How to Revitalize Your Marketing Effectiveness

3 Signs Mediocrity is Killing Your Business

We live in a hyper-critical world. We love to judge everything. Even in the past, when we supposedly left the adjudication to professional critics, we whispered to our friends and neighbors.

But now, we have a megaphone that allows us to share our opinions freely. We critique movies, books, restaurants, and hotels. And we feel morally compelled to let others know when we find something terrible.

Yet, for a culture that loves to criticize, we sure do hand out an awful lot of awards. From Hollywood's Golden Globes and the Miss America beauty pageant, to the Olympic Games and the Superbowl, to small industry awards for culinary arts, architecture, design and marketing.

We literally have an award for everything!

I'm not complaining, though. We've won our fair share of awards, and we enjoy receiving them. Who doesn't like being honored when they do something great?

The point I'm trying to make is that it's easy to recognize when someone does a great job. And it's just as easy to point out when someone does a crappy job. But what about the middle?

It's the Middle that Matters

While we're busy recognizing outliers, most of the stuff that impacts our business lies somewhere in between not so bad, and not so good.

And although you won't find any awards ceremonies for being average, or a judges panel to honor "good enough" - it should be the thing we care about the most.

Because in the middle, you're either growing fast or slowly dying - and your stance on mediocrity will eventually make or break your business.

How to Spot the Mediocrity in Your Business

It's difficult to spot the mediocrity in your business. When something is just good enough, you continue to put up with it because it's easy - even when you know deep down that it could be better.

Like when your designer meets most of his deadlines, so why not give them another shot?

Or when your marketing agency produces enough results to justify their rates, so why not launch another campaign?

Or when you're copywriter is pretty good, so why not send another round of revisions?

Or when your web company returns most of your phone calls, so why not keep calling?

Well, because you can do better, that's why!

Mediocrity will literally suck the potential out of your business - and if the disease spreads, you're a goner!

3 Signs You're Dealing with Mediocrity

You've got to cut that stuff out - and the first step is to recognize what you're dealing with. If you are experiencing the following symptoms, then you better act fast. Because this stuff, it will kill you.

1. You Feel Comfortable - Playing it safe is the quickest way to mediocrity. If you want to achieve greatness, you've got to take a few risks! That means you need to get out of your comfort zone and do something different.
2. You're Results Are Acceptable - Being tolerable is not how you make a difference. You've got to do more than just earn your annual marketing budget - you've got to deliver measurable results, over and over again.
3. You're Not Growing - Doing the same thing you did last year isn't impressive. That's just average. You've got to set goals that will stretch you and your team - and then work hard to exceed them.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be average. I don't want to play it safe. I don't want to be acceptable. Instead, I want to be different. I want to make a difference. I want my digital agency to experience growth and acceleration

And I'm only going to do that if I get fed up with mediocrity and strive for greatness.