Our society is addicted to instant.  Instant weight loss, instant food, instant shopping, instant health, and instant happiness.  The problem is nothing in life is instant.  Almost everything good and bad takes time. 

We don't get fat overnight, and expecting to get thin in a week or two sets us up for failure.  When we rely on fast food our health and wallets suffer and we lose valuable skills like making good dietary choices and cooking nutritious food.  Instant shopping with all the "Don't Pay a Cent" event offerings fill our homes with things we don't need, most likely don't want, and ultimately leave us horribly in debt and stressed to the gills.  Our desire for instant and effortless health has us running to our doctor for another prescription rather than finding and dealing with the true cause of our pain and ill health.  Expectations of instant happiness has us wasting our time on cheap entertainment while squandering our precious relationships.

Businesses are also addicted to the instant myth.  They will put a lot of effort into one marketing campaign.  A newspaper or magazine ad, a direct mailing campaign, one trade show.  They expect new customers to beat down their door after one exposure, and are confused and upset when they get little or no response.  They believe that marketing is a waste of time and money.

This is a hard lesson to learn, but it is worth more than you can possibly imagine.  People very, very rarely make any decision instantly.  They take time to evaluate, most of it completely unconsciously, before they choose to do anything.  Our lives are so busy and overflowing with marketing messages that we don't even "see" more than a tiny fraction of it.  If we only see something once, unless we are specifically looking for it it is completely invisible to us.  We need to be repeatedly exposed to something before we can decide on anything.

Patience and ongoing effort is the only way to success in anything.  Our prospects need to trust that we are serious, diligent, and planning on sticking around before they can safely risk trying us out.  We all know businesses and individuals in business that are here today and gone tomorrow.  We don't like dealing with a revolving door, and will hold back to see if they have staying power.  Dripping slowly over time gives our prospects time to "see" our business and get comfortable with the idea of doing business with us.

Take time to choose the marketing stream that fits best with who you are trying to attract, your budget, and your business style.  Pick one or two networking groups and regularly attend rather than showing up once to 20 different ones.  Choose one newspaper or magazine and have an ad in there every week or every month instead of haphazard.  Decide on a direct mail campaign and send out six or more letters or post cards over a few months rather than sending out one to a huge list.

The journey may be slow, but by staying on the path, and consistently moving forward you will achieve success.  Remember that overnight success stories usually take 20 years to accomplish.