In my house growing up, there was a weird little picture that sat on a chair in the closet collecting dust. It was in a wooden frame and caught my attention as a kid because it wasn’t like the other picture frames, this one was round. I remember asking my parents about it a time or two, and all they’d do is look at each other, my dad would roll his eyes and they’d both chuckle. Call me a stupid kid, but I didn’t get it until later.
It was a “Round Tuit,” and apparently this was my mom’s funny, yet passive-aggressive attempt to motivate my dad into doing some of the honey-dos that she had assigned to him. Inside the round, wooden frame it said this,
A Round Tuit
“This is a Tuit. Guard it with your life as Tuits are hard to come by, especially the round ones. This is an indispensable item. It will help you become a more efficient worker because for years I’ve heard people say, ‘I’ll get that done as soon as I get a round tuit.’ Now that you have one, you can accomplish all those things you put aside.”
Yeah, I know, that’s stupid. And there’s a reason that silly old thing sat in the closet instead of hanging on the wall. But it was good for a laugh, and it really does get a point across doesn’t it? We all have things that rank somewhere around 10th on our daily to-do list that never seem to get accomplished. They’re important enough for us to keep meaning to do them, but not important enough for us to bump them up in priority. They fall into the, “I’ll get around to it,” or the even more dangerous category I hear from contractors almost daily, “I’ll get to it when I have time.”
TIME… is a whole different issue.
I’ve been working with people as a minister, salesman and consultant for all my professional life, and I’m going to make a statement that I’ve learned to be 100% true. Although, it might upset some busy contractors, here goes. We all have time, and we choose how we spend it. That may sound like a ridiculously simple statement, and it is, but now add this part in. You find time for things that are important to you.
I learned this during my time as a sales rep in the gun and sporting goods industries. Even if the economy was bad, even if someone lost their job and had to start skipping bills, they’d still find extra money to spend on hunting and fishing equipment and justify spending time outdoors. Why? That’s irresponsible, right? You might not give a squat about the outdoors, but you fill in the blank. It happens to all of us in our specific cases because we’ll always follow our passions in one way or another. Our passions and personalities drive a lot more of our decisions than we realize. If you never seem to find time to accomplish all the things that truly need to get done, there are probably some less responsible passions taking priority.
It’s all relative. We say we don’t have time to fit in 30 minutes at the gym for exercise, but before we realize it, we’ve binge-watched enough Netflix they’re sending a pop-up message asking us to confirm we’re still alive. It didn’t annoy my Mom so much that Dad didn’t have time to get to all her projects, but it did annoy her every time he started to get the boat ready while the kitchen door still creaked.
No, I didn’t suddenly change my title from marketing coach to life coach, and I’m not simply giving you advice on how to keep peace at home. Can’t help you there. My wife will read this and say, “Those who can’t do, teach,” as I grab my fishing pole and head out the door. Or maybe she’ll say something more strongly worded… but I digress.
Here’s where it hits home. You know what holds a steady spot at around #7 on most contractor’s to-do lists: focusing on the marketing of their businesses. We said we make time for things that are important to us, so that means the marketing stuff just isn’t that important to most of you. That is until the phone stops ringing, then it magically becomes much more urgent. So, here’s a subtle, non-nagging, slightly passive-aggressive suggestion. Why don’t we make the time for something different this fall?
It’s a funny thing about time. When you spend it well on things that you don’t necessarily want to do, you have more of it to spend on things you do want to do. Here’s a bug in your ear, we can help make marketing a little easier and even more enjoyable. Heck, in most cases Hudson,Ink can do your marketing for you start to finish with complete writing, design and implementation. I’m not going to come to your house, rake your leaves and help you with the honey-dos, but I can help cross off a good bit of the marketing stuff you’ve been avoiding.
So here it is. I’m giving you your own personal “Tuit” so you can place the call you’ve been putting off for far too long. Guard it with your life because it’s very valuable, especially the round ones.
Give us a call at (800) 489-9099 or email us at [email protected] to have a personal marketing coach like me take some of that burden off your shoulders.