Wisdom from Wayne Gretzky on Marketing & Social Media
In their wonderful new book, Trust Agents, Chris Brogan and Julian Smith (a Canadian himself and presumably a Habs fan since he’s from Montreal) offer up some excellent marketing advice from an unexpected source: Wayne Gretzky.
Most of us wouldn’t yell out “marketing guru” if asked what we knew about Wayne Gretzky. We’d probably say something like “hockey legend” or “the best hockey player ever” or something else that involves superlatives and hockey. But as is often the case with greatness, there’s great wisdom in the philosophy behind it.
As Chris and Julian relay in the book, when asked why he was so good at hockey, Wayne Gretzky said it was because he “went to where the puck was going, not where it had been.”
This may seem like an obvious comment because why would one skate to where the puck has just been. But pause for a moment and think about how many of us approach marketing: we’re frantically looking around at what everyone else is doing and trying to catch up.
We feel guilty if we don’t have a fantastic website with links to every possible social media outlet and all preferably set up to autolink so that as soon as we’ve hit send on our most recent tweet it’s populated on Facebook and LinkedIn and every other spot imaginable where we have a presence.
It’s exhausting. And, often, ineffective. Why? Because we’re skating to where the puck has been. To be explicit: we’re behind everyone else trying to catch up so the puck is down the ice and we’re just getting to where it was a few moments ago. By then, the game is lost.
When you feel this kind of angst setting in, take a deep breath. Remember that you already know what you need to do because you know your business or organization really, really well. No need to be where the puck has already been.
Now that you’re calmer, ask yourself: where’s the puck going to be, i.e. where do I want my business/organization to be? Maybe for your business, it’s going to be all about mobile marketing. Maybe it’s going to be Facebook. And maybe it’s going to be at good old-fashion in-person networking events. All of these are viable marketing tactics. To figure out which one to pursue, go back to the three simple steps of marketing (covered in more detail an earlier post):
Step #1: Identify WHAT will be different for your company/organization if the marketing is successful.
Step #2: Identify WHO you need to reach to be successful (i.e. who’s your target audience).
Step #3: Map out HOW you can most effectively reach your target audience.
By jumping straight to #3, you get into chasing the puck mode because if you don’t envision where the puck will be (which you do in #1 and #2), you’re left staring at where it’s been.
So remember: There’s no need to do what everyone else is doing. Marketing is multi-faceted and social media is HUGELY powerful…when driven with a clear intention tied to specific goals.
A big thanks to Wayne Gretzky, Chris Brogan and Julian Smith for their amazing combined wisdom!
Small world, attended a talk by the trust agents authors a couple of weeks ago and am currently reading the book. Great stuff!