Do you know why it sucks being the enlightened one?
Because people misunderstand you ALL the time.
1) People take things out of context
“Life is suffering.”
I remember going to social science class in high school and learning about Buddha. I remember coming out thinking… “man this Buddha guy is a bummer”.
Why? Because they conveniently leave out the other ‘stuff’ he said: how you can meditate your way out of suffering. But nah, that stuff ain’t interesting.
2) Buddha is NOT God, but they keep worshipping him (src)
Brahmin : ” Are you a God? “
The Buddha : ” Brahmin, I am not a God. “
3) People thought he deserted his wife & newborn child because he was selfish (src)
Did you know Buddha left his wife & new born son? Not because he’s an ass.. but because he had a mission.
- It was the custom, cultural norm at the time (in India) for young men to leave home and enter the homeless life as an ascetic.
- The prince was leaving to achieve a greater purpose that would eventually benefit not only all humans but also his wife and son.
- His wife and son forgave him.
- His wife and son would be well taken care of, at least materially.
- He left unwillingly as well, not neglecting a last look at his wife and son before leaving.
- He wasn’t a Buddha (enlightened yet)
- He came back after enlightenment to visit and teach his family
- Some teachers say that he received permission from his wife to leave:
There are countless stories where people take things out of context… or they don’t understand what he’s trying to say.
If you think about it, Buddha ,religious figures, political & business leaders, and of course, marketers, all share the same problem.
That is, NAILING the marketing message & getting your point across. (Or if you’re completely clueless, not understanding your marketing ROI metrics).
At times, we often think
1) that our product or service sucks
or that
2) our prospects are too dumb to understand
Yes, trust me, I have the SAME PROBLEM all the time (I should have IQ as one of my lead qualification process).
Morons.
But no, that’s never the problem.
It is often US (yes, you! look in the mirror!)
We are the problem – either the target market, marketing message, or the offer to the problem you are trying to address.
Did you know Buddha actually thought homelessness, starvation , and ignoring his bodily needs (food & water) was the way to salvation?
When he realized that his solution (i.e. offer) to the problem (i.e. trying to attain nirvana), his followers (i.e. prospects) thought he was not the enlightened (i.e. his offer sucked) one and they left him (i.e. cart abandonment).
Yes, if almighty Buddha made mistakes, you too will and can make mistakes.
If Buddha were alive, this is what he would teach us marketers & entrepreneurs
1) Marketing takes TIME
“A jug fills drop by drop.”
Every time I launch a campaign, it takes anywhere few days to at least see some “usefully measurable” results. And it takes weeks and months to optimize to a point where I can get cost per lead / conversion down 60-80% lower than where it started (depending on vertical, competition, offer type, etc.)
When I blog about this, people ONLY see the results. It’s like weight loss infomercial. You don’t see the people going to gyms.. you just see the before and after result in one second split image.
People don’t see the countless hours of fine tuning, testing, media creation, and all that hard stuff no one wants to do.
Imagine you have a 4 step funnel, where conversion rate is.. say 10% each and you start with 10k visitors
So, 10k => 1k => 100 => 10
Imagine you tweak your marketing funnel to achieve 1% increase or 11% conversion in each step.
That’s
10k => 1,100 => 121 => 13
That’s 30% improvement by just increasing each step by 1%.
Stop focusing on these “gotta have gynormous results NOW”… and focus on the little things that eventually accumulate to a big thing.
2) Be Attached, but Be Detached
“It is better to travel well than to arrive.”
If you are or have met newbie entrepreneurs or marketers, you know that they’re often in “LOVE” with their ideas, as if those ideas were made of physical gold.
They go into complete vacuum working on this idea and eventually trying to find a market for this product that no one wants.
What happens? The business goes nowhere.
They were stuck on the idea of an event, not the process… and they lost that motivation.
Instead, why not focus on bettering yourself and becoming a better marketer? Throw out ideas and test them to see if people are willing to pay for them, instead of using all that time and money to make something you THINK people want?
But the important part is to DETACH yourself from what happens.
If the idea tanks, move on quickly. Don’t dwell in it. Learn from what happened and try again.
If you have no idea what that means, read this lean startup stuff people are applying to their own businesses.
(Counter-intuitive? Indeed.)
3) Stop Listening to Gurus & Start Acting
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
In the world of blogs and social media, there are lots of “gurus” that try to teach you stuff.. and fill your head with more knowledge than you really need.
Even if you take the BEST ideas from the smartest marketers on the planet, the odds of that stuff working for you 100% identical is close to zilch.
Remember, you can’t sharpen a knife by reading books about sharpening knives.. you must grind your iron against resistance for it to get sharp and eventually cut through your target objective.
I’ve listened to so many infomercials and have tried so many… vending, network marketing, 900 phone service, etc etc. None of them have panned out… why? Even if those gurus DID have the best stuff, I can’t do EXACTLY what they do… and the market won’t react EXACTLY the same way as they do to them.
Remember, men lie, women lie, and politicians lie… but stats tell the truth.