Have You Made a Common Business Mistake?
Are you taking care of the basics? The stuff you know you should be doing, and that only rookies or arrogant suckers fail to do?
image courtesy of Nrico via flickr, click image to see his profile
If you aren’t, you are going to see a slow slide, followed by a painful THUMP. Then you are faced with the daunting task of climbing right back up.
I can tell you because I’m there. Rubbing my business bum and wondering how in the world I let this happen.
For months, I had a comfortable client list. Each of my clients was pleasant and the work was challenging, but not stressful. A few referral jobs here and there filled in any gaps in my schedule, and I had plenty of time for lunches with friends and working out and all sorts of other good things. So I left “marketing” on my to-do list week after week, and didn’t think too much about it. Yes, I’m hanging my head in shame. Such a common mistake! Who hasn’t read (or written!) a post about the importance of marketing even when things are going great?
Of course, even with the greatest client list on the planet, you are going to have some attrition. Things change, people move, businesses close and life generally happens. And such was the case for me – all at once, of course, because of some law written by some guy named Murphy. Now, I’m scrambling with no one to blame but myself.
It was easy to let marketing go for several reasons. I didn’t really want to be too busy through the summer. I wanted to make sure my existing clients were well-served and happy. I wanted to see if it would be possible to work by referral only.
Excuses. Lame excuses.
If you are running a business that involves attracting customers (and what business doesn’t?) you have to keep on marketing. If your business is big and successful your marketing activities might take the form of networking, maintaining your brand, or simply responding to emails. For the rest of us, marketing is probably a much longer list of activities.
Over the weekend, I wrote a new plan. This one includes a heavy dose of daily marketing – but also a few “built-in” ways to market so that later, when my roster is full again, it will be easier to stay in the marketing habit.
It is difficult to publicly admit to such a silly mistake, but really, everyone messes up. Make me feel better: share your common business errors. Have you let your accounting go for too long? Stopped marketing and paid the price? Failed to respond to an inquiry? Surely I’m not the only one feeling the sting of embarrassment!
I have let the accounting go for too long. I have failed to respond to tons of inquiries in 2010. I have lots of this kind of thing.
Thanks, Tyler. It’s so nice to be able to share the misery
I confess to not being as diligent with marketing as I should be either. I blame summer and this overwhelming desire to just relax.
The good news is that we recognize what’s going on, right? Kudos to you for taking the initiative and developing a new plan.
You are right, Emily. I just want to read – in a hammock, near some water, in swing, close to the air conditioner…at the beach would be ideal. Yes, I suppose it *is* good news that we recognize it, and yes, a new plan will be helpful (especially to the people to whom I owe money) but…there are still more books to read! Thanks for dropping by and commenting!
I look forward to hearing more about your marketing ideas. I have 5 million, but I also have a lot of family responsibilities and clients that keep me sporadically very busy (does that make sense? they keep me busy for a month then I have time to do “marketing” – whatever that implies).
I found you via Emily – you left a nice comment on my Daily Morning Coffee guest post.
I rather liked The Go Giver book. It has a nice philosophy for a business book.
Leora, Thanks for dropping by and commenting. I do understand “sporadically very busy.” In fact, it’s probably a perfect description for my professional life for the moment. I hadn’t heard of The Go Giver book. It’s on my list of books I want to read now, though.