I imagine many people have heard the saying “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” That phrase comes from a longer passage written by Ralph Waldo Emmerson in the nineteenth century.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American poet, philosopher and essayist and he actually wrote the following lines.
“If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse trap than his neighbour, tho’ he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.”
Now I am sure this gentleman was a very eminent and erudite man of letters, but in this particular instance, Mr Emerson was talking through his hat.
The roads to disappointment, financial ruin, and despair are paved with the broken dreams of people who had a great idea but did not know how to tell the world. And when we say, tell the world, we actually mean advertising and marketing.
However, hiding a good idea in a house in the woods and waiting for the world to beat a path to the door of a hopeful entrepreneur is not the only way to stop a good idea from flourishing.
How to Avoid Failure
There are several ways to ensure a good idea will fail. One of them is to use the wrong method of marketing, another is to pick the right method but fail to give it time to work.
The marketing I am talking about here is direct marketing and direct marketing that delivers the message through the prospects letterbox. Either by direct mail or door drop distribution.
It is understood that some things should not be marketed by direct mail and other things that should not be marketed by way of door drops.
However, many would be entrepreneurs will select the correct marketing plan for their product but will give up at the first hurdle. They will send out or distribute a small number of leaflets or letters and when they receive no response will give up convinced that direct marketing does not work.
The reason this happens is they have taken bad advice or no advice at all. They fall into the trap of thinking that direct marketing is easy because on the surface it does look easy. But those who have succeeded in direct marketing have either learned it the hard way or sought expert advice.
Therefore, someone with a good idea or product should not sit in their house in the woods waiting for the world to beat a path to their door because the world will not. The budding tycoon will have to beat many paths to their prospective customer’s doors, and those many paths will lead to the customer’s letterboxes.
However, before they start on that journey, they should seek advice from people who know how to beat those paths to the doors and letterboxes of customers.
