SILVER BULLET SOCIETY

Have you ever been driving home during rush hour traffic where it feels like it’s moving 2 miles an hour or not at all? Any opening that you can see between cars you snag just to gain a few extra feet. Or maybe your super chill and you watch other people do all that effort to move 20 feet forward in a solid column of steel. Then there is the tantalizing HOV lane….is it worth the potential fine? Is there a cop behind me to catch me?

Our minds in the face of adversity, frustration, and emergencies are incredible at coming up with quick solutions. Our survival has always depended on our ability to avoid potentially life threatening situations and create safety. Even if the solution was a bit reckless if it got you out of the jaws of a lion then you won.

Now fast forward to 2020 1st world problems where, for most of us, our lives are in no real danger. Well...maybe in danger of a sugar crash or overeating. (guilty!) Often we still react with that same survival mindset to our current problems despite their lack of life-threatening urgency. We jump to a temporary fix.

Just the other day I watched a rather compelling video on Instagram showing a 20 something somersaulting off a multimillion dollar yacht into the translucent waters of the caribbean. I won’t lie to you...it was a very attractive presentation to me since having a yacht is one of my dreams. This guy goes on to sell a funnel course that he’s used to go from making minimum wage to 6 figures a month or something to that effect.

It got me thinking...isn’t this mindset bleed-through from how we react and make decisions each day? Aren’t we, like the commute traffic lane-changer, always looking for that one quick move that will make us feel like we’re getting us closer to achieving our goals? It’s that quick fix mindset that will “solve” our problems. The scary part is that we’re taking the way we live our personal lives and applying it to business practices. Instead of just cutting someone off in traffic we are putting the pay of our employees at risk. The stability and future success of our business is in jeopardy because our focus and effort is going short-term rather than long-term.

With covid-19 putting so many of our businesses at risk it’s hard not to think about the “right now” as being the most important thing. We can’t however only apply strategies and delegate energy to only things that will generate us income 30 minutes from now. Nine times out of 10 those are not healthy long term strategies. We have to get our minds out of the “silver bullet” mentality that there is some quick fix for our problems and instead focus on proven long-term strategies that can benefit our businesses for longer than this week.

One example of a quick fix would be offering some deep discount on your products or services. Yes this can potentially bring in some money right now. What about instead spending a portion of your time developing a way to offer more value so that people feel like they're getting a better deal and you increase your revenue from each purchase?

I just listened to a podcast from the incredible Fizzle Show (insert link here) where they talked about launching a course. They ended up reaching out to some of their regularly engaged following and simply asked what they would want in the course. Almost unanimously they expressed needing one-on-one coaching to keep them accountable to the things they were learning in the course. Price was not a concern. Without that coaching portion of the course it would not have sold and there would have been a lot of effort made but no money.

I challenge you as you're organizing your to-do list each day for your business ask yourself this, ”Is what I’m about to spend my time doing just a quick fix or a long-term strategy?” I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with a few things that are both! I know for us that has been a challenge as we fight the need for income and long-term growth. It’s why we are building a course for teaching people the know how to launch a video or audio podcast. It’s potentially right now money AND future money. On the other side of that we’re building out an email list which makes no money right now but is a stepping stone of our future success and a chance to build a community of people we help.

We would love to hear from you what strategies you have executed that have been good for both short-term and long-term success for your business. Email us at Steven@burkhartcreativeagency.com. And hey, if you're feeling brave and want to share a time that you took the silver bullet approach and tried to make quick money and it thwarted your long term success we would love to hear and share that as well so we can help others avoid those problems!

-Steven Burkhart