How Procastination Kills The Growth Of Your Service Business And How To Stop It!
I am really bad at procrastination and this has helped me no end when it comes to growing my service business.
I was reminded of this recently on a call with a fellow service business owner.
She had a plan of action to follow; a really simple one. She just needed to send one email to an email list that she had already built up over a period of time to see if anyone wanted to buy her service.
The content was drafted and ready to go.
The sales process if anyone responded was firmly in place and easy to follow.
Everything was ready, so what happened to this email?
It didn’t go anywhere.
Why?
There were several reasons, all of them good enough to stop her from taking action, but none of them were actually good enough to stop her taking action.
They were all just excuses, reasons to allow her procrastination.
The biggest one was “What if someone says yes and I can’t do what I have said I could do?”
This was nonsense. She provides an excellent service so it simply won’t happen, but it was a good enough excuse to stop her taking action.
I remember when I started a paid monthly marketing advice service; my Marketing4Solicitors service will is still running nearly 10 years later.
Do you want to know how I sold it?
I certainly didn’t start by writing it and preparing it. That would have taken hours, as it does each and every month; but they are enjoyable hours because that is me writing about a topic that I enjoy, but that’s another story.
I didn’t want to take that time out of my working schedule to spend all of this time to write it if no one would be interested, so instead I did this:
- I set up the sales page;
- I set up the payment button;
- I set up the autoresponder welcoming them to the service and explaining that the first issue would be with them in two weeks; and then
- I sent the email.
What happened?
A handful of people said yes please, so I then locked myself away for a few days to create my first paid monthly printed marketing newsletter.
Once I knew people wanted it I was very motivated to write it and to do so quickly.
I know some people who would not consider this method like my friend above. And it is such a shame, because it means that people are missing out on the wonderful help they could be receiving from her. She wants absolutely every part of the process perfectly in place before taking any action.
Do you know when absolutely everything is perfectly in place and ready to go in a service business?
Never!
I do not know any service business owner who has absolutely everything nailed down to perfection. There are always tweaks and changes to be made to their service, either in the marketing of that service, the selling of it or the delivery of it.
Nothing is ever ready. Nothing is ever finished.
But taking action and selling something makes it happen. It gets results.
One of my mantras, for this very reason, is “Perfection Kills Momentum”. For the marketing of your service business to be successful and lead to business growth, you absolutely have to build momentum or it simply will not go anywhere. The only way that you build momentum is by taking action consistently. If you wait for everything to be perfect, nothing will ever get done. Your procrastination will win but your business will not.
You will never finish your business website to the point of perfection, you will never press go on your Google Adwords campaign or will never send your first email marketing newsletter if you wait for everything to be perfect.
Big mistake. Massive. Huge.
All of the time while you are not doing any of these things, people who would be your perfect clients are refused the opportunity of working with you.
What’s worse, they might actually go to one of your competitors who you know isn’t as good at providing the service that you provide.
Don’t let this happen.
Press Go now and then finish what needs to be finished!
If you want to know what you should start, there are only ever really four important marketing methods that will consistently achieve growth for your business. Would you like to know what they are?
Simply click the button below to find out now: