This a battle that you may be facing everyday in your business and if the right side doesn’t win your business will suffer.

Minutiae is a minute or minor detail that I see lots of entrepreneurs get stuck on worrying about or doing.  Marketing is what gets you clients and cash flow. It’s ok, admit it, you sometimes get caught up in minutiae and neglect your marketing, nope I won’t fall on the floor in shock I hear this all of the time.

I recently did a survey and a large majority of business owners  answered that their biggest challenges were sales, marketing, cash flow, getting clients, and getting the important stuff done.  These are all connected.  If you have trouble getting the important stuff done aka sales and marketing you will have trouble getting clients and your cash flow will suffer.  If you want your business to grow you HAVE to get the important stuff done.

Here are some strategies that will help you focus on the cash flow generating activities:

1. Have a prioritized to do list.  Every week should include marketing and sales activities or you will see sales and cash flow suffer in the months ahead.
2. Have a do NOT do list.  What minutiae can you either stop doing or delegate?  Does the task have a strong ROI? Is it something you should be doing? Most business owners get stuck thinking that they can do it better or faster but you have to ask yourself if it is the best use of your time.  For example I could easily add stuff to my calendar but when I get a list of appointments or classes to add to my calendar I send it over to my assistant to handle.  Could I do it? Yes. Is it quick and easy? Yes.  Is it the best use of my time? NO

Some ideas: scheduling, confirming appointments, editing, social media, brochure design, web design, contracts, booking travel and many more. Share yours below…

1. Schedule time on your calendar for your sales and marketing activities.  Yes it is easier to avoid this by doing minutiae but there is no ROI on doing the minutiae in your business.  My clients have a year long marketing calendar that they use that allows them to see at a glance what they should be doing each month and then schedule the action steps into their calendar.
2. Have an accountability partner or coach to hold you accountable to doing what you said you would do.
3. Track what you are doing daily to make sales. Are you calling your prospect list, following up with leads, launching a new marketing campaign?
4. Raise your prices.  If you don’t have any time to do sales and marketing because you are serving clients then it may be time to raise your prices or you will get stuck at a plateau.
5. Set a timer and JUST do it!  Make 10 sales calls, create an optin page, launch a Facebook ad campaign, write a sales page or a blog post, follow up on leads…. even 45 minutes of focused action daily will have a huge impact on increasing your sales and your cash flow.

Don’t wait until tomorrow or next week to start implementing these strategies, take action now.