10% of Your Business Should be Marketing

I’m proposing that you invest 10% of the time you spend on your business on marketing it.

So often do I struggle with the comments about lack of time and how running a small business is hard work. Yes, I know, I get it. I’m running a small business too, but I see these as weak excuses for not wanting to do something new.

So I came to this percentage of time based on the fact that the average marketing budget is 10% of the total gross revenues of a small business. You can read more about that here, here and here.

What I'm saying is that you should view your time like your gross revenues. If you invest 10% of your revenues back into marketing, you should do the same with your time.

What do I mean “Marketing”?

Well marketing is just a broad term I used for this article. I am purposing is that you spend 10% of your time on many things:

• Being social of social networks,
• Developing content for your website or email list
• Managing your advertising message (Start with why ;)
• And any other communication related tasks that engage you with potential and existing customers.

How much time is it really?

Lets say that you work an 8 hour day. We all know this isn’t accurate because as a business owner you are probably always working in some manor or another, but lets say it is.

8 hours x 10% = 48 minutes a day.

48 minutes a day x 5 days = 4 hours a week.

I’m proposing that you start to spend only 4 hours a week on your digital marketing efforts (social media, blog, email list, etc).

That doesn’t seem unreal and there are many ways you could do it.

• 48 minutes in one sitting.
• 24 minute slots at the begging and end of the day.
• 12 minutes slots scattered throughout the day.

Generating a habit

The point of this is to ease yourself into working with these tools and to develop a habit of using them and thinking this way. Once you become comfortable with them you’ll realize that being social and creating content is easier than you might have thought.

Who doesn’t want to talk with like-minded people about things you’re both passionate about?