TRANSFORM 3. Cause & Effect

Transform 3. Cause and Effect

I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than.

Mark Knopfler

Whatever you do has a result.

Nothing escapes that as a reality.

This is your reality.

Whatever is happening right now in your life or your business is the effect from something you caused at some point.

A friend said to me everything was his boss’s fault, his job, his wages, his lack of savings, his time off and his inability to do more. He said this was the fault of his boss.

I suggested to him that it is his own fault. He wasn’t happy with me and asked why. I said to him, you chose the job, you decided to take the job, you accepted those wages, you accepted the four weeks holiday a year and you accepted the past nine years working there to the point you never made an effort to change your job.

I asked him this.

Who controls your life?

He told me I am correct and went into a meaningful silence for the next ten minutes.

He had set into motion the previous nine years of his life and accepted what was happening.

Are you suffering from the effect of something you caused yet in denial and want to blame everything or everyone else?

The result you get has been created by what you did. Yes, what you did not what anyone else did. This is the cause and effect. Your choices made this right now. Your decisions are the light to the fuse. The fuse may have taken years to finally explode but the truth is we are all masters of our own destiny.

A client came to me and complained about his marketing campaign. His business was new at the time. He had gone to many different marketers and agencies for advice and campaign building.

They advised and would set up a campaign for him.

The campaign would run for a week or so.

The results would arrive and the results would always show as good as nothing. The client would be angry.

The client would then hammer the agency.

The client would then move on and then start all over again.

He wanted his campaigns to transform his business. If his business was transformed his life would be transformed.

He was never happy so he simply moved on.

The cause and effect of the results simply repeated themselves through repeated behaviours.

Why?

To transform the campaign takes real change. When I say change I don’t mean simply changing marketing people or moving agencies. It usually means a change in habit. The change in habit can be the start of the transformation.

When any campaign is run it’s critical to build the campaign for transformation around the client – NOT the company. If the company and sales are the number one priority the chances of sales arriving reduce. The client – your client – has to be your number one priority.

Remember in the previous chapter we spoke about giving back and what do you give back?

Facebook did what they did because they thought it was cool and they knew that their clients would love it. Yet they really weren’t clients as in paying because they gave before they took back. In simple term this means the Facebook cause and effect revealed itself to the point that becomes the biggest business on the planet without planning to be the biggest. They simply wanted to serve and give.

The cause and effect in business I have seen over the decades has been huge. One of the most destructive patterns seems to be, those that are doing what they do just for the money seem to face a higher outcome of a loss.

YES, we all want to be rewarded in cash for what we are doing yet the reality can be from what I have seen is those that - take first - reveals the same cause and effect patterns.

Take first seems to results in eventual failure.

Take first seems to result in the loss as an outcome.

Take first can build massive wealth yet that massive wealth can vanish as fast as it arrives.

Take first can create a mindset that has an almost illusionary effect on the taker to the point they can feel invincible and build an identity around wealth.

All has it own cause and effect and that can be the loss or financial catastrophe.

Why?

Taking only goes against the simplest and most natural way of humanity. Look at nature, does it take or give?

The most natural and flowing forms of life are built around giving. The giving results in receiving. This is cause and effect.

Nature has to adhere to the laws of nature. If they don’t it results in disaster. Business and life are the very same. There are some basic laws that cannot be avoided.

If we have a business that is built purely around taking we will rarely if never feel the effect of receiving. The effect will usually result in something we do not want.

When a client creates a campaign they usually create the campaign around what they want rarely what they want to give to their clients or customers. The big problem with that is this.

Contact through any campaign needs to be supported by trust. Trust can only be built over time. It takes time to send out multiples of any marketing campaign. New marketing campaigns are engagement laden. Engagement has to speak the part of a human that feels they can relate to your words or actions of video or more. If a campaign doesn’t do that trust can’t be built If you try and oversell the reader they can smell a rat and will see through the campaign.

If the above is the case it means more than one contact has to be made. These ties in with what I have experienced over a few decades, which is the best campaigns for any result, have two huge factors.

The first factor is the campaign has to be in the service of the customer or buyer – not simply to sell.

The second is the volume of contacts that are made to the buyer or customer. They have to see any message time and time again to have to be able to connect, relate and trust your company.

If you fail to do that and feel sending one campaign should work you are completely unaligned. The cause and effect will reveal itself in a failed campaign.

The new way of thinking includes words like community. A community immediately conjures up feelings of closeness. Would you try and do any kind of hard sell to a community that you are part of?

When I say part of you need also to be part of your audience. If you are over detached these days you will be distant. If you are distant the people you are trying to reach won’t be able to connect with you or your business?

So the cause and effect are real.

Can you build your business around giving rather than taking?

Building a business around giving results in huge rewards rather than just scraps.

Can you trust yourself to do that?

Can you understand the huge power of what you give will eventually give you the effect of what you desire?

Cause and effect are real.

Where you are right now is the result of something you caused. You are feeling the effect from it. It is no one else’s fault. It is your fault.

Once you know, once you accept and understand that you are in a stronger position to move forward.

Repeating the past that never worked will give you a result again that has never worked.

Making the changes needed to build a better stronger, bigger future need a new way of thinking that you might not be used to, however, making any kind of change is never comfortable for anyone.

If you’d like to change the effect from what has been caused you have to be open to more change.