Let me tell you a story.

The other day it was a beautiful day. The wife and I decided that we needed to go out and enjoy the nice weather since it has been raining so much lately. Now my wife being the athlete she is decided she wanted to go to the batting cages. Now in case you don’t know what a “batting cage” is it is a place where you pay a few quarters and a baseball or softball pitching machine throws a ball and you are able to hit it with a bat. The ball stays in a netted area so you don’t have to retrieve baseballs or softballs.

(If you have never done it I suggest you go and do it. It really is pretty fun, but be careful because you can easily pull muscles in your back or side if you swing too hard.)

Well this day there was a father, a mother, and their two daughters. One of the daughters was trying to hit balls and had a very poor batting stance. Now let me just stop right here and say that I know very little about the mechanics of hitting a softball or a baseball. And here is the point. I didn’t or don’t really have to know.

The father was saying “swing” and the daughter would swing away, rarely making contact. She was off balance and it does not take an expert to tell that she was not very athletic and didn’t know what she was doing.

The father had a nasty tone to him and kept on telling her that she was doing it wrong. Then, I couldn’t believe what they did next. They moved to the faster batting section. Yes, that is right. He changed the environment completely. Not only that, but he put her in an even more difficult environment than the one she had been striking out in.

So at this point you may be thinking what in the world does this have to do with your business?

Here it is plain and simple.

All this girl and her father had to do was open their eyes. Right there, not even 15 feet away, were people hitting the balls on a regular basis. All he had to do was have her stop, go outside the cage, and watch the people who were successfully hitting the balls. And then all she had to do was model their movements. She needed to bend her knees a bit more, and shift her weight a bit differently. She needed to swing at the ball outside the cage and pretend she was hitting it, with the new stance.

It was right there in front of their eyes. Now I don’t blame the girl for this. However, I would hold the father responsible, because he wasn’t approaching this situation with a plan or a system. As he left he said, “Let’s get the hell out of here” in a disgusted tone. My guess is sports came naturally to him and he just couldn’t understand why his daughter couldn’t “just do it.” And the thing is, she could if she just practiced the fundamentals a bit.

So, if you haven’t picked it up yet, here it is for you. Watch and study people who are successful in business. Model them. Now before you instantly start buying billboards or $10,000 a month yellow page ads, stop and do some research. Find out how longthey have been using this media to market.

Because they might be striking out more than making contact. So before you model someone else, make sure you understand what they are truly doing, instead of just imitating them exactly. The person might have gotten lucky and if things change in his business he might be out quickly.

So… STOP, Look, Listen, and model the successful people. As you learn a new model, practice it for a while. Don’t try changing things constantly or going to a different model if you don’t have the fundamentals down. That won’t solve a thing.

Oh, and once you get your swing down….swing for the fences! But don’t forget that base hits, doubles, and triples are very valuable too!

Have a good one. I’m off to put a heating pad on my soar back!

-Matt