Not Far from the Tree

A Tale of Two Tries

August 2009

Issue # 15

It all starts with an idea.

I mean that. Everything we do starts with an idea. The idea is the easy part. Then comes the execution.

Way back in 2004, I decided I wanted to climb all of the fourteen-thousand-foot mountains in Colorado. Easy to conceive, but hard to execute with three children and a busy work life.

In April, I set out on a gorgeous Friday to climb Mt. Bierstadt up near Denver, Colorado. It's a relatively easy climb. This 14,060' mountain is only about a 7-mile round trip with 2,850 feet of elevation gain. By 14er standards, that is pretty easy. (Pikes Peak, for example, is about 26 miles round trip.)

But I forgot to take into account some difficulties. In April, the snow is not necessarily gone from the mountain ranges. In fact, it can be quite deep.

I also didn't consider the construction on the Guanella Pass Road. They were closing the road every night and during certain times of the day.

So when I left my home at 3:00 a.m. on April 28, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I arrived at about 6:00 a.m. and found the road closed. I actually turned around to go home. Then I realized that it was supposed to be open according to the signs, so I just followed a construction truck into the area.

I got past the construction and drove toward the trailhead. But I could only get within three miles of the trailhead because of the snow. It was now 6:30 a.m. (an hour and a half later than my planned start time). Decision time; turn around and go home or strap on the snow shoes and give it a try? (Insert Jeopardy music.) After some thought, I decided it was worth giving it a shot. I was completely by myself, blazing a path through virgin snow on my Cabela's snowshoes.

Snow shoeing is miserable!

12 miles of snowshoeing is desperately miserable.

Turning around at 12,500 feet, not making the summit, and then having to hike back to your truck with a sense of failure and exhaustion is desperately, horribly, exhaustingly miserable!

I didn't make it. In fact, by the time I got home, a tendon in my foot swelled up and pressed on a nerve. I was in the second-worst pain I've ever experienced, and it lasted for three days. I couldn't walk and I couldn't sleep. That seemed a fitting end to my trip.

So I planned another trip to Bierstadt because that just wouldn't do.

On July 3rd, I attempted the mountain again. But I changed a few things, correcting my mistakes. First, there is very little snow in July. I was able to drive straight to the trailhead. I left my house at 2:15 a.m. I also approached the mountain from the other side of the pass, avoiding the construction entirely. I reached the trailhead at 5:00 a.m. and set out.

By 6:00 a.m., I was as high as I had gotten in April. By 7:30 a.m., I was on the summit, the first person of the day. This was an entirely different experience. On the way down, I encountered at least 30 people who were also making their way to the summit.

But that difference is where we can learn a lesson about eNewsletters. eNewsletters start with an idea. An idea to help your business connect with new and repeat customers. By marketing standards, a newsletter is pretty easy. But it still takes work.

We plan our newsletter, we design the layout, we think about topics, we develop a list, we launch the newsletter and the result is that we can't walk for three days. In other words, sometimes an eNewsletter is just work. We work hard to connect and it is just a struggle that seems not really to work. You feel like a lonely soul struggling on snowshoes to make progress, and it is slow and painful and hard.

But if you want to execute your idea, the idea that got you started, you can't give up. Because an electronic newsletter really is the least time-consuming, least costly, and most effective marketing tool available. Make a few changes. Try a different topic. Send your newsletter out at a different time. Change your format. Whatever you do, if you keep going back to the mountain, you will eventually connect with your target audience and things will get a lot easier.

And the crowds will follow. You will develop a connection with the people you are trying to reach and you will connect with like-minded folks who want the services you offer. The mountain will still be a mountain, but it will seem a lot easier.

The bottom line is that the only failure you'll experience with an eNewsletter is giving up. If it doesn't work the first time, change a couple of things and try again. Make corrections. Experiment. But most important, keep trying.

Remember: The perfect is the enemy of the good. (Voltaire)