Karma, Dharma, Ted Mack and American Idol.

The great granddaddy of today’s popular American Idol television show was the classic Original Amateur Hour that had its beginnings in the earliest days of American radio and television. Its bloodline, however, goes even further back to Major Bowes Amateur Hour, a staple of the radio airwaves from 1934 to 1945.

In the 1950’s it evolved into Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour who used a spinning wheel to determine the talent's order of appearance and uttered the now classic words, “Round and round she goes, and where she stops nobody knows." This variety show/talent search genre also produced offspring and another classic in its own right, Star Search, which begat many local and regional community audition versions such as Star of the Day. The tradition rolls on to today’s American Idol and America’s Got Talent and a boatload of sub-specialty shows searching for dance and singing talents in many genres.

Now, for a little side trip; karma is defined as the effects of a person's good or bad actions that determined their destiny in their next rebirth or incarnation. While, dharma, which also comes from Hinduism, is believed to be that which comes from the Divine and leads the believer to the Divine; it is the principle or law that orders the universe. “Round and round she goes, and where she stops nobody knows."

I’ve always thought that perceptions foster thoughts. Thoughts lead to actions. Actions become behaviors. Behaviors comfortable become habits. Habits thoughtlessly become part of our culture. Cultures define societies. Societies define the framework of consciousness. Consciousness reveals true wants and needs. Wants and needs form perceptions and round and round she goes. Everything then is connected somehow and in some way, as illustrated by the old Want of a Nail rhyme which is incorrectly attributed to Shakespeare’s Richard III and has erroneously gone round and round as such. It came from a 14th-Century proverb Benjamin Franklin recalled in his Poor Richard's Almanack. Good or bad actions or intentions and the order of the Universe. “Round and round she goes, and where she stops nobody knows."

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

And since this blog is supposed to be about marketing - for the want of a nail - is your business enterprise missing a nail, or two? How do you know? Can you afford to wait until a shoe, a horse and a rider are lost? Is your organization’s performance the result of luck, chance or destiny? Luck is timing. Chance is opportunity. Destiny is – more on that a bit later. Round and round, indeed; until this very moment I wasn’t aware of the following unattributed quote:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

Wow! Forrest Gump said, towards the end of the movie of the same name, "Jenny, I don't know if mama was right, or if it's Lieutenant Dan, I don't know if we each have a destiny or if we're all just floatin' around accidental like on a breeze... but I think, maybe it's both. Maybe both are happening at the same time..." Destiny then, is the result of everything you do. Marketing teaches us that businesses have a four stage life-cycle.

But first, let’s look at what has been referred to as the ‘I Had No Idea" syndrome coined by David Birch, a former head of a small business research firm to demonstrate how little many entrepreneurs know about running a business. According to Birch the business failure rate is highest in the first year but businesses that make it to year five have a fifty-fifty chance.

• First year: 85%
• Second: 70%
• Third: 62%
• Fourth: 55%
• Fifth: 50%
• Sixth: 47%
• Seventh: 44%
• Eighth: 41%
• Ninth: 38%
• Tenth: 35%

The new or introductory stage causes many entrepreneurs plenty of sleepless nights filled with fears, some unfounded, an impending sense of urgency fueled by the unknown and by their inexperience. And, of course, there are the countless nagging doubts of whether or not the venture will survive and eventually deliver some level of profitability.

Eventually the business will enter the third or maturity stage and this is where perfectly healthy businesses can go as bad as an American Idol audition because “…just floatin' around accidental like on a breeze...” and, not paying attention will bring the business to the fourth and final stage; decline. The German word kline means small in English. How appropriate is it that a business in decline gets smaller and smaller until it is no more?

So, if dharma is what comes from the divine and leads us to the divine or, one's righteous duty then, in order for a business to be successful and prosper, it must have and objective – a plan. The plan has to define the reason as to why the organization is in or does business. It must also consider the purpose of its existence, which is completely based on serving a specific customer base. And finally, the business plan must consider what direction success will take the enterprise towards. Forrest asked his mother, “What's my destiny, Mama?” She replied, “You're gonna have to figure that out for yourself.” Or, with blatant self-promotion, call a marketing engineer.