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Marketing - The Way To Make What You're Really Worth
Written by John Jantsch
You only have so much time in a day right?
So wouldnt it make sense to focus as much of your time as possible on the things that produce the highest payoff.
I dont know about you but most small business owners are do-it-yourself types and get sucked into doing the littlest silly work faster than you can say Oh look, the copier is jammed again.
If you want to achieve any of your goals and finally start making what you are worth then youve got to stop doing $5/hr work. Period.
As you might have guessed by now, I believe that every business owners highest payoff work, or best use of time, is any amount of time spent creating effective marketing.
Heres a little math quiz that I suggest you play with to help drive home this point. Figure out how much money you make annually or, better yet, how much you want or need to make annually to achieve your dreams and goals.
Now, divide that number by 2080. (Thats the number you get if you work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year - I know, I know, you work 80 hours a week but just work with me here.)
The answer you get is what I call your PAY or Personal Average Yield. (I should probably trademark that its so clever) The idea here is to pin down what you are worth an hour and realize that if you can hire someone to do any of the things you currently spend your time on for less than that number, you cant afford to do it yourself - did I mention that you could use the spare time to do some marketing.
So lets run some numbers. Lets say that you want to make $150,000 per year. Well, using our little formula, that means that you need to be doing work that is worth a little over $72/hr - 8 hours a day.
But guess what...we havent even factored in any overhead or costs of doing business. That number might really get big if youve got those as well.
This is the point at which many people finally come to understand that they are undercharging for their servicesbut thats another issue all together.
So I ask you. Is fiddling with the copier, chatting with the mailman, running to the office supply store, making deliveries, or returning meaningless email paying you $72/hr? For that matter, doesnt mowing your own grass, washing your own car, picking up your dry cleaning, and getting your oil changed take you away from marketing your business? I know, now Im asking you to consider giving up most of the fun things you like to do everyday but hey, if you can get the neighbor kid to mow your grass for anything less than $100/hr, therefore giving you 3 hours to write a killer sales letter - its probably a steal
Figure out your PAY number, paint it on the wall in your office, and then go about setting up your business in a way that allows you to focus on the only things that can really pay that kind of money: marketing, innovation, and customer service cause everything else is just a cost
Copyright 2004 John Jantsch
John Jantsch is a marketing consultant based in Kansas City, Mo. He writes frequently on real world small business marketing tactics and is the creator of Duct Tape Marketing a turn-key small business marketing system. Check out his blog at http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php - get these kinds of killer tips weekly by sending an email to mailto:subscribe@ducttapemarketing.com
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How To Create A Complete Referral Marketing System
How To Write A Killer Press Release
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Marketing Is a System Not an Event
10 Steps To Unleash Your Lead PR Machine
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