I could have begun the book with this chapter. It was tempting to do so, because so many mediators tell me that online tools are your weak spot and that you want to fill that gap in your marketing strategy.
I didn’t, of course, begin the book with this chapter. And at the risk of over-stating the obvious, I want to be sure you understand why. I do this in case, while the book is in blog form, you’re just joining me now. I do this in case, once the book is in print form, you skip the earlier chapters because this one’s got the content you’re most curious about.
If you begin the book here and have not done the kind of foundational work through which I guided you in earlier chapters, then what follows in this chapter and the next will probably not help you much. Here’s why, via a story.
Years ago, when we lived in Vermont, my husband and I decided to build a very large deck. It was a giant undertaking. Since both of us have terminal degrees, building a deck was one of those projects where we often joked, how many people with a doctorate does it take to… It was, quite frankly, not our strength and we had a lot of learning to do in order to achieve the end result we wanted.
Fortunately, our contractor, a woman who had masterfully completed projects for us in the past, agreed to help us learn how to build the deck while she made sure we didn’t mess up the project completely. Rita visited with us for several hours while we marked out the deck’s dimensions and identified the location for each of the footings. She left us to dig the footings, insert the Sonotubes, and get the concrete in them.
We decided to rent a tool we’d never used before: A gas-powered two-person auger. An auger is like a giant drill. With each of us stationed across from the other and holding very tightly on the handles, we’d fire up the auger and start drilling giant holes into the Vermont earth.
Instead of saving us digging effort, the auger became the Tool from Hell. We’d marked chalk X’s in the precise locations where the footings needed to be. The minute we started the auger, the chalk X disappeared beneath its churning drill bit. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but the auger didn’t just drill straight down. It lurched and jumped and hit rocks and tried to shimmy all the way to Tucson. And after each jump, we couldn’t be sure where the original chalk X had been. And yet, since we’d paid good money to rent the Tool from Hell, and we only had it for 24 hours, we had to make it work.
Let’s just say this in conclusion: When Rita returned, post concrete pouring, she stared for a long time at the footings. She measured again and again, in silence. Once, we saw her shake her head and murmur something under her breath. Finally, she straightened up, looked at us with a plastered-on smile, and said, “Well. We can fix this. Let me just re-work the deck plans a bit to match where the footings ended up.”
How many people with a doctorate does it take to…drill a proper hole in the ground.
We rented a tool we didn’t really know how to use. We persevered, sure we’d figure it out along the way. We knew next to nothing about construction of a deck and yet figured it was simple enough that we’d somehow get it by osmosis. We had none of the helpful background we later wished we’d had and were blissful in our naiveté. The result was a messed up project. And a tendency, to this day, to break out into a cold sweat when someone utters the word auger.
Like augers, online marketing tools will serve you well when you know not just how to use them, but when you have the background—the foundation—to put them to their best purposes. Using a new tool with the same mindset with which you’ve used other tools (handheld drills, brochures, yellow pages ads) risks minimal results.
Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.
