Time is money.
My husband reads philosophy books, and he loves to impart his stoic wisdom on me at random times throughout the day. I tease him for being so philosophical all the time, and joke that he should read some books written by people who haven’t been dead for hundreds of years. Yet the reality is, I appreciate his outlook on life and the lessons he teaches me.
The other day he was on a tirade about how dumb it is that people value money more than their time. He perked my interest, so I laid off of the teasing and just listened. He explained that people are always out to make another dollar, putting their time, personal lives, and sometimes even joy on hold to do so. We know we can always find a way to make another dollar, but we have no idea how much time we have left to enjoy it.
This resonated with me as I have fallen victim to putting things that don’t feed my soul before things that do, far too many times. Sitting through pointless meetings because I had to, scrolling Instagram mindlessly for an hour for no reason, gossiping with a friend because why not. We all do it and then think “oh well that was a massive waste of my time.” Then we never give it another thought. Conversely, I one time lost a $100 dollar bill and let it ruin my entire week because I was so upset. If you follow a stoic lifestyle, that hour you wasted is far more valuable than the $100 bill because you can never get it back.
The reality is most of us can’t avoid pointless meetings altogether, but we can be more cognizant of how we spend our time to avoid wasting more then we need to. I have always loved figuring out ways to be more efficient, and I love doing that for my clients as well. I believe marketing is one of those areas of business where it’s easy to find yourself down a rabbit hole of wasted time. (Raise your hand if you’ve ever spent more than an hour choosing the perfect image?) So, I’ve laid out the top three areas that I see brands wasting time, and some ways to be more efficient.
Social Media – The king of sucking up your time, this is a tricky one. Be sure to keep your platforms narrowed to those that have the greatest reach to your target audience. Your brand does NOT need to have a presence on everything, especially if you have limited resources. Also, utilize scheduling tools to protect your time. Here is a list of the top tools that you can use depending on your needs.
Guessing what your customers want – I see it all of the time! People sitting around tables talking about how they know their customers. You don’t. Nobody knows their customers’ needs, only the customers do. Stop talking about it and ask them. Surveys, focus groups, interviews, whatever access you have to your customers, talk to them. They will gladly give you feedback, and at the end of the day, their opinion is the only one that matters.
Planning – Now I know this one might sound crazy. Planning is a good thing, right? Too much of anything isn’t a good thing. I like to think of marketing as an art rather than a science. I have always learned more and made more progress by trying. It’s good to have a plan but settle for 80%. You will never have everything figured out before you start, so don’t get hung up on dotting all of your I’s and crossing all of your t’s. Most aspects of branding (social media, email blasts, campaigns, advertisements, blogs, SEO, websites, etc.) are all big experiments anyway. If anyone tells you anything differently (you know the ones… proven formula to gain you 10,000 new followers!) they are liars – and wasting your precious time!
Take a look at how you spend your time, particularly around your branding. Are there areas for improvement? Are you spending large quantities of time on things that don’t yield you measurable results? Think like a philosopher and protect your time. Use it wisely, because none of know how much we have left.
“I say, let no one rob me of a single day who isn’t going to make a full return on the loss.”
- Seneca
