helping healthcare organizations grow

Welcome to The Healthcare Marketing Connection! This week we are examining why you should make mistakes in your marketing. You'll have to read this week's feature article to figure out my backwards logic on this one.

As many of you know, giving back to your community is very important to me. I started this business over seven years ago with a deliberate purpose to create a life for myself that allows me to volunteer at my kid's school for a few hours each week, spend countless hours shuttling kids around after school and help them with their homework - all the while doing work I enjoy. This is very important to me as raising my kids is probably the most important thing I'll accomplish in this life. However, I started to feel that while I was volunteering and contributing to my community, ultimately I am doing this for me and my family. I needed to do something more. I needed to give back to my community in a way that I received absolutely nothing in return. So I began to look for something totally different that would interest me...

Earlier this year I became a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). Completely a volunteer position, I am appointed by a judge to advocate for children in foster care. After 40 hours of training (which was pretty tough) I was sworn in by a judge in the judicial district by my home. I currently advocate for two kids that are in foster care. Working with the social workers, therapists and attorney's assigned to their cases, I attend all the court hearings where I state what I feel are the best interests of the children. The CASA works with a social worker and the children's attorney to look out for the best interests of the kids.

I can't tell you how much I've learned through this experience, how much of a difference I KNOW I am making in the lives of my CASA kids, and how personally and spiritually rewarding this experience has been for me. I thought I would selflessly volunteer and get nothing in return - boy was I wrong. You can learn more about the organization at www.nationalcasa.org. This week I am going to donate 10% off all my online sales to the CASA organization.

To your success!

Kelly

Making Mistakes in Your Marketing? Good!

Just be sure you learn from them

We all make mistakes, both in our business and our personal lives. In fact, we skiers in Colorado often ask each other how much we fell. Because "if you didn't fall you're not trying hard enough" when skiing.

I think the same holds true in marketing.

Take chances - it's ok to make a mistake. Oftentimes it's the best way to learn.

I am currently reading The Million Dollar Consultant by Alan Weiss. Here is what he has to say about learning from setbacks:

"You win some and you lose some. The best baseball hitters are successful about one-third of the time. The best golfers win perhaps one of every 15 tournaments they enter. Abraham Lincoln lost more elections than he won. The finest salespeople probably close about two sales of every 10 legitimate meetings."

I find it's easy to see the mistakes you make and dwell on them. I see some people kicking themselves or their employees and spending weeks worrying about the consequences. Dwelling on the "what if's".

Weiss tells us "the key, of course, is not to make the same mistake twice. Whether you swing at a wild pitch, hit the tee shot into the water, lose the election through poor debating, or lose the sale through lack of preparation about the competition, the idea is to lessen the chances that the same cause will produce the same result the next time."

Finally Weiss states, "Don't shun setbacks. Learn from them. They are an intrinsic part of the work, so we might as well become proficient at dealing with them and capitalizing on lessons learned."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Especially in marketing, it's important to try new things and pursue new ventures. If it doesn't work - stop doing it and try something else. If something is working - tweak it and see if you can get it to work better!

If you don't try, you fail no matter what. Especially when it comes to marketing your business.

(c) 2007, A Marketing Connection

Want to use this article in your e-zine or web site? No problem! Just let me know at info@KellyRobbinsLLC.com. I'll send you a short bio to include at the end of the article.

Building Your Copywriting Business Class - important changes:

Have you looked at how we have revamped the Building Your Copywriting Business Class? We've taken away the time limit that your coursework is due - you now have up to 9 months to complete the entire course instead of 10 weeks. The classes are now individual (not group) one-on-one, and you can sign-up at any time 24/7 and get started immediately.

Finally, the price has been cut in half (you heard right - cut in half), making it much easier for you to learn techniques for attracting copywriting clients to your copywriting business. The best part is you'll still receive the same great tools and one-on-one instruction and mentoring from The Copywriting Institute founder Kelly Robbins. You can check out the updated class information at www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com/buildyourbusiness

Or you can register in the class now here

This week Kelly recommends The Million Dollar Consultant by Alan Weiss. I love this book. It is very practical and includes ton of easy to implement checklists. Even if you are not a consultant, there are tons of great ideas and advice in this book. I highly recommend it.

If you have any other great resources you'd like me to share with everyone, let me know and I'll check it out. kelly@KellyRobbinsLLC.com

To learn more about healthcare copywriting and marketing, visit my Web site at www.KellyRobbinsLLC.com/article_archives.shtml. There are tons of fr ee articles on a variety of helpful topics.