Two of entrepreneurship's worst enemies are procrastination and indecision. We human beings often spend too much time just dragging our heels. Many of us also have trouble making up our minds and sticking to our decisions.Marketers must learn how to make decisions with authority, and stop procrastinating in its tracks. One great way to do that is to force yourself to make decisions and get things done. When I'm working on a project, I'm always aware of that deadline or timeline -- even when I'm working on other things. Those deadlines help me commit to doing the one thing that most people won't or can't do, and that's to make the decision to get to work. We should make promises to our customers, especially our best and regular customers, that we're going to do this or that for them by a specific date, so we can force ourselves to do it -- to plan how much to do each day, and to stick to it. Never underestimate the lack of progress suffered by a person who isn't making decisions, or who's just procrastinating their life away.As a deadline draws near, we feel forced to do something, because we've made a commitment that we would do it. We should always make that commitment to ourselves first, but we can (and should) also make it to our clients. That keeps our feet to the fire -- and the answers will often come as the deadline comes closer, because when you really, really have to get something done, it's amazing how those ideas will arise full-blown from your subconscious mind. It works like a miracle sometimes -- but it's really not a miracle at all. That it occurs at all means you've finally concentrated fully on the topic.No one likes deadlines, but it's very much to your detriment to avoid them, because they really do force you to get stuff done. Setting deadlines is a powerful incentive, especially for someone who's not used to getting things done on time. You make the commitment that you will get it done on time or earlier, first to yourself and then to everyone else related to the deadline. When you do that, positive, profitable things will start to happen in your business.I think that the negatives surrounding deadlines make many people avoid them. We're afraid of the commitment a deadline requires, so we do everything we can to avoid the pressure that comes with setting one. You always can lie to yourself and set a fake deadline in your own mind; it's easy to break, because there's no commitment level there. For example, you might say, "I want to lose 20 pounds by this date," or "I would like to make this much money by this day," or "I would like to save this much or pay off this bill by November 1." Those silent commitments are like the New Year's resolution you make annually. If no one else knows you've made it, how hard is it to break? Not very, because no one's going to be there saying, "I thought you wanted or needed to do this by now."On the other hand, a deadline made to a client is chiseled in stone. You have commitments that must be fulfilled. Sometimes you can get away with extending a deadline or telling a client a project won't be finished on time; those things can and do happen. But they should be rare. A deadline you make to a client via a promise of delivery will push you towards fulfilling that promise, because you have the pressure of an order that's unfulfilled until you can deliver on it.
One of the deadline incentive strategies I've used many times is the prepublication sale, where I write a sales letter in which I tell your customers that I'm making this offer to them now at a special price because the project isn't done yet. Maybe it's a book I'm writing, or an audio program I'm producing. I deal a lot in the information publishing world, so I do a lot with paper and audio both.If you sell it before you've produced it, you make a commitment to the client that forces you to finish it. You describe it in detail, tell them what it's going to be and do, and the solutions they'll receive when they buy, so they'll look forward to it. From that point on, you have orders coming in. People pay for the product, expecting delivery by a specific date -- and that sets the process in motion.As you approach that deadline, the pressure mounts, forcing you into action. This is a good thing. Some people think that pressure and deadlines are all negatives; and admittedly, no one really likes the pressure of a tight deadline. But it forces you to act. So don't view deadlines negatively. See them as opportunities to spur yourself on, to get projects done in a timely way. That, in turn, translates into more profits.Like many people, I have a problem with procrastination. I've got all these projects I'm working on, and I get behind on all of them -- and that creates a tremendous inner turmoil. A lot of it is work that I don't enjoy doing, which is why I put it off. So I practice an absurdly simple technique to overcome my procrastination: I promise myself to devote a few minutes to each project. If, after a few minutes, I want to stop, then I stop. But most of the time, I've gotten into the project by then, and I'm able to keep going for half an hour or longer. It all starts when I tell myself that all I need to do is stick with it for just a little while.You see, getting started is the hardest part. If I can commit to just a few minutes, then in nearly every case I end up spending at least 10-20 minutes on it instead of the 3-5 minutes I committed to. It chips away at the stone, breaking off a little piece at a time -- and ultimately I end up with a sculpture. I try to follow this plan every single day, seven days a week. Eventually, I complete the project, and it feels wonderful to finally get something done.I want to avoid that terrible feeling of not accomplishing anything, so I keep chipping away at that stone every day. You should do the same.
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