Do Your Best

Today's Marketing Cookie is asking you to make it happen and do your best—as only you can. Sometimes in marketing, we face an impossible challenge, and we can already see that whatever we had planned is not going to work out. In that defining moment, you reach down for that something extra and do your best.

When you are standing on the trade show floor and you've just been informed that your beautiful new booth is not going to arrive, you need to improvise. You don't give up! You call a local furniture store, rent a beautiful couch, a coffee table, and four really comfortable chairs, and create an inviting living room where your booth would have been. To your delight, the attendees really appreciate an opportunity to sit down, give their feet some relief, and talk with you for a moment. You have several meaningful conversations. While everyone else has a booth, fancy graphics, and video screens, you stood out by offering a place to sit down. By the end of the show, you have collected four times as many leads as expected, and you saved the day. This is what it means to do your best to make it happen.

During the Battle of Gettysburg, a Union Colonel and his road-weary soldiers from Maine held a rocky hilltop that turned the tide of the Civil War and set the South on an irreversible path of defeat. The Colonel's name was Joshua Chamberlain, and he was given the 20th Regiment of Maine, which was a unit made up of a collection of leftover soldiers from other regiments. He originally departed Maine with 1,621 men, but by the time they got to Pennsylvania, only 266 remained.

A few days before the battle at Gettysburg ensued, 120 three-year veterans from Maine had defected, were captured, and brought to Chamberlain to be executed. He realized that he grew up near the town where they were from and sympathized with the mutineers. Instead of shooting them, he fed them. He offered them a chance to join his ranks.

His mission was to stop the Confederates from taking an area called "Little Round Top" as this was the far left of the Union line. His orders were to hold this ground at all costs because if the South broke through his position, they would be able to flank the Union army. Joshua and his 366 misfit soldiers from Maine held off wave after wave of attack until eventually, they had run out of ammunition.

Knowing that the South would soon come at them again, Chamberlain ordered the men to affix their bayonets. When the Confederates got close enough to see their faces, Chamberlain shouted "Charge!" and his men ran down the hill toward the opposition. During the charge, the Confederate front line and reserves all fired their guns at Joshua and his men, who came down on them with only bayonets. After emptying their guns, the Confederates were overwhelmed by the charge and surrendered. The Confederates were taken prisoner at gunpoint, even though none of the guns were loaded.

I realize that the challenges we face in marketing are hardly like the life and death choices made on the battlefield, but I believe both provide an opportunity for you to show what you are made of. We must become heroes when the situation seems hopeless and find a solution to problems when we are without resources. Whether you are at a trade show without a booth or defending "Little Round Top" without any ammunition, you must do your best to make it happen!