Frequency is more important than Reach

Frequency is more important than Reach. This one concept can drastically improve your effectiveness in every area of your life; your business, your relationships, your job, your love life, and your ability to raise effective children. Hit the same tree with the same axe in the same place. Tell fewer people your message more times. Cut your territory in half and call on your customers twice as often. Buy the same woman flowers for several holidays in a row. Do fewer thing more times, and spend time listening to those you value as often as possible.

As children we do this instinctively, but by the time we can see over the kitchen counter we have it well unlearned. Our business struggles so we expand our territory. Friends become a commodity we must quantify. Our ads cry out to farther clients. We attempt to free ourselves from chronic overwhelm by doing more of what got us there in the first place – expanding our reach. The more we lack, the more we believe that reach will give us what we need. This illusion may have dashed more potent dreams than any other. Look around you, fraudulent corporate investments, the failing businesses, failing marriages, failing political systems, failing health, failing dreams, and failing lives. Henry Thoreau lived on a few square yards, why do we crave an empire? We thrive in frequency.

As the ground becomes barren we must expand the farm, we think. But each new quarter-section is farther from the barn, closer to someone else’s barn, and infinitely more difficult to water. The demands of reach expand exponentially, yet our thirst is never quenched. Take care of home. Do more at home. Think more at home. Be more at home. We thrive close to home. Your kids know this. If you are too wise to believe them, try to beat me at Risk?

Frequency is more important than Reach.