Stop the Insanity! Are You Continuing to Make These Same Mistakes Over and Over and Over and…?

You’ve no doubt heard the definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.”

It’s a common malady in the business world, and particularly evident these days during tough times. Companies know that the results they’re getting aren’t what they’d like to see and are not likely sustainable, yet they don’t quite know what to do about it. So they keep doing what they’ve always done in tough times – they cut costs, they cut staff, they try harder and harder to convince customers that what they have to sell is what they (the customers) should want to buy.

Some Things You Should Consider Doing Differently

But, “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.” To see changes—hopefully positive ones!—you need to do things differently. What sorts of things? Well, some of the things we’ve observed companies doing that appear to be based more on habit and “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” than sound strategy are:

  • Continuing to advertise in certain channels—either traditional or digital—the traditional media, more because the competition does than because of any hard evidence that it has a positive impact for your business!
  • Continuing to receive input and suggestions from customers, but not doing anything to make changes based on those suggestions.
  • Refusing to discontinue a product or service that has reached the end of its useful life cycle and/or consumer demand.
  • Continuing to look at data that suggests a particular product or service is not meeting customer needs (based on sales figures), yet not doing anything to change that product or service.
  • Refusing to consider new points of view that may be contrary to existing culture (also known as “Group Think”).
  • Continuing to employ people who have bad attitudes, poor service skills and low productivity in the hopes that they will somehow “improve.”
  • Refusing to acknowledge that “what got you here won’t get you there”—leaders often need to bring in new perspectives, outside expertise or new leaders to help them reach new, higher levels of performance.
  • Continuing to invest in anything that isn’t demonstrating a tangible, measurable return.

It can be hard to break old habits—and hard to identify the things you may be doing that simply no longer make sense, or that may be holding you back. Sometimes a third-party perspective can help, as long as you listen to and carefully consider what they have to say.

What would you add to the list? What old ways are you clinging to that may be holding you back?

About Us

Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We work with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content. Whether on- or offline, or both, we’ll help you achieve desired results.

(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)

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Recommended Reading:

21st Century Secrets to Effective PR

Managing Remote Staff

Direct Mail in the Digital Age

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Strategic Planning

The Everything Guide to Customer Engagement

Best Practices in Influencer Marketing

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