Last week I took my baby boy with me while I went to a local salon to get my toes done. I was getting all dolled up for a date with my husband – the Stevie Nicks concert at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe. As my weary feet got a lift, so did my spirit as the technician told me a story that I will never forgot.
She said that in Mexico there is a saying that, “A new baby always brings something new – good luck. Babies never come into this world alone. They always arrive carrying a package tucked under their arm. Within a short time of having the baby you will have good fortune, which usually takes the form of a large sum of money. However, the good luck can flow into your life in the form of new business, winning something, or other good fortune.” Being the good market researcher that I am, I looked this up and sure enough, in Spanish the saying is, “”el nuevo bebe siempre trae la torta bajo el brazo.” Taken literally, “a new baby always carries a torta under its arm.”
Now, for anyone who knows me, I LOVE food, and tortas are some of my favorite things to order at a Mexican restaurant. So, I looked at my son and reflected over the past 7 weeks since he had been born to assess the accuracy of this wives’ tale. All in all, good fortune has come with the new baby as I have:
- welcomed family and friends into my hospital room and our home to meet the new baby and to catch up on life. Once of these dear friends said something very powerful to me, along the lines of the glass is half-full, that I had not heard in these terms before, “Our lives are filled with the abundance of the Universe which will come to us if we are open to it.”
- had the pleasure of welcoming a friend and colleague of mine on the Professional Chapters Council of the American Marketing Association, DJ Heckes CEO of EXHIB-IT! (tradeshow marketing experts) and author of Full BRAIN Marketing for the small business, as a client to market her new book
- worked with affable graphic designer Karin Wilson of Wild Woman Design to ghost write some of her blog articles and she has helped me with my new website
- worked with talented artist and illustrator Kevn (not a typo!) Lambson of Idear Studios LLC to help market and launch a new project and he has helped me with my new website
- had the pleasure of my mom coming to help me with the baby and my other children for the past nine weeks, which is the longest I have spent with her since moving away to college. It has been so nice to have the company as I work from home. I thank God that I still have my mom here on earth to experience the joy of her grandchildren.
I know you are asking yourselves, “what on earth does this have to do with marketing?” Until the technician told me this story, I had not taken a good look at all the wonderful things that had happened over the last seven weeks as daily life – and a little sleep deprivation – got in the way. Often times when we start a marketing campaign or a new marketing endeavor, we are all excited about its “birth.” We get caught up in the creative process, the execution, and the thrill of doing something new. However, we can get distracted and forget to purposely, consciously take account of the “torta.” It is our obligation as marketers to study and record the results of what our marketing projects bring into our world.
How will you document your marketing results today?