I don't have time for Marketing!
As a business owner myself, I know that my time is stretched between all the different roles in a business: sales director, finance director, MD, Customer Services, HR Director, Marketing Director and, if you are a solopreneur, all the roles that go under Director level that actually get things done. Carving out time for all these different aspects isn’t easy.
I frequently hear from small business owners that they know they should be marketing their business, but they just don’t have time.
So how do you make time for Marketing? Here are my top five tips:
1. View marketing as a must-do activity, not as a nice to do.
You don’t view your tax return as an option or answering customer enquiries as “only if I get a bit of time” (how did those enquiries come in anyway if it wasn’t for marketing?). You must do these activities no matter what. You should start to consider marketing as one of those, ‘no matter what’ activities. If you don’t do regular and consistent marketing, then those customer enquiries will start to dry up and then what will you do?
2. Where are you trying to get to?
Yes, running a business is a journey and it is never a straight road, but you need to know what you are trying to achieve and by when.
You wouldn’t get in the car and drive with no destination in mind, (well that is unless you have a baby that you are trying to get to sleep and driving is your last option), without a rough idea of how you are going to get there and no idea of what time you plan on arriving (even if you are using SatNav).
Ask yourself questions such as:
What turnover would you like to achieve?
What product or service are you selling?
How many products would I like to sell?
Who are you selling to?
When do you want to achieve it by?
How are you going to attract customers?
If you know the answers to these and other probing questions, then you will be able to see how to get to your destination and what you need to do to get there. In other words, a map. Therefore, your marketing activity will be planned out and you will have less chance of being diverted or hitting a dead end as you have a clear view of where you are trying to get to.
3. Don’t use lack of time as an excuse
We tell ourselves a lot in life (not just in business) that we don’t have time for going to the gym, doing marketing, planning the business destination or even taking time out for ourselves.
Telling ourselves that we don’t have time, is just an excuse to make us feel marginally better for not doing something. If you truly want your business to succeed and grow then you will make time. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time, 10 minutes is better than nothing. When it comes to the gym, I just couldn’t get there and spend an hour in the gym (even pre-covid), so I do short high impact interval training at home in my living room saving myself nearly an hour and a half, which I can then use to do some, you guessed it, marketing.
4. Break your tasks up into building blocks
There is nothing worse than having a big task in front of you that will take a long time and you don’t know where to start. Break it up into smaller tasks that are the building blocks to achieving the whole task. For example, developing your marketing strategy is a pretty big task and can be daunting. Break it down into blocks; you could start with a marketing review, SWOT analysis, a competitor review, set your objectives, develop detailed customer profiles, identify key marketing messages and a list of activities that you can do to get you to your destination. If you do each of these blocks one by one at the end you will have a strategy.
5. Consider outsourcing parts or all of your marketing
You don’t have to take on every role in a business, you can outsource to an expert (cough cough, just like me!). Outsourcing versus doing it yourself could be a whole other blog, but sometimes, outsourcing the things that you aren’t so good at or feel you don’t have time for, allows you to focus on what you are great at. Afterall, that’s why you started your business in the first place.
Once you have your marketing strategy in place and translate that into a clear action plan, it is much easier to schedule in time to do marketing. If you are struggling to get your marketing strategy, then get in touch and we can discuss how I can help get the thinking bit done so that you have your roadmap.
