Is your to-do list the length of a typical CVS receipt leading you to put off marketing yourself? Here’s how to find the time to market yourself and why you can’t put it off.

People ask me all the time how I have the time to market myself and create blog posts and social media posts nearly every day when I’m running my own business and marketing law firms and other companies.

The simple answer is I don’t have the time but I MAKE it because it’s important for my brand and my business.

And I’ve created systems and processes that enable me to be efficient at doing it. Also this is my wheelhouse – writing and posting content is easy for me and if it’s not easy for you, you should outsource it or delegate it someone so you can focus on what you do best.

When you’re busy serving your own clients it’s understandable that you don’t have time to market yourself, but whatever you do, don’t put marketing on the back burner.

I wish I could clone myself so that I could be more efficient and get more done, but that’s option right now. Even delegating things to my team isn’t always the best solution because it often takes me more time to explain how to do something than if I just did it myself. And I’m sure many of you feel the same way.

Marketing is an investment in yourself and your business. Anything can happen and you want to always be marketing.

Marketing creates leverage in your business and helps you line up future work.

Also your competitors are marketing their services and businesses so you better do the same. One of my clients actually blocks out time in her calendar the same way she does for client meetings to write an article or focus on networking so that may work for you.

To start efficiently marketing yourself, create a short marketing plan with the things you actually like to do but also things that move the needle. So if you don’t like to speak at conferences or write articles, simply don’t do those things.

Outline your goals in this plan such as generating more leads, increasing brand awareness, cultivating clients and referrals, building your reputation with search engines, becoming a published author/speaker. etc.

ROI needs to be front and center. Take a look at your current marketing efforts: are there activities you keep doing despite never seeing measurable results? Quit doing those things. Only focus on putting energy into what actually helps your business grow.

And set up a social media and email marketing funnel. The more you create content and repurpose what you already have and automate by creating a sales funnel, the more you’ll mostly focus on getting new people into your funnel (via social media) and let your funnel take care of the rest.

Remember that marketing yourself is an investment in your business, in good times and especially in bad times.

How do you find the time to market yourself?