Why aren't our numbers going up?

I stared at the numbers on the screen. They were not going up. I hit refresh. They stayed the same.

It was back during COVID and as much as I wanted to blame the pandemic — the truth was that the reason for our numbers not going up was that I was just not that good at promotion.

Give me data and I’d go nuts analyzing it. I’d understand it and pull out insights.

But there was no data to analyze — just a flat line.

That was the moment I admitted to myself that I was terrible at marketing.

Once I admitted it, I felt relief. Now I could stop pretending and get to work.

So I started talking to people.

I talked to runners and asked why they would join a run group or sign up for a race.

I talked to race directors and learned about their biggest challenges.

I talked to marketing experts and learned how they successfully promoted brands products, and events.

I learned a lot!

Not only about promotion, but also about what people care about and what they truly want.

I kept in mind 3 pieces of advice from Ray Dalio’s best seller Principles:

1. Be radically open minded

2. Don’t get hung up on your views of how things “should” be because you will miss out on learning how they really are

3. Don’t worry about looking good — worry instead about achieving your goals

Slowly, I got a bit better at marketing. Or at least, less bad.

I don’t say this to brag, I’m telling you this because race directors ask me all the time, "How do I grow my race?" 

And many follow it up with, "I'm just not a marketing person."

Neither was I.

But you don't need to be. You just need to be open minded — and willing to ask.

If a boring finance guy can get better at promoting races, you can too.

— Ian

Grow Your Race with Price Increases

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