Getting distracted and getting back on track

This post originally appeared on an older blog, MarketingIdeaBlog.com. I am re-publishing it here because I believe the information is not only still valuable, but because it can help readers better understand my approach to business communication.

One of my personal obsessions is genealogy – the study and discovery of my family tree. I began my journey in the spring of 1997, just a few months after my mother had passed away unexpectedly. For me, genealogy is the perfect blend of research and outdoor exploration: rooting out the names and dates of critical life events for my ancestors, connecting with far-flung cousins (some of whom possessed precious antique family photographs!), pouring over brittle old documents in the basements of historic county courthouses, wandering through cemeteries large and small in search of a stone with a familiar name.

I learned one of the core lessons of genealogy very early on – and I think it’s a lesson that also applies to small business marketing: put simply, it’s easy to get distracted. In a moment, you can wander off the main path (looking for direct blood-line ancestors) and start down any number of secondary trails that lead to aunts, uncles, cousins, skeletons-in-closet, or even just historical context.

For small business owners, the main marketing path should always lead to the retention of existing customers and the attraction of new customers. Things like learning how to use a page layout program, or writing better copy, or understanding the psychology of consumer purchasing, are really secondary trails.

Granted, they’re inviting trails – made moreso by books and tools that promise to make it easy, to deliver “professional marketing materials from your desktop with one click,” to present you with that golden nugget that will open a floodgate to success. But probably the biggest challenge facing small business owners is figuring out how far to wander down one of those secondary trails, and when to step back onto the main path where actual progress is made.

In genealogy, I step back onto the main trail by keeping a list of the current questions that will lead me to someone’s parents, because “new parents” mean another branch has been added to the tree.

In business, your marketing treatment (or marketing plan, if you’ve gone that far) should be the primary path. It gives you direction, it reminds you what the goals are, and it gives you a point to which you can always return if you veer off course. What tools do you use to guide yourself back to the main path when you fear you’ve spent too much time on a secondary trail? What secondary trails have been most valuable to you? Which ones do you wish you hadn’t wasted time pursuing?

Photo from the Flickr stream of tonyaustin.