As entrepreneurs, we need to take time to work ON our businesses. Marketing is one of those important but rarely urgent activities that require consistent attention; without it we won’t attract a steady stream of customers, and our company will eventually wither away.
It’s also vital for us to be working IN our businesses – accomplishing those day-to-day activities that keep our enterprise moving forward. Even when we’re finally able to hire a team member or two -– a bookkeeper, virtual assistant, etc. – there are still tasks and situations that demand our attention.
We each need to find our own solutions — a way to balance the urgency of working IN our business with the importance of working ON it. This is THE on-going challenge every once of us must face.
Two friends and colleagues – Stacy Karacostas of Success Stream Marketing and Krishen Kota, a productivity expert who publishes an excellent weekly e-zine, Practical Productivity Now – each have a simple and effective approach that I’ve combined and recently adopted:
Make Marketing the first activity of your business day.
OK, sounds easy enough, right? It is, except that we’re talking about incorporating a new habit here. In order to change your behavior, you need to switch off the “auto-pilot” that most of us have on all the time.
This means: before you check e-mail, before you listen to voice mail, before you talk to your assistant, before you do ANYTHING else (OK – you can get your morning coffee!), take 15 minutes to completely focus on a marketing activity.
I’m suggesting a shift here: focus on what’s important BEFORE you pay attention to the urgent. It’s a big change for many of us because, as entrepreneurs, we’re so used to putting out the fires first. Recalibrating this behavior will likely feel pretty uncomfortable at first – but discomfort is NOT a sign that this strategy is wrong – it’s simply unfamiliar.
Here’s an illustration: Cross your arms in front of your chest. Notice which arm is on top. Now, do it again, this time with your OTHER arm on top. Awkward, isn’t it? Try it a few more times – and it will get a little less so with every attempt. So too with this strategy.
Make an extra effort this week to try on this new behavior and see what happens.
What can be accomplished in 15 minutes a day? We’ll look at that more closely in a future post.
Copyright 2008 by Nancy Birnbaum-Gerber
