Have you ever been jarred awake by the sound of a leaf blower? Not too pleasant is it? Leaf blowers are definitely high on the noise index, but low on the productivity scale. After all, what does a leaf blower do? It blows leaves around--it doesn't gather them, or suck them up, it just moves them from place to place.

As I was watching a gardener use his leaf-blower several times over a four-hour span, making noise and not accomplishing ANYTHING, it occurred to me that the people paying for his services were really wasting their money. First, he kept doing the same thing, over and over, without actually creating any change. Second, he <em>seemed</em> to be busy and not to be accomplishing much. Third, he was taking the easy way out, yet at more expense. The harder and cheaper way would be to use a rake and gather the leaves to then dispose of.  He was wasting resources (time, gas) and accomplishing little or nothing.

Since this is not a gardening blog, you know where I am headed with this. Are you using a leaf-blower for your marketing efforts? Are you making lots of noise but not actually getting things done? Are you moving paper around but not actually getting to closing? Are you doing the same thing over and over with minimal or no results?

Just like leaf blowers are annoying and pretty useless in gardens throughout the country, loud and untargeted marketing efforts are pointless exercises that create noise and don't communicate. Next time you launch a marketing campaign or create a marketing piece, ask yourself, is this at all like a leaf-blower or is it a rake? After all, rakes are useful, cheap and get the job done with minimal noise.

&nbsp;