Sure, as a business owner you want to save money wherever you can – that’s reasonable. Sure – you got here because you’re smart, resourceful and clever and good at solving problems – so why shouldn’t you be able to save a few bucks by doing your own marketing?
Here’s the issue – you already have a business to run, people to manage, bills to pay, products to order, products to SELL, products to install… etc. etc. etc. Sound familiar?
Here is what happens – we know because we have the same problem! This is how it always starts out:
It’s all fun and games for the first bit – you get your fingers into all the fun little pies and start feel like you might be able to make stuff happen. It’s invigorating. You have big dreams for what you can do and you’re determined to write them all down… when you just get a free five minutes to do it. Probably tomorrow. Then you remember you have payroll to process, an HR meeting you can’t keep avoiding and a soccer game for your kiddo that you have to get to at 3pm and dammit – you’re supposed to bring the snacks!
So then this happens:
You start forgetting details and deadlines – the organization of all your plans and hopes falls to the wayside before it has a chance to become effective (usually before 3 months is up) and you start scrambling to pick up the pieces – barely making a cohesive effort in your messaging, and probably confusing people including your own staff and some customers with your inconsistencies in website management, facebook posts, or responses to reviews. And now it’s starting to keeping you awake at night because you KNOW it could be better. But still – you’re doing the best you can. A little glimmer of doubt has formed in your subconscious – “is this really worth doing myself?” Your instincts may be telling you something.
Finally – and if you haven’t been living on the moon for the past 40 years you already know where this is going – the train goes off the rails completely.
Your head explodes leaving little bits of your brilliant messaging and marketing ideas scattered to the wind and plastered to yellow post-its now grimly stuck between TPS reports, invoices, checks to sign, and all over your calendar and computer monitor (don’t even look at the chaos that is now your computer desktop!) No one can live like that. You lose motivation, get dejected, refuse to spend money on marketing and find yourself in the slowest part of the year with a tight month to month cashflow and no leads in your funnel to call on. Yikes!
So what’s the message here? According to John C. Maxwell, author of Developing the Leaders Around You, “If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”
So – don’t be a chocolate hog. Share the sweet stuff – your brilliant ideas and vision – with the people who actually know how to package it for you. There’s no reason you can’t have your fingers in the pie (all the fun parts and none of the drudgery) and let someone else foster your dreams and bring them to fruition. Life comes at you fast and marketing technology changes every single day. You are smart, capable and clever – but you cannot be the expert in all things. Take a risk this year – delegate, then celebrate.
Be like happy Lucy. We guarantee that life will be sweeter for it.
