Are You All Finished?

Are You All Finished?

entrepreneurMy sister and I used to get together once a week after work. Typically, one of us would call the other at the office and say “Are you done?” Then, the other of us would answer “Yep. All finished!”

Because we both own our own businesses, it was a great source of hilarity to us. No, neither of us is ever “all done,” or “finished,” or anything close to it. And that’s the whole point of being an entrepreneur.

The concept of being “finished” or “done” is foreign to me.

I may be finished with my morning workout, but I’m not done working out. You may have completed your lunch, but you’re not done eating.

This is especially true in marketing. Marketing isn’t something you can do for a month and finish. Nor is it something that you can do for any time period and then stop. While there are some fantastic after-effects from marketing, if you have stopped marketing, over time you will lose what you had built.

Most people have heard of Coke by now, but Coke hasn’t stopped marketing. McDonald’s hasn’t finished with its marketing. Neither has Verizon. Or Apple.

I haven’t finished marketing my business, either. We have a fairly new website, but sure as shooting we need to re-do it in about 11 months. Everything has to stay fresh.

The thing is, the marketing part of running a business is great fun. It’s creative, and challenging and wonderfully imperfect. It can be revised, and reshaped and re-imagined. We can broaden or sharpen our targets. We can utilize a hundred different tactics. It’s all good.

The only thing I can never do is say “Oh yeah, my marketing? It’s all done.”

– Judith Brower Fancher