I’ve shared before that I’m not a fan of the word “busy.” Frankly, I don’t know one person who doesn’t have a life filled with personal and professional activities that don’t keep them insanely busy. However, my real distaste for the word busy is when it’s used as an excuse as to why a business isn’t growing:
- Too busy to prospect for new clients
- Too busy to find time to build relationships with current clients
- Too busy to learn how new buyers want to be engaged
- Too busy to get educated on new technology platforms
- Too busy to understand how to leverage social media to support marketing efforts
These (and other) activities are crucial to the development and growth of a business – how can anyone be so busy that they are prevented from engaging in them?
The answer is they aren’t. Busy has become a convenient excuse to not do things that are uncomfortable or that seem difficult to understand, tackle, and implement. The cry of “too busy” is an easy way to rationalize away things we simply don’t want to do and precious few will challenge it.
Today, I’m challenging you on it.
Next time you start telling yourself that you’re too busy to do something that will help grow your business, take a moment and examine the situation closely: are you really too busy to engage in the activity or are you merely avoiding it? The answer is almost always the latter.
When you allow being "too busy" to stop you from doing activities that will lead to business growth, then it really isn’t important to you. When business growth becomes important to you, there isn’t a schedule so busy that it will stop you from engaging in the activities necessary to accomplish it.
Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 17 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), vice president of the Regional Association Council (RAC) board, and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, and developing branding that resonates with a target audience. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.