How to set and hit deadlines

It’s going to take some hard work but we’re going to have fun while we’re doing it!  I order you to enjoy yourself!  You’re going to be learning new skills and, most importantly, seeing results.  The first new customer you get as a result of your new marketing is like the first couple of kilograms of weight you lose at the start of a diet.  They spur you on to keep going and do more.  So, if in your notebook you’ve written down a couple of ‘quick wins’ whilst reading through this course (eg something that you can do right away that will take hardly any time to do but might win you some customers) then do those before everything else.  The quicker you get active, the quicker you get results, the more motivation you have to do more of the good stuff.

Remember, once you have decided what you are going to do you actually need to do it.  You need to see it through otherwise you’ve just wasted your time.  Plan in marketing review sessions at regular intervals, which is when you are then allowed to think about your new ideas – but only after you’ve completed what you said you were going to do in the first place.

One thing I learnt years ago about how to get things finished on time is tie a project to an immovable event.  For example, you may book a stall at a trade fair in two months’ time and know that by then you need to have all your new products online and your new brochure ready.  You might end up working until midnight the day before the event but I guarantee that everything will get done by the morning the doors open.  Book a magazine advert that means your new website has to be ready for their print date, no excuses.  Or book in your own event, plan a ‘launch’ and send out the invites.  I do this all the time and always curse setting such a tight deadline as I’m slaving away late in the evening to get something finished.  But after the event has finished I always realise it would have likely taken twice as long to complete something if we hadn’t had the event in the diary that it had to be completed for.  And the quicker you get each stage done the quicker you’re going to start finding new customers.  A bit of stress over a couple of weeks is worth it for everything that finally getting your marketing going will give you in return.  We’re not just talking about your company’s future – we’re talking about your future.  Even if you don’t own the business yourself, the reason you are working in it is to help further the vegan cause.  And what you are doing now is building a successful vegan business to do that.  So isn’t that worth sacrificing a couple of nights of Netflix?