“Energy and Persistence Conquer All Things.” Benjamin Franklin
I have been thinking about the persistent flywheel metaphor, inspired by Jim Collin’s landmark book, Good to Great. In it, he writes about the Flywheel Effect.
“The Flywheel effect is a concept developed in my book Good to Great. No matter how dramatic the result, good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop. In building a great company or social sector enterprise, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.”
Marketing activities reflect this concept of the flywheel. You can think of a flywheel as a giant Ferris wheel without a motor.
You push hard in the beginning to get a little bit of movement. Then you push harder to get a little more movement. Team members get in place and help you apply more pressure. Then, you try to push with different sticks and levers to nudge the flywheel forward.
Slowly it moves. And the persistent flywheel makes a revolution.
Then, it gets a little easier to turn the flywheel.
Eventually, it is picking up speed moving faster and faster.
Marketing Flywheel
What caused the flywheel to move? Persistence. Showing up. Constantly giving a little push in the right direction. Teams.
Why does the flywheel move? Was it a promotion, an advertisement, the sampling, the color, the influencers, or that you picked a crisp and distinctive positioning?
Attribution is difficult to assign.
What tactic got things moving? Which investment pushed the effort forward to help it pick up speed? It is hard to know what marketing activity turns a marketing flywheel and gets it moving forward, faster, and faster.
But, one thing must always be present, persistence.
Stop pushing, and the marketing flywheel isn’t going to turn on its own. Stop pushing forward and the flywheel will eventually come to a stop.
When Ben Franklin was asked about failure, he said, I fail when I stop trying.
Oh, Ben. So smart and relevant even today.
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.
Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash
