“I Don’t Have Time” is a Lame Excuse!
I don’t understand. Maybe I haven’t been in business long enough or maybe I’m just naïve. Business owners say all the time, “I need more business. My marketing isn’t working.” And then when I engage them to help them build something that will bring them more business and give them a marketing system that will work they say, “I don’t have the time.”
How can that be? How can you need more business if you don’t even have the time to GET more business? What are you going to do IF you ever actu
ally get that business? I don’t’ get it!
I’ve been in business exactly 18 months. I have customers, I have speaking engagements, I have workshops, classes and seminars. I have A/P, A/R, taxes, piles of paper, and all that same stuff that you all have – AND I spend a lot of time marketing my business. After only 18 months in business – and not exactly a millionaire yet, I realized it’s time to hire someone because I simply can’t do it all myself. I want to grow and I realize that in order to grow, I need help.
I started out small – I hired someone on a contractual basis to handle some of the tasks I don’t like doing. Yeah, it’s money out of my pocket (and there isn’t a ton of it right now) but my eye is on the bigger picture – the future of my company. A vision that includes having a few employees executing the day-to-day while I drive the strategic direction and do what I am best at – which has nothing to do with A/R, taxes, booking speaking engagements, etc.
The point is this: if you want more business but can’t even take the necessary steps to either free yourself up or hire someone to do what it takes to GET more business, do you really need more business? You hear it again and again, stop working IN your business and start working ON your business. When are you going to take that step? When are you going to say, “Ok, today is the day, I need to do something different, because what I’ve been doing isn’t working.”? When are you going to stop spinning in circles and start making some of the tough decisions that business owners need to make? You can either make the decision to grow, or you can continue to drown… your call!
What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!! Leave your comments here.
By the way, if you liked this post, I’d really appreciate your Retweet!!! Thank you. 🙂
You recognized EXACTLY what all business-people should be able to. When they need to reach out and hire someone to make MO-MONEY! It’s a hard thing to do sometimes, but essential when you get to a certain point!
You got to that point and RECOGNIZED it! Observe, adapt, and overcome!
Well done, I think that should be in your BNI infomercial, a “Do as I do” teaching moment, showing that you KNOW how to recognize, and when to take, the next step….
Plus it shows your successful and so are your clients, or YOU wouldn’t be…
Lance,
Thank you very much for the comment and I will certainly think about your suggestion for a presentation topic!
-Carolyn
My first 18 months in business were spent doing mostly marketing. And, sure I had the time because I didn’t have the customers. Once I got a certain level of customrs I did spend less time on marketing. After all I only have so many hours of the day. But, more important is I reached my goals and my marketing focus changed from growth to maintenance. For someone who says “I don’t have time to market” what they may be saying is: “I’m happy with the level of business I’m receiving”, or “I haven’t set any clear goals for my business”. If it is the later, a business owner needs to have a definitive financial goals and know how many new customers it takes to reach those goals. Once you’ve got the numbers then the time it takes to implement a marketing stategy will fall into place…and you’ll have the motivation to implement the marketing statedgy. Carolyn, sounds like you’ve been talking to business owners that have no clearly defined goals for growth.
Robin,
You make some excellent points. I think you’re right, that without a clear understanding of our goals we tend to lose site of the big picture in our businessess and we do get stuck in the day-to-day. I do it all the time and have to constantly remind myself that THIS is not what I intended for myself or my business. Sometimes pushing myself out of a comfort zone is one of the hardest things to do as a business owner. I’m lucky to have had coaches and accountability partners to keep me on track.
One of the first things I do when working with a small business owner is help them define their goals. That gives us something to work toward and to build a marketing system around. Kudos to you for having a vision and sticking with it. You are one of many small business owners I know that I use as an example for myself and others for how to structure, organize and plan a business!
-Carolyn
Truth is clearly present here, Carolyn. Fantastic post and nice chalkboard illustration of your point.
Thank you Scott. I appreciate that! 🙂