Okay, I’m coming clean. I have a problem – I am a dyed-in-the-wool procrastinator. While I’m not yet ready to join Procrastinators Anonymous, I am publicly attesting to the extra stress, late fees, embarrassment and remorse it has caused me over the years. Fortunately, though, there are some areas of my life where this insidious habit has been easier to control. Personal procrastination is indeed painful, but I’ve learned that putting things off in marketing your business is a sure-fire way to go out of business.
Years back, I was at a weekend exhibition that a friend had organized in the health and wellness arena. He was so confident about the event that he borrowed more than $30,000 from credit cards and friends to put it on. He did manage to recruit a decent amount of exhibitors and arrange a packed schedule of speakers and workshops. What he didn’t get were attendees. About 200 hundred people showed up all weekend, for a type of event that normally draws thousands. What went wrong? He waited way too long to get his print and media advertising out. I remember seeing his printed brochures show up the day before first day of the show. Ouch!!
He’s not alone. Nearly every day we squeeze in super-rush print jobs to help our customers out in a time pinch. Yes, I know there are a lot of factors involved in putting a printed piece together, from going back and forth with designers to getting all the content and details worked out. But more often than not, that pesky procrastination game is to blame.
Is it just poor time management or something deeper that underlies our procrastinator’s dilemma? Most of the pundits and researchers will point to psychological causes such as anxiety or fear of making mistakes, or the physiological roots of low activation in the brain’s prefrontal cortex.
In defense, not all procrastination is counterproductive, like when you put off the small stuff to work on the important stuff – such an innovation, building relationships and planning for the future. That’s one of my defenses, along with my attention-deficit tendencies. The problem is, a successful life and business demand timely execution on the small stuff.
What are you putting off? Can that next print project really wait?











