Welcome to your bi-annual reality check. If you’re looking for sugar-coated advice, this isn’t it. This is your uncomfortable reminder that patience isn’t just a virtue in marketing—it’s a survival skill.

Here’s the truth: if you let impatience dictate your strategy, you might as well take all the work you’ve poured into your business and toss it into the garbage. Success doesn’t come from shortcuts; it comes from staying the course when every instinct tells you to pivot or quit.

Let’s face it: mastery takes time.

• Think about slow-cooked barbecue. The best pitmasters don’t crank up the heat and hope for the best. They let the meat marinate and cook low and slow. It’s a painstaking process, but the payoff is fall-off-the-bone perfection.
• Or consider weight loss. Even with the magic of medications like Ozempic, results don’t appear overnight. You can’t undo years of habits in weeks. Change requires consistent effort over months.
• Take farmers as an example. They don’t plant seeds one day and expect a harvest the next. They nurture their crops with water, fertilizer, and sunlight. It’s months of effort before they see the fruits of their labor.

Marketing is no different. The best strategies need time to marinate, evolve, and yield results. Giving up too early is like pulling a plant out of the soil to check if it’s growing. Spoiler alert: you’ll kill it.

The Hard Data: Patience Wins

RAIN Group’s research tells us it takes, on average, 8 touches to land an initial meeting with a prospect. Most people cling to the “Rule of 7” as if the seventh touch magically transforms a lead into a lifelong customer. It doesn’t. That’s just the start of the relationship.

Here’s the breakdown of how many touches it typically takes, depending on where prospects are in the funnel:

• Inactive customers: 1-3 touches.
• Warm inbound leads: 5-12 touches.
• Cold prospects: 20-50 touches.

That’s not marketing hyperbole—it’s the reality of building relationships and earning trust.

The Fatal Mistake

Too many companies throw in the towel before the seeds they’ve planted have had a chance to grow. They send three emails, post a couple of social media ads, or run one campaign and call it quits when the results aren’t immediate. This mindset isn’t just flawed; it’s fatal.

If you’re not willing to play the long game, you’ll lose to competitors who are. Period.

Your Championship Mentality

If you want championship-level results, you need a championship mentality. Champions don’t quit when progress feels slow. They double down, refine their strategy, and trust the process.

• Be relentless. Show up, even when it feels like no one is paying attention.
• Be disciplined. Follow through with your strategy, even when the results seem elusive.
• Be patient. Great things take time—so give them the time they deserve.

Today’s effort plants the seeds for tomorrow’s success. Abandon those efforts too soon, and you’ll never know what could’ve been.

This is your moment to recommit, refocus, and dig in. So stay the course, and watch what happens when your persistence pays off. Are you in?