The following is an excerpt from The 7 Keys to Marketing Genius by Michael Daehn

You cannot rest on the laurels of past achievement. To be successful in the long term, you must continually evaluate (Key 6) and improve your marketing efforts. Past accomplishments will not assure future success. As Janet Jackson put it, “What have you done for me lately?” Some companies fall into this trap by creating line extensions. They try to play on the success of a previous brand instead of doing the hard work of applying these seven keys to a new product. There are no shortcuts, and past praise will not provide future sales.

In hockey the best teams are disciplined and the players take short 40- to 50-second shifts. A professional team will have four lines of players that take turns on the ice. In hockey a shift on the ice takes the energy of sprinting a 100-yard dash. The best players give everything they have and use all of their energy. As a coach, I want my players to come to the bench tired because that means they used everything on the ice. Each line skates their hardest and comes to the bench for a short rest.

In marketing you should either keep playing hard or go to the bench and have a seat. To go through the motions or coast around because you scored a goal last week will not cut it. Marketing requires all your energy and resources. If you do not put everything into your efforts or rely on yesterday’s victories, I guarantee you will lose today.