On the 5 hour drive back from Kiawah, I listened to 2 more modules in the Ducttape Marketing System by John Jantsch. I really like what I've listened to. The 2 modules were on creating marketing materials ("magnificent" ones at that) and lead generation.

I listen to all this stuff and got back home with a million tasks I wanted to get done that John describes. That's the problem with my marketing efforts so far - they've been scattershot and not organized. I need to go slow, get in the program from the start and do it step by step. That's what a "system" is, I guess.

That seems to be a characteristic of a lot of businesses - scattershot marketing rather than a well-conceived, sequential plan. I remember one author talking about the hugely expensive Super Bowl commercials of the dot.com era - 2.2 million bucks for 30 seconds for one of these bad boys in 2000. And a few now non-existent internet companies did it. Why - because it was cool! And money wasn't an object - at least until the crash. Where are those millions now? Certainly didn't provide enough return on investment to save them (7 of 17 dot.coms that advertised in the 2000 Super Bowl were out of business or acquired by other companies less than 12 months later).

Small businesses have to be very strategic about spending their marketing money. Hopefully, they have a budget so they know what they've got available and what expenses are coming up. Then, they can implement the plan. The scattershot technique is expensive and wasteful, things we can't afford to do.

So I'll preach patience to myself and do it right. I think the results will be well worth it.