We read a great deal these days about how companies are sitting on piles of money, just in case. They're holding off on hiring, remembering what the recent recession was like. They're making their fewer employees work harder, sometimes without commensurate raises.
Make no doubt about it: here is where marketing takes the hit, a back seat. "We don't have time to market. We're slammed."
What business owners of both small and growing businesses often miss is that their current rush of business won't necessarily continue, without a significant pipeline of future work. How do you ensure the pipeline is consistently filled? Through marketing, of course.
And we've hit a roadblock: "How can we take the 'long, uninterrupted block of time' that marketing requires, when we're so frantically busy?"
The answer is simple: marketing doesn't have to take a "long, uninterrupted block of time." You're possibly being tripped up by your AON (all or nothing) mindset. AON thoughts usually begin with "unless" or "until."
"Unless we have a lull in our projects, there's no way we can find the time to market." "Until our people can stop putting in such long hours, we can't even think about marketing."
Let's switch gears. Instead of AON, let's embrace SIBTN (something is better than nothing). Can each of your employees who have client contact make one check-in call to existing clients every other day? When audience members report that they do this all the time and are never at a loss for business, I ask them how long the calls take. Over and over and over again, they shrug and say, "No more than ten minutes."
Are you going to tell me your people can't take five or ten minutes three times a week to stay in touch with clients? Just try, because I have a ready answer: the chances are real good your people spend far more than a half-hour per week complaining about how busy they are. Give them a bonus for the additional business they bring in, and the grousing will go away, to be replaced by far more productive activity.
Are you going to tell me that your people don't have the time to go out for breakfast, lunch or coffee once a week? I don't believe it. They have to eat! They might as well dine with a key referrer, a client, a professional advisor, a vendor. You get the idea.
It's time to stop putting marketing on the back burner. It's time to stop turning marketing into some monster that will consume everybody's schedules and recognize just how effective small increments of marketing can be.
Then you'll have steady business and will be more confident about bringing in more help.
