How to Market When You Are Crazy Busy!

Mark Hale ‐ September 9, 2014

You are so busy that you don’t know whether you are coming or going! Your common sense tells you that you don’t need to market now because you are so busy, but your gut instinct tells you it could all crash tomorrow.

The fact is that when you are crazy busy that is the best time to advertise for three reasons. One, you will keep your sales going on an upward trajectory. Two, you have the money to promote. Three, when you are busy, you can afford to be pickier about the type of customer you chose to do business with. The luxury of being crazy busy is that you can afford to cherry pick customers.

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We have all experienced the roller coaster in the business cycle—up one day, flat the next and diving steeply the next, then only to soar the following week. To achieve sustainable growth and drive your business in an upward trajectory you have to first get off the roller coaster.

One way to do that is to promote smartly using direct mail. Direct mail offers a way for you to target your best prospects for your business. Direct mail allows you to dial-in your marketing and reach exactly who you need and want to do business with.

I know promoting when you are crazy busy goes against what your common sense is telling you. I mean you can’t even handle the business you have now – why, for the love of god, would you want to promote for more business?

You can and should promote more when you are busy, but you have to do so smartly.

By defining your target and narrowing your focus you can target the most profitable customers for your business. Bust defining and targeting your advertising is only part of the solution. You should do this also with your operation. Please note that “narrow your focus” does not mean cut back. If you cut back now you will cause an eventual crash. “Narrowing your focus ” means to get smarter in how you do things. Getting smarter in who you promote to but also in how you produce and deliver your product.

1. Market To Qualified Your Targets

When you are crazy busy, time and effort become more vital. You do not want to waste time chasing shadows, lost causes and prospects who really are not qualified for what you sell. The best way to achieve this is by qualifying prospects properly. To do this you need to take a look at who are the best prospects for what you sell more closely. Then you can get a direct mail list for your business that will reach your best prospects.

2. Streamline What You Do

Hone in on the most profitable products and services and promote these to the people who will buy them. Also look at how work flows through your business. Invest in your infrastructure so that you can deliver more products and services, but do so without taking on more debt. As we have all found in recent years debt is the anchor that will pull you and your business to the bottom of the bay. Plan smartly, save money and then invest. There are often things you can do to streamline your production that does not require spending a lot of money.

3. Eliminate the Bad Apples

When you get busy it is easy to overlook and make excuses for employees with bad attitudes. These people are the ones who always make excuses for not doing their job. They are the ones telling you why something cannot be done. These people find problems like there is a reward for them. They are not willing take ownership of their position and often are the cause of extra work for others. They may be the gossip hounds that cause upset. These are the people who are working to make things more difficult for you and are actually working against you and your goals for the company. They may have been with you for years. Unless you like working 70- and 80-hour weeks you need to get rid of them, now.

Eliminating the bad apples also goes for customers. True enough that when times are bad and business is slower you need all the business you can get from wherever you can find it! But when business is good bad apple customers can make life complicated and a general hell for you and your employees. The bad apple customers are the ones who are the hardest to please and are never happy. They want the cheapest price, the best quality and want it delivered yesterday. The bad apple customers waste time and cause backlogs in delivery because they are so hard to please. Time to fire them as customers! The headache and upset are usually not worth it. By firing them you will unbog production and free up time to work with better customers.

Bad apple employees and customers cause 80% of your stress and overwork. Your business is booming, now it’s time to promote, streamline and produce.

4. Make Your Plan and Work Your Plan

You are busy and business is brisk—it is more important that you set time aside each week to come up with a battle plan. Setting targets and working towards them makes it a lot easier to focus on what is vital to be done, what is necessary and what is not important. Doing so avoids wasting time on the wrong activities.

Too often, small businesses either do not have targets or do not work towards them effectively and this can result in a lot of wasted time. If you know you are close to achieving a target or you are miles away helps you make the right decisions on which meetings to take and what other activity you need to make time for.

5. Always Maintain Momentum

No matter how busy you get, we cannot afford to let activity levels drop to zero! That is why it is vital that you keep promoting. It is a lot easier to keep activity going than it is to restart it.

Too many businesses owners and managers only promote when they have very little or no business at all and then they find it difficult. No matter how busy you get, your marketing and promotion must keep chugging along.

Wilson Printing USA can help you keep the momentum going with a target direct mail program.