To any thriving business, time is squeezed and the list of to-do’s seemingly endless. Marketing is one of the many things that gets put off, only for a quieter period to come along and make you regret the laziness… we’ve all been there. To a start up, its the opposite – lots of time to spend on marketing, and a lack of funds to allocate! Short on money, long on time.

So this poses a valid question – how much time do you, or should you, be allocating to marketing your business? And does this change depending on what stage you are in with your business. On a poll in my community, the highest scoring answer was 50% of your working week devoted to maintaining your position. Most of the contributors also commented to say that they felt they should be doing more…

This is surprising on first glance; but when you take into account the activities linked to marketing your business, not surprising. Networking, follow ups, social media posts, answering queries, updating websites and blogs, research into customer profiling and buying patterns, organising print runs of business cards, flyers, banners, – it all starts to add up.

So when can you earn your money doing what you love? Good news, you don’t have to transform into a marketing master just yet. Building and maintaining your brand is a constant project, but can get easier, clearer with time. And you won’t have to do it all at once, all in the first few weeks to get results either. Instead of thinking about how it can get you off the ground, see how you can integrate it efficiently into your working life. a little bit of training and advice can go a long way to not only saving money, but time – perhaps our most valuable resource as a business owner.