Practice Makes Perfect.

Today's Marketing Cookie is about perfecting your craft.

I've learned that success is not a "someday" destination, but rather an everyday practice... and practice makes perfect.

I think it's funny how we call a doctor who treats patients a "practicing physician." Do we really want a doctor to be "practicing" when we are lying unconscious on their operating table? It may be a funny way to describe the experts in our society, but my answer is "yes."

The same is true in marketing. Every professional marketer who joins the American Marketing Association is referred to as a marketing practitioner. We are actively engaged in our profession and are continuously practicing our craft. The more practice we have, the more exceptions we've seen, and the more prepared we are to succeed.

Achieving automatic success requires a lot of manual effort. You may be surprised how much time, trial and error it actually takes to discover a few victories. So, when you come up empty on something you thought would work, don't worry. Beautiful successes often hide behind the ugliest errors. I know because I've found them hiding there a few times when I was cleaning up the messes I've made.

Keep working at it every day, and keep practicing in every way. While it may be true that success is reserved for those who ask better questions, if you keep at it, you will begin to come up with much better answers. Every day of practice has the potential of adding another victory, and as today's fortune says, "Success is an accumulation of successful days."