Multi-purpose vs one purpose
What is the difference between a hammer and a swiss-army knife? Let’s say that you want to fix up something in your house, or maybe you want to DIY a cabinet. What do you use? You will probably find a hammer.
A hammer doesn’t do much. It’s not supposed to do much. But it’s one powerful tool if you wish to drive nails into a hard surface. It is built for one function, and its the best at doing that.
Now let’s compare it with a swiss-army knife. A swiss-army knife is a lot of tools put together inside a central holder, for the sole purpose of being “multi-function”. Imagine right now, all the small tools in your kitchen coming together, combining into one product. That’s the wonderful swiss-army knife.
Unless the world is ending right now and you need to grab something in order to survive in the jungle for a period of time, you might need the swiss-army knife. We all see in movies how the hero manages to survive against all odds of nature, all with funky, unreliable objects able to build rafts and boats or start a fire.
That’s also the one tool that every macho male has but never uses it. When was the last time you saw somebody use the little scissors on the swiss-army knife to cut something? Or the can opener to open something? Or the tweezers to tweeze something?
You never. It’s bought and used maybe once or twice, then thrown away in the drawers and forgotten. Why is it so?
The answer is simple. Because nobody wants a wide array of tools that does barely one half of its job. The swiss-army is a collection of tools of average ability.
There is no power in a bunch of average tools. If I wanted to cut my nails, I use the nail clipper, it’s built to do it best. If I want to open a can, I use the can opener. Not 1/4 of a can opener that opens after a dozen tries. If I want to cut something, I bring a scissors. Not 1/4 of a scissors with 3 pound of irrelevant tools dangling on its side as a distraction and the scissors barely does its job.
This is where the hammer triumphs over the swiss-army knife. While it does only one thing, it does it the best.
A swiss-army knife is a tool that does many things but not one well.
With people, we normally call these them “jack of all trades master of none”.
Power of a focus
You can apply this into any of your life and it works wonders. I call it the power of focus. I’m no mathematician, but if somebody asked me if there’s a formula of power I would say it’s derived from organized effort.
Power = organized effort.
Every cell in the hammer is organized for one sole function. When you drive the hammer down the nail, you are multiplying the force instantly. A 1/4 hammer cannot do that.
Like I’ve mentioned because this principle can be applied to anything. It can be applied to marketing and your advertising efforts.
Are you focusing your advertising resources into one definite, attainable aim? Like the hammer, your force multiplies in use and your end result is inevitable.
Are you trying to drive sales, but decided to split your budget so that you can drive some email sign-ups on the sidelines?
Do you have a separate budget dedicated to email signups?
Do you have a separate budget for ads shown in content sites?
Whatever most valuable for your business should have your undivided attention. To have undivided attention or the Power of organized effort requires sacrifice.
The greatest things come to those who sacrifice!
Energy cannot be dissipated and be useful.
Marketing resources should be concentrated and directed
In order to be of any good use. You blur the background to focus on the objective. And you take aim at the objective.
It really depends on what is your objectives and goals are as a business. Once you have a target, you have something to judge your results against. Any shot that doesn’t land on the red circle is a miss. Whereas if you shoot without a target, any shot can be a good shot.
I believe that all great advertising campaigns are driven behind a definite aim. There is power in a concentrated effort. You can apply force at face value or tenfold it.
Sacrifice is a worthy topic of discussion. There is no marketing focus when there is no sacrifice.
The value of concentrated effort
Therefore, focus is the result of sacrifices made.
The more sacrifices you make, the more focus you have. Having 5 goals is an advertising campaign is not as powerful as having 1. Your efforts dissipate into different directions when they could have worked together to deliver something valuable.
Put a piece of paper under a hot sun and nothing happens. Because energy is dissipated, there is no power.
But if you put a magnifying glass upon an object under the sun and power begins immediately acting on it. You will observe how quickly it burns. This is because the glass concentrates the heat from the sun onto one small area, and it immediately burns due to the power of “concentrated effort”.
The same analogy applies when in your business or advertising efforts. Every campaign should have a core concept, an objective as the campaign goal.
What is the goal of this campaign? Why is it being created? For what purposes? If there is a purpose then; is it fulfilling its purposes? How successful or unsuccessful is it in attaining the goal?
When you add 5 to 5 you get 10. But when you put the power of 5 to 5, you get 3125. That is the difference between a swiss-army knife and the power of a hammer. The same numbers, when used differently can produce drastically different results.
Nothing succeeds in life, or in business, like a carefully selected, chiseled focus.
