How to create more time for marketing

"I haven’t got time for marketing. It just takes too long".

 We’re all guilty of saying this from time to time. But what are we really saying?

 Let’s go back a few steps, and then I’ll also suggest a solution that I’ve found works well.

 First things first. You want your business to make a profit or at least break even? You need people to know about it, and want to visit?

 But you’re only human and only have so many hours in the day. You have to prioritise time according to the tasks in hand.

 So if you say you don’t have time for marketing, what are you really saying?

 If you’re not prioritising some time for marketing, perhaps you’re saying you don’t prioritise the success of your business?

 Or perhaps that marketing just spreads and absorbs all available time, and you never quite feel like you’re doing enough?

 There’s another way to approach this.

I find it far more productive to decide how much time you can allocate for marketing, either each week or each day.

How does 30 minutes a day sound? Assuming you work five days, that would be 2.5 hours per week. Not a huge amount but a good start.

It might be easier to commit to those 30 minutes if you decide to put them in your diary for a certain time of day?

Then, because you’re committing to spending a certain amount of time (instead of feeling like marketing takes over your life and just spreads, or that you never manage to really fit it into your day), you need to decide 

a) what you need to do;

b) what are the priorities; and

c) what you’ll do, and when

When I go through this with individual businesses, something interesting happens.

They become more focused on their marketing, and feel more motivated to do it, perhaps because they have a clearer focus. 

Marketing activities become a stronger priority but it also feels like they take less time.

Some business owners use this technique, making sure they put their allocated marketing minutes into their diary every week, and then discover they have more time than they thought. So they do more marketing. And become more successful.

Worth a try?