Impalement. Sounds painful right?

I saw something today that got me thinking (no wise cracks please!). A person, who shall remain anonymous, especially as I didn’t actually know them, got themselves into a little predicament. This morning I pulled into a car park where there was a car “impaled” on a wooden barrier. You know, that horrible situation where you’ve tried to pull out of a parking space and mis-judged it. Scraping the side of your car in the process. Or reversed without seeing that bollard. Anyway, this person was stuck. The indecision was clear to see. Do I reverse? Do I drive forward? Or do I stay put? If I reverse, then I’m going to end up in the same place as I started. If I pull forward, I could end up doing more damage. But if I stay put, then I’m going nowhere…literally.

(PS – this wasn’t the actual car, but you get the idea!)

So this person did an interesting thing. They stayed put. Well, their car did. They actually got out of the car and did something that many of us would be too embarrassed or too proud or afraid to do. They went to get help.

And help came. In the form of two burly men and a Range Rover with a tow bar.

So, what has this got to do with marketing you ask, quite rightly?

Well, many people I speak to are in the same predicament. They’ve got themselves stuck. They know that they don’t want to go backwards and do what they’ve done before as it clearly didn’t work (and they’ve got the scars to prove it). Many of them are scared of going forward because they don’t know which way to turn the marketing wheel. So they stay “impaled” by not doing anything at all.

Of course, I’m not promising burly men and a 4×4, but I can tell them which way to turn the wheel and drive them forward.

They just need to get over the fear of asking for help.