Sales & Marketing Procrastination

Sales and Marketing are key corner stones of a successful business. However, this has been proven repeatedly as one of the most overlooked and misunderstood strategic elements of small business plans.

Many times, owners of small companies do not properly implement effective marketing strategies because they truly get caught in other daily activities of running their business, e.g. budgeting, management, managing inventory, and perfecting products, and other administrative duties. These routine daily business activities can be problematic and need be prompt attention. Nevertheless, in most instances, they are a part of your business that should be managed simultaneously with your sales efforts. Over the years I have seen multiple owners who share the “my product is not quite ready” or the “I am too busy with other things” mentality. The point being, many business owners place less emphasis on sales processes, for one reason or another, because sales and marketing are challenges that many business owners do not fully comprehend.

Sales can be exhausting, frustrating, time consuming, and sometimes just overwhelming. But as much as one may hate selling & marketing their products, it is the life-force of their company. Just as a human would die without oxygen and water, a business cannot survive the market place without proper sales and marketing; it’s just that simple. So, do not stand stagnant waiting for orders to flow into your business, become proactive and not reactive.

To combat your daily battle with performing sales and marketing tasks, delegate time in your day and week where you can focus solely on your marketing efforts, through this strategy you can have no excuse. Marketing tasks must be integrated within your overall business model as a key operation. Do not continue to tell yourself that your product is not quite ready to go to market – Constant product refinement and revision are common procrastination excuses that will only drive you into lost time and money. Create a marketing strategy and use it, do not stray away from it due to minor business activities that can be acknowledged at another time.

I wish to acknowledge Josha Appel for his contributions on this topic.