For years, I’ve been offering advice to my husband that he should market his graphic design and web development business more.
He always looked at me and said something like: “It’s on the list.” I usually then shook my head and thought that he needed better planning skills.
This was before I left my 9-to-5 job as PR director of a national association to start my own business. Since then, I’ve been whisked into the crazy world of entrepreneurship, or what I lovingly call, “finding work to get paid.”
I made many lofty goals and business plans. I created to-do lists using my favorite service, www.rememberthemilk.com. I planned on writing a blog post every week and networking on Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook. I would do everything to market my company, plus some. It’s what I do for a living!
Then reality hit. My blog posts went from once a week to once every other week. My tasks got postponed…again and again.
For the past month, we’ve both been slammed. I haven’t written a post in a month, and I haven’t done much proactive marketing either. I’ve just been working for clients.
So is this irony? I’ve got so much work to do that I haven’t had time to market myself, even though this is part of what I do for others. It’s like doctors who smoke and let their waistbands expand: they take care of your body all day long, so they let their body go.
So you either work and make money… or you market yourself and sacrifice some cash. Tough call.
I guess that’s why my husband’s new website is still three-fourths done, while his clients’ sites all look great. I’ll have to work a bit harder at fitting it all in this year and start “hiring” myself to promote this company.
