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I Don‘t Have Time To Invest In My Business – 13/06/2018

Recently a local business spoke to me about their marketing. Sales have decreased, interactions are lower since the new Facebook algorithms came in and business is generally slow. When we chatted about it, they told me that they don‘t do much in the way of marketing other than Facebook…..problem solved I thought, with some training in Twitter, Instagram and perhaps Linkedin, their sales will boost in no time with higher brand awareness. Perhaps some shows, open mornings and links with other fellow businesses would boost this even more. However the suggestions I made were met with the same answer……….“I don‘t have any more time to invest in the business”. Leaving them with a decision, run the business at a loss with the hope that things will improve or close down.

However, what if that‘s not the only 2 options? Okay so they have approximately 3 hours a week to invest in the business (they also work full time) therefore the first thing to do is to look at what they are currently doing with the 3 hours. This includes their marketing, stock taking, shipping and databases. Just how is that 3 hours being spent…….. only then can they work out where time is being wasted. Time saved = spare time so where things can be streamlined, this needs to be implemented. Having schedules and structures will eliminate the chance of procrastination or time wasting from bits that inevitably pop up.

Once they have sussed out what time they are spending where, they can sit down and evaluate what is working and what isn‘t. If you are spending 30 minutes posting into Facebook groups but getting no joy then cut that from your plan. Perhaps instead those 30 minutes can be spent making a video about the business, a virtual newsletter weekly that can be uploaded to a YouTube channel and spread on social media.

Perhaps you spend 10 minutes a week checking out where the cheapest shipping supplies can be bought from? Instead contact a local company, get yourself a good deal and use them weekly for your repeat orders. That 10 minutes could then be spent scheduling tweets on relevant # hours to your business style. Covering yet another platform but within the same time.

The list goes on and on but the idea is, you don‘t necessarily need more time to improve your business. It‘s very easy to get in a rut and keep doing the same thing because it‘s common ground. Its also simple to find something that works and stick with it without realising it‘s no longer working for you.

If this sounds like you, follow the steps above and see what you can change. I think you‘ll be very surprised……! We‘d love to hear what changes you have made!