Be Patient – Just Gimme a Minute

Right now I find my patience is wearing thin in nearly every aspect of my life. Collectively, patience has been in a steady state of decline — and the state of current events is only exacerbating this.

In the business world patience is anathema. I love Gary Vaynerchuck’s view of patience. It’s the long game. It’s listening deeply and responding with the intent of being helpful in a meaningful way. Which is why I cringed last night at the barrage of marketing automation I brought on myself.

Being curious of how others use marketing tools, I signed up for a “free” course from an ad I was served up in Instagram. Three screens in and I got to the point I expected, the payment method where there was small type telling me that I’ll be happily charged $69.99 quarterly. Sorry, I don’t know what funnel I fell into — a tripwire, membership, squeeze page…. It turned into the “Oh, crap! What did I just do!?” funnel.

Rather than plug in my card number I became a cart abandoner. No sooner did I close the window did  I get surrounded. For those of you familiar with The Office may remember the WUPHF technology developed by Ryan the intern. For those of you not familiar, here’s a 30 second video that you will appreciate.

So with clicking the close button on the form I immediately received an email detailing how I only had 2 hours to sign up or forever lose out on this amazing deal. 10 seconds later I received a text telling me there were only 9 spots available (TO AN ONLINE RECORDED COURSE!!). And the all-time capper, I received a phone call with a creepy cobbled together computer-generated voice telling me how I was missing out. Mind you, this was for a course on how to do online marketing.

Clearly, patience is unnecessary in the world of online training? But maybe you can set your triggers to, I don’t know, something longer than 5 seconds apart? 

Now, maybe the courses really are phenomenal. But the lack of patience exhibited in their marketing delivered a message that seemed at best desperate and at worst, predatory.

Even before the world was turned upside down, these tactics would have seemed unsavory. But people’s psyches have been knocked down a few rungs on Maslow’s pyramid. There’s a flight to safety and the only way you can be positioned as being the safe choice is to practice patience (hopefully you already have been). 

Don’t let the current short term pain pressure you into rushing your communications. Patience is most definitely a virtue – one that will pay off in the long term.