Want to eliminate this major danger to your marketing?

There’s a danger lurking that many business owners get sucked into. It drains their energy, eats their time and money, and reduces their results. Taking steps to eliminate it will bear rich rewards, not only financially but in terms of your wellbeing. So what is this danger that can have such profound effects?

This energy sucker is deceptive, because you can feel as if you’re doing all the right things to build your business. You’re attending lots of networking events, making cold calls, following every possible lead. You’re busy, busy, busy…..

And this busy-ness is the very danger that can adversely affect your business and your wellbeing. It can often be born of a need to be doing something, anything, that might bring you what you want. If you’re busy, well, you must be making progress.

But this sense of progress can be but an illusion. Unless you’ve clearly identified who your ideal clients are and what problem you can solve for them, going to networking meetings can be interesting, educational, but not worthwhile. Unless you’ve planned your marketing strategy, and also planned how you’re going to measure the success of each element of it, you could be feeling you’re being productive – and you’re not! It could also be affecting your pocket; if your fee rate is £100 per hour, that’s the opportunity cost of the hour you spent on the internet forum or at a lunch. That’s probably not a great rate of return on your time.

So tracking the rate of return on your time is one of the systems it’s important to establish, as well as allocating regular time to plan where your business is going and how it’s going to get there – i.e., updating your business plan and your marketing strategy. This is spending time working on your business, rather than just in your business, which is sound business advice you’ve probably heard before. But did you realise that doing this is also crucial from an Attraction viewpoint?

It’s crucial because of the messages you’re sending out to the Universe, and which of course you’re then receiving back in the form of what manifests in your life. If your message is “I don’t really know where I want my business to go, or who I’m making myself visible to, but I’ll just keep trying by being busily involved in as many forms of marketing as I can”, what you’ll get back is the same sense of uncertainty and more opportunities to remain busy.

But what if your message were “I love working with my ideal clients, so I plan my marketing in order to build my relationships with them”? This is the message you project by spending time working on your business. It says strongly to the Universe that you know exactly what you want. It’s like steering a ship - spending regular time planning is like making minor adjustments to the tiller so that you follow the course you want, rather than being carried along by the currents. And the Universe replies to that certainty of asking with certain manifestation, like for like. It responds quickly when you ask, which you’re doing all the time, either deliberately, or as most people do, by default through your thoughts and beliefs. Your task is to look for and notice the responses, and being busy gets in the way of that.

Being too busy means you don’t have the quiet period when an inspirational thought can pop into your head. Or you don’t follow up on your intuition to phone someone you haven’t spoken to for a while, or to pick up a book from your bookshelf that you’re drawn to. You don’t have time to read the email that unexpectedly arrives, linking you to just the information you needed. The answers you want always come to you, but it’s up to you to spot them.

It seems paradoxical when you’re building a business that slowing down brings you better results than becoming ever more busy. But remember even in business we’re all still human beings, not human doings. Creating the time to set your intentions, plan your strategies and watch for the synchronicities before taking action will ensure you arrive at your destination more quickly and with a lot less effort than being busy, busy, busy.

This article is written by Annie Meachem, CEO of The Feng Shui Marketing Center, www.fengshuimarketingcenter.com and of Trellis Coaching, www.trelliscoaching.com. Annie is an expert in Attraction Marketing and author of “Attraction Marketing: How to Attract All the Perfect Clients You Want”, published by the Lean Marketing Press, and available from www.bookshaker.com, Amazon, and many good bookshops. She coaches open-minded people how to harness the Laws of Attraction to create their ideal reality.

© Annie Meachem 2007

Attraction Marketing author: Annie Meachem asin: 095456815X