Don't Wait Until The Boat Is Sinking

A few summers ago the park board wrote and told us someone reported to them our small sailboat on a local lake was sinking. As you can imagine, we erased whatever was on the calendar for the next day and rushed to the boat with five gallon buckets to dredge it out. It wasn’t completely under water (there is styrofoam in the stern), but much of it was. Getting the boat operational again took quite a bit of effort and the clean up wasn’t fun.

What a perfect analogy for business development. Often—too often—small to mid-size businesses place the business at hand as the highest priority while the marketing and development of the business is put on the back burner. The boat is not being kept up.

Why? Have you ever heard of the cobbler’s children? Marketing agencies often work on their own marketing after their client work almost like an afterthought and with leftover energy … until a client project, and the revenue that goes along with it, is gone. Out come the five gallon buckets, rather than enjoying a sail with another client or project, because the proverbial sales funnel was not fostered and kept up.

Do you need to revisit or revamp your business development? Take a page from the book Traction by Gino Wickman, literally pages 27-77, The Vision Component chapter. Wickman is a big proponent, and so are we, of having a plan and sticking to it. When you have a plan and client work gets busy, the potential to continue to build your business is greater. The potential to treat yourself like one of your valuable clients and have accountability to your business goals is greater. In fact, the Harvard Business Review found “Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical non-planning entrepreneurs.”

You are the captain of your boat. Why not make your sailing experience more enjoyable, by assuring the boat is ready for the journey. A little effort on your business now serves your business’s long term health.

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