Time Perspective

Your calendar is the quickest way to determine your level of success in running your business (or if it is running you). On the low end of the spectrum, if you don’t have a calendar where you make appointments and create blocks of time to solve challenges and seize opportunities, you are probably in survival mode. Get the work out for today. Be a firefighter. Return and do it again tomorrow. You have a very short-time perspective. 

When I was drinking almost every day, my time perspective was very short. All I really cared about was getting to five o’clock, where I would promptly check out after a hard days’ work. A drug addict might have an even shorter time perspective, trying to get to the next hit, which never comes quick enough. Fortunately, my drinking days ended 9 years ago when I could not control it.

As you get others on your team to help take care of today’s work (short-term time perspective), you can focus on getting results tomorrow, next week, next month, and so on (long-term time perspective). You become much less reactive and are intentional about the results you are working so hard to create.

This relates to marketing as well. If you are stuck in firefighting mode, just trying to get the work done, I guarantee you that you don’t have an organized marketing strategy. Instead, you chase the work with uncoordinated marketing, and then you take a break from the marketing to get the work done. And this creates a very lumpy, reactive sales cycle. And it becomes very challenging to manage.

It all starts with getting your top-line sales to a point where you can afford to hire and nurture key team members that take you out of the daily operations. Once out of the daily operations, you must increase your time perspective to stay ahead of your team. Your team is more efficient now that you are no longer the wheel's hub, trying to control everything.

Marketing solves a lot of challenges. But only if you change along with it.