If you’ve ever been to a Scottish wedding, parade or Curling match or maybe you’ve watched Braveheart more times than you can remember – you know what bagpipes sound like. This twangy, folksy instrument can lull the average Scottsman into a dreamlike trance dreaming of Haggis and Robbie Burns.

If you’ve ever listened to a live piper do his thing, you will notice that before he actually gets into the proper tune, the bagpipes let out a 2-5 second drone as the bag fills itself with air to reach the proper pressure. There’s no escaping this moment of drone, not even for the most experienced pipers, so instead of expecting greatness we have come to embrace those 5 or so seconds as an anticipation for the tune to come.

As 2010 rolled in this week, I heard a Bagpiped rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” on the radio. Not only did the realization hit that it was now time to shed the holiday laziness and lethargy and get back to work, but I immediately began to think about the bagpipes’ drone.

When returning to any schedule or work there always seems to be a period of “drone” until you fly into action doing what you do best. The drone is expected, and cannot be avoided. If it doesn’t occur that means you weren’t fully enjoying your holiday, and work didn’t ever really stop. What we owe to ourselves and our customers is to keep the drone to a reasonable minimum, after all if there’s no song that comes after the drone what good is it.

Take comfort in the drone, it’s only natural. If the bag does not fully fill with pressure, the piper doesn’t sound near as confident.  As you “pipe” into business for 2010 remember to take the time to build up that pressure in your marketing bag and break into full tune with confidence.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.