30 Jan What to do in your downtime

It seems that these days I have no downtime. Because whenever I’m not working, I’m working on my marketing. Networking or creating content for my blog (have you noticed it’s now every other week?), social media, speaking gigs, workshops. Sometimes I feel like the Energizer Marketing Bunny.

But part of the reason for that is that marketing is what I do. It comes easy for me. There is always something else to think about or create or start. But that’s not the case for others. My small business clients are uncomfortable with marketing. Not surprising, though. How would they have gained that knowledge? And like all of us humans, they tend to shy away from the stuff that is less familiar and that takes them out of their comfort zone. Marketing is, for many, just the last thing they want to think about.

So frequently I recommend to my marketing coaching clients they start Marketing Mondays. Or Tuesdays or Wednesdays or whatever day they want. As long as they pick a day. That they set aside a specific time to work on the business of their business. And to make it, at the very least, a weekly habit.

They say the average company spends 10-20% of their total revenue on marketing. And so for an entrepreneur or a start-up without much revenue, that might translate to 10-20% of one’s time. You don’t have to do it all yourself, if you have the funds to have the help. But someone has to do it.

Make the time for marketing. As those brilliant marketers at Nike said: Just Do It. A business can’t survive without it.