If the shoe doesn't fit...

I think we're all familiar with the Cinderella story. Think over the part where the glass slipper has been found and the stepsisters are trying to get it to fit. Not because they find the shoe beautiful, not because it is a comfortable shoe, but because they believe ownership of the shoe will get them their desired end goal, to marry the prince. Of course, as you know, the significant obstacle here is that the shoe simply does NOT fit. No matter how they squeeze and struggle, nothing they do will change that. 

Do we ever unwittingly find ourselves in this same pattern in our business? 

Stay with me here... 

You see an idea, a business model, a strategy and you see how well it is working for someone. You perceive that it even takes them across a goal line that you are eager to achieve. That may be a title, a monetary earning amount, a significant achievement of any kind. 

But when you try to implement the same thing, it simply doesn't work for you, it doesn't have the same result, and you don't understand. 

Say, for example, you are a business coach, and you are trying to grow your practice to a $10K a month practice. And you run across another business coach, and learn that she has a $12K a month practice. (It's magic that you find this out, just stick with me here) And you see that she is active on twitter and even gaining new clients through here twitter conversations. 

So, you study twitter, you model her activity, and after 6 months, you don't have a single new client through twitter. 

For any number of reasons, this marketing model may simply not work for you. There may be more to it than you are aware of, for example, these conversations may have started with a live referral, or her audience may be significantly different than yours.

Now this is an overly simplistic example for illustration sake, but the principle is there. I think that sometimes, we see something and we believe that it is going to get us the end result we are looking for, and we get hung up on that "thing". Maybe it's a vehicle for delivering your product or service, maybe it's a business model, it could be any number of things.

So...

If the shoe doesn't fit, move on. 

I think we get tunnel vision sometimes and we think that the vehicle we are in is the only one that can get us to our destination. That simply isn't true. If you are at point A and you want to get to point B, there are any number of vehicles that will get you there, at differing speeds, and with differing levels of comfort, but they will all get you there. 

Be willing to move on. Try something else. 

How about you? Can you relate? Have you found yourself in this pattern? I'd love to hear your comments!