Stay out there, the runs will come
On the one principle that keeps me going in these strange times
“Evolutionary change was once hailed as the hallmark of success. We now know better: the successful are the ones that last” - Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines.
I wasn’t a particularly good marketer when I started.
I had talent, sure. But I didn’t put them to use for a long while.
I was young, but that’s not an excuse. That’s not how the world works. The world doesn’t wait for you to grow up and do your job, so it can applaud you for it.
And for a long time, I simply wasn’t good enough.
Except I stuck at it. I knew I wasn’t doing well, but for reasons I can’t really fathom now, I kept doing it. I kept turning up, I kept getting jobs that I really wasn’t ready for.
And then I got lucky.
I found an environment and a culture that made me better than I was. I found a niche I was really good at. I was smart enough to know when to dig in, which I did. I found my feet then, and my confidence.
And because I had put in my time, because I knew what the wrong way to do things was, I got it right.
But without all those days of not being very good, that would never have happened. If I hadn’t been armed with the experience and the understanding I had arrived at after years of being average, I would not have been able to get better at all.
I played cricket all through school and college, without ever taking it too seriously. I was a bowler, a fairly good one, and took memorable wickets in school games. That was all.
Until I went to business school, in a university with a lovely cricket ground enveloped by hills. I started playing regularly, and realised I was better than I thought I was. A few good games later, I was in contention for the intra-university games.
But playing against much better bowlers at that level meant that I had to get ready to bat too, or I could get hurt. I had an okay technique, but it was only good for a quick 20 or 30.
This was when the coach, the first one I ever had, told me something as he assessed the team’s collective batting prowess. “Just stay out there” he said, “the runs will come.”
I wasn’t really paying attention, but I heard that little line.
The next practice game was on a cloudy Sunday morning and our lineup promptly collapsed. I found myself batting with the team 7 down for nothing, and with more than 15 overs to bat out. The first two or three balls, I slogged, as usual, and got a couple of blows on my body. I realised that this was not going to be easy, nor was it going to be fun. The bowling was good, the conditions favoured them. But there was a job to do: there were 15 overs to bat. Not batting them out would be criminal. I loved the game enough to know that much.
So I resolved to stay out there, as my coach had said. I forgot about runs, and curbed my natural inclination to swing for the hills. I just batted. I got hit some more. I blocked a good bowler out, told my partner to give me the strike (he was worse). I batted on, got hit, got a few singles, and my partner got in on the act too, blocking and stealing singles. Steadily the score rose, and I got used to the pace of the wicket. I drove one for a boundary. I batted on.
We got to a score of 150 or so, and in the 25th over, the final one, I decided I had had enough. I swung at one and got out. I don’t remember how many I made, but I remember my teammates clapping when I came off. I had turned a disaster into a respectable total.
Back in my hostel room, I undressed carefully, knowing what I would find all over my body: bruises, black and blue, in various stages of pain and colour. But I was 22, young and strong, and I forgot about those in a couple of days.
What I would not forget was the lesson: Stay out there, the runs will come.
It has been rough these last few months. At least twice I felt exhausted and burnt out enough to talk to close friends about taking a break. I even thought that I should talk to my boss about a longer break.
But there was a pile of work to do, and people trusted me to do it. So I turned up. On several days I wasn’t at 100%. I turned up and went through the motions, at least helping my team with their tasks. I have a wonderful team - hard working, dedicated, and ambitious - and I owed it to them to at least be there for them, if not for myself. So I turned up. And I kept turning up.
Until, after a while, without knowing it, I was back where I needed to be. Until I realised that - hey, the team seems to be in a good place, and we seem to going in the right direction - both things that can be celebrated in my still short time at imocha.
I did two things in that time - one, told my team they could take mental health days off without needing to give me an explanation; two, I lowered some expectations I had from myself about what I wanted to achieve this year. It’s the least I could do for the team and myself in a year that has had no mercy on our minds and our bodies.
After a very rough three month period, imocha’s revenues are back. Leads are coming in faster, our plans are working, and new strategies are forming. My team and I are executing much faster than we were. By the end of the year, we look set to double our revenue from March, which is a big deal.
Credit for these successes go mostly to my bosses, the founders of imocha. But for what we have been able to do as a marketing team, I have only one secret. It’s simple, really, how I kept myself together, and in doing so, tried to keep my team happy and sane in an atmosphere like this.
I stayed out there, and the runs came.