weight he had to and improving his speed and endurance by leaps and bounds… 

...And it follows the exact same story line of just about every success story ever told or ever experienced. 

Isn't that what you really want for your business or company? 

Are you making your decisions more like the first scenario or the actual movie? 

What would you choose??

 Now… About this penis picture....

 This is the story of success from my own life – when a complete disaster was entirely averted in my very first "grown-up" sales job – selling pharmaceuticals in a rural and very, very large geography. 

I had a product that was worth approximately 20% of my  sales "quota."

 The product was called "Caverject," and it was dosed by taking a hypodermic needle and injecting it directly into the corpus cavernosum of the male penile organ.  I  was given this drug to sell the year that Viagra was launched – a pill that a man could take two, hypothetically, give the exact same effect  as my injectable product. 

 There was mass hysteria in the salesforce. 

 Almost everybody "Wrote off"  20% of their commission and focused on trying to INCREASE their other products to compensate. 

 I sat down and analyze the situation. 

I knew that my company would not reduce their expectation on me because of a market change (note-one of the biggest curses in sales – companies will take all the glory for your performance, but when there are circumstances outside of your control, they will be the first to blame you. If it's YOUR company – don't be "that guy.")

 I knew that the biggest obstacle to treating man with erectile problems with getting them to talk about it in the first place. I knew that Pfizer would make sure that everybody was talking about it. 

I then changed my message so that it HELPED my customer.

 You see, my product had a less than 5% failure rate. Viagra's was almost 26%.  I simply went around telling my doctor clients the truth – that no man would want to try my product first, but once they got their hopes up and FAILED, that would be a great time to bring up Caverject. 

Needless to say, I was number two in the entire Midwest division that year, thanks in no small part to a product that everyone else had written off.

What do you suppose would have happened if I had "cut back" my sales efforts and "waited to see what the market was going to do?" 

Instead, I simply changed my marketing to better reflect the new market. 

Remember- Money doesn't "disappear." 

It moves. 

Stop making "excuses" that do nothing but get in the way of you making MONEY!