Stuck in the Mud

Are you stuck in the mud? That is, do aspects of your business development efforts seem to be moving along at a painfully slow pace? Well you’re definitely not alone. Building and sustaining effective business development processes takes time and patience. Here’s an example of what I mean.

When I was attending Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, I worked part time for Dr. Earl Scholz, a professor of horticulture who taught at North Dakota State University (NDSU – Go Bison!). One day while working at his family’s berry farm just west of town, he noticed me struggling to pull a fence post from the mud.

The snow had recently melted and we were removing temporary fencing that was used as a snow fence. It's desirable for strawberries to be sufficiently covered with snow because it is important that strawberries stay as cool as possible late into the spring so that they don’t bloom too early. The risk of future cool weather after they begin to bloom can ultimately stunt the growth of the plant and reduce the strawberry yield. At any rate, the melted snow had turned the farm fields in to thick, gooey mud fields.

As Earl watched me twisting and wrenching the fence post, he calmly strode next to me and said, “Let me take a crack at it, OK?”

Earl was 40+ years my senior and built no heftier than I (we probably both weighed in at about 160 pounds with sopping wet clothes on). He grabbed the top of the fence post and started to gently lift. No tugging, no wrenching, no profanities or disgust. Just gentle lifting.

While he was lifting he told me about a time when he was a young man. He came across a boy who had driven his motorcycle off the road and into a muddy slough. The boy’s rather angry father arrived with a tractor and proceeded to hook a metal chain to the motorcycle. When the father started to pull the motorcycle, the chain immediately broke. This process was repeated a few more times until Earl arrived with his horse. He proceeded to tie a small rope to the motorcycle and tethered it to the horn of the horse’s saddle. The horse pulled gently, and consistently. The motorcycle began to move. Within a short time, the motorcycle was retrieved from the mud.

As Earl finished the story, he handed me the fence post. This turned out to be a simple yet revealing life lesson for me. When stuck in the mud, pulling hard on things will get you nowhere. The mud is neither your friend nor your foe, but you must recognize the nature of the mud and work within its boundaries. Pull gently and consistently; don’t fight the mud. This may be counter intuitive at first glance.

Your business development efforts will see a lift over time by gently and consistently pulling on whatever may be stuck. How are you marketing yourself and your services? Are you speaking, writing, networking, or advertising gently and consistently? Or are you pulling hard and wearing yourself out while at the same time burning through too much money?