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One of the worst excuses you can make when it comes to marketing your business is that you don’t have enough time. We hear lots of entrepreneurs and developed businesses say things like: “That would be very beneficial for the business, but I just can’t find the time”. When you are not making much progress on your marketing, there are a few things that you can do to start bringing you those extraordinary results that marketing does for any business: |
Completely unplug. How many times a day do you check your e-mail? Many of us click our send/receive buttons on Outlook like rats with a cocaine-pellet dispenser, hoping that some e-mail comes in that desperately needs our immediate attention. The best way to get anything marketing-related done in business is to first get rid of interruptions. Here’s how:
l Switch off your phone at selected times in the day
l Check e-mail at selected times in the day (say once after 11am and once after 3pm). To take this to the next level, Tim Ferriss, author of the Four-Hour Work Week, suggests to set up an auto-repsonder that informs e-mail senders that you are currently busy and will attend to their messages at a later time
Book your calendar. Never start your day or week without knowing what you want to achieve by the end of it. Instead, write down what major things need to be achieved, and put them in your calendar. Sharing your calendar with colleagues will notify them of when you are busy and when they have access to you.
I tend to tackle the most important, non-urgent marketing tasks at the beginning of the day. This includes recording videos for our Youtube channel, writing articles for our blog, following up with prospects and asking clients for referrals and testimonials. These are the important marketing actions that will build the business in the future. By about 11am I start answering e-mails and tending to other tasks that are due on the day.
Delegate unimportant tasks. Doing less is not being lazy, its being smart. Never do tasks that can easily be delegated or outsourced to someone else. In the Middle East, many businesses still operate using paper-based invoices that require stamps and signatures. Unfortunately, that’s the only way we can get paid sometimes (ideally, I would send them an equally legitimate electronic invoice). But in the absence of this option, have a local courier drop this to the client, don’t hand-deliver it yourself.
Be selective with meetings. Accepting to attend a meeting in person without a set agenda can be the big waste of time. To minimise this waste, refuse to have any meeting without setting an agenda and a cut off time. And before accepting to attend, ask if it can be done on the phone. You’d be surprised how many people shuffle up and down the city from one office to another. Yes, you are “working”, but is this really effective?
Get as much as you can done over the phone or Skype, and avoid face to face for only really important meetings.
♦ Ahmed al-Akber is the managing director of ACK Solutions, a firm that helps companies to improve their marketing and sales results by offering more effective ways attracting customers and significantly better products and services. He has worked internationally in marketing, sales, and strategic planning at companies such as the Coca-Cola Company, Philip Morris International and Dell. Questions or comments can be sent to Ahmed on [email protected]