Dealing with marketing burnout

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Question: How do we deal with marketing burnout?

Let me speak from my personal experience.

After 20 years at a big corporation, I decided to work for myself. It sounds romantic but, when you are in the trenches trying to make it work, there is nothing glamorous or romantic about it. I am my own secretary, IT, sales, marketing, and HR. When I just started, I didn’t really have the luxury of turning down jobs. I provided multiple services from creating strategies, e-mail campaign even down to beautifying presentations for senior management as long as their quotes met my expectations. At the same time, I needed to promote myself. Between client work and marketing myself, it’s like having two full-time jobs. I work all the time.

Here is how I deal with stress and burnout

• Have a plan. Even when I just started out and was a one-person shop, I still did formal annual planning. I had my planning meeting with myself. I identified 2-3 new initiatives that I want to do, set up sales goals (realistic and stretch) and identify lead pipeline and a list of people and companies that I want to reach. Although my plan may have changed here and there, I had a plan to set direction. I learned from my corporate experience, it’s important to have a plan.
• Prioritize: I don’t prioritize well. I took on several assignments and worked through weekends and nights to get them done. Even though I am still doing that, I make a conscious effort to prioritize and divide my day.  As a result, 80% of my time is spent working on urgent items that are likely due in 24-72 hours, and 20% of my time is spent on initiatives which need be implemented in 2-3 months. It doesn’t always work, but I am making an intentional effort to follow the 80/20% rule.
• Delegate: This is a chicken and egg question. I didn’t delegate initially, because I couldn’t afford to hire others. I ended up doing everything myself. Now, I can afford to delegate, but I don’t have time to hire and train others… So, I still ended up doing everything myself. If you have a team, you need to train and coach them, then delegate.

Here is what I do on the personal front to manage stress

• Exercise: This helps me tremendously! I do steps or cardio 2 times and yoga 3 times a week. Pumping some oxygen into my body. It’s good for you. You just need to prioritize to exercise.
• Let it out: Find someone to vent to! Get your stress and frustration out. Find a friend or someone, talk it out. It helps.
• Walk away: I can sit in front of my computer and work for 9-hours without getting up. Even though I can’t think anymore, I am still glued to my computer. I literally need to force myself out of my chair and go somewhere else. IT’S OK TO WALK AWAY.

Stress and burnout come with the choice I made. I am aware of that and accept that consequence. We need to manage them the way we manage our days, our relationships or our businesses.

Please, send me your marketing questions and thoughts here or via Twitter @pamdidner.