The Taxi-Cab Driver, The Day Laborer and The Marketer

As a consultant, I often travel around the country to visit clients.  Usually, I take a cab from the airport to the client location.  Taxi drivers are a hard-working group of people.  Typically they log 12 hour days and often wait hours at a time at a 'premium spot', like the airport, where they know there will be lots of travelers and hopefully long drives where the fare and tip will be high.   Every 1 in 10 drivers is different though, and you can spot them right away.  Their cabs are cleaner, their step is livelier.  But what really makes them different is they make an effort to get to know you and what your plans are for the week.  These drivers realize it is not about this fare, but all the future fares.   They often offer to drive you for the week and give you their card so you will call them the next time you are in town.  These drivers never wait in line.  They have clients and they set and manage a schedule.

When I am at home, there always seems to be something to do around the yard.  For the bigger jobs that are labor intensive, I can drive a few miles down the road and hit a couple of spots where the day laborers hang out.  As soon as I pull the truck in, they swarm in.  First person(s) that get in the truck wins the job for the day.  Once in the truck, we negotiate the pay rate and they are paid in cash when the job is complete.  The other laborers who weren't so lucky sit around and hope another truck will pull up soon.  Every day they repeat this process.  Every so often, I will notice that some of the workers are smarter than the others.  When the job is complete, they take a few extra minutes and walk the neighborhood, handing out cards and referring them to the work they just did.  This typically leads to more business for them and before long they are managing their own crews and they don't wait on corners any more.

Most marketers I know work very hard and they spend hours per day working on their website, sending out email campaigns, working events.  They can't always measure the impact of their efforts, but know if they work hard enough, some of their activity will produce leads and help the sales team bring in more revenue.    Then there are the smarketers.  These are the people that realize it is not how hard you work, but how smart you work.  They leverage social media, marketing automation and tools to create conversations all over the web, not just on their website.  They do not wait for prospects to come to them, they take the conversation to the masses, but focus their efforts through key channels.  They use technology to drive more activity with no additional labor.    They are driving revenue while everyone else is managing costs.

Every field has workers that toil for their keep.  Every field also has intelligent game changers.  They don't follow the same trail as everyone else.  They forge ahead and find new paths and create new opportunities.  Which one are you?