Marketing or life can be like driving a Manual Car...

Introduction

What do I mean by this?

Have you ever driven in a manual car or maybe your parents or

You own a manual car?

Maybe none of the above.

What about when you watched Vin Diesel and the cars

He drives in the Fast and the Furious movies?

Gear 1

Anyway, a manual car has different gears and may

Differ from car to car.

Let’s go on a journey and start on gear one,

As a marketer or individual, this first gear gives you time to start

slow, understand your domain and start logically.

It is about first understanding what is the goal or objective you want to achieve?

Where do you want to go?

Gear 2

Now let’s shift to gear two,

You now know your goal and it’s time to speed things up

And try to understand how are we going to achieve the goal?

Who are the people we are going to target and where are they found?

So on the road it would be what route do I need to get there?

Are there any stops I will need to make before then?

Gear 3

Now you are getting the hang of it and you’re moving moderately fast.

We shift to gear three, we now understand our goals and who we need to target or meet.

It’s now about time we start planning what specific content do we need to

reach our customers and/or meet their needs?

However, we now reach a bump or a stop and it’s time to slow down.

Change your gear back to gear 1.

The idea now is, we have reached an issue with the content creation or just with our process,

It’s does not meet our goals and customer expectation after testing it out or showing the client or head of marketing. We then need to review this again and start from gear 1 as we move to gear two trying to understand where we went wrong. This is about being agile and reacting quickly to situations that are happening all around you. In an automatic car you will not be as cautious and probably will just zoom through the stages.

Gear 4-5

Anyway, moving to gear 4 and 5, this is where we have understood everything about our goals, and they are aligned with the current marketing campaign we are going to roll it out. On gear 4 you now have the approvals, or the resources needed and on gear 5 it's time to maximize on the opportunity. The beauty of the manual car is, each time you come across a situation or issue, you need to slow down yourself and select the appropriate gear where you need to start from to pick up the pace.

Conclusion

Marketing or even life in my opinion should be like driving a manual car, you are the one in control. It’s also not about being in control, it’s about slowing down to the different gears and checking where you went wrong and adjusting in real time, like continuous improvement. Automatic is not bad but people tend to approach it in a mindless, automatic and fast thinking without considering the process of the gears. For those that have been in a manual, you know it is very hard not to be focused and your mind must always be alert or else that car will switch off and your foot must always be ready to shift gears, not easy but a worthwhile experience.

Does this change your perspective about manual cars?