Are you a ‘busy fool’?
We avoid doing difficult things by occupying ourselves with trivial things. We deal with urgent trivia instead of what’s really important. Keeping busy like this allows us to avoid having to make important decisions.
In my work, advising and training hundreds of businesses all around the world, I see too many people acting like ‘busy fools’. These are people who would much rather get busy doing all kinds of promotional activity rather than stop and think. Because thinking hurts. Thinking is the difficult option. Being too busy to think is a get-out, an excuse: it’s the easy option. In this way, being busy can be a form of laziness. I agree with Timothy Ferriss who says this in his book The Four Hour Work Week.
Working hard can be a diversion from working smart. Being busy with operational marketing activities is easier than thinking hard about the much more important and difficult matters of marketing strategy.
Don’t be enchanted by marketing communications and sexy media. Stop frantic promotion to the wrong kind of customers and resist the urge to scatter emails and tweets in all directions. Calm down and think clearly.
Remember that the most important aspect of marketing is about strategy and this is at the heart of the business. Let’s differentiate clearly between strategic marketing and operational marketing. Let’s make sure that we sort out our strategic marketing first, before dealing with operational marketing matters.
Don’t be a busy fool. Slow down and think; work smart, not hard. Be smart about marketing.
Think strategic marketing first.
Key Points
It’s easier to rush around doing trivial stuff and avoid doing the hard work of thinking about strategic issues. In this way, being busy is a form of laziness.
What to do next
Stop rushing around. Face up to the hard work of thinking about your marketing strategically. Slow down and think.
Allocate a specific time for thinking through your marketing strategy, with colleagues or advisers, as appropriate.
This is an extract from David’s marketing book ‘Chase One Rabbit: Strategic Marketing for Business Success. 63 Tips, Techniques and Tales for Creative Entrepreneurs’.
Read this and 62 more inspiring and practical marketing techniques on your smartphone by downloading this strategic marketing book as an eBook. It is also available as a paperback and as an Audiobook. This highly-acclaimed marketing book is also available in Spanish and French.
David Parrish is a marketing speaker, author and consultant. He works worldwide helping businesses to become even more successful by using the best strategic marketing techniques.
