Not too long ago, I heard about a man who attributed his career success to working half days on a consistent basis over the course of many years. I was amazed. Working half days and achieving something of magnitude didn’t seem possible. I read on with curiosity. I assumed that certainly this man wasn’t working in a demanding business environment, and most certainly this man wasn’t working in a marketing department. Indeed, his claim to fame was working half days, and he said, you even have a choice of when you want to work. You can work the first twelve hours of a day or the second twelve hours of a day. His definition of working a half day was different than most of ours!
My bubble was burst. I thought for sure I was going to discover a secret. But sure enough, the truth as we know it was as bright as day. What you get out of just about anything you do depends upon what you put into it. Every once in a while you get a bonus, but for the most part, hard work does pay off. So putting that into perspective, we better understand that when our efforts are well planned, and expertly executed, we can expect to achieve our desired results.
Anyone involved in marketing knows that just about everything we do requires advance planning, a watchful eye, and careful implementation. We develop a camaraderie with others in marketing and share the experiences of having a brainstorm in the middle of the night, or feeling the need to pull over on the side of the road to capture a brilliant idea on paper, or being overtaken with a compelling drive to work until the wee hours of the night just for the sheer satisfaction of accomplishing a goal, completing a project, or launching a campaign successfully. As soon as one project is over, another one is nipping at our heels. We graciously and enthusiastically welcome the demanding projects as a challenge.
So, given that our workday is filled with thinking, planning, implementing, measuring, observing, calculating, and launching, we need to identify guidelines for how a half day work schedule can be best maximized. Your half day can be defined as an 8, 10, or 12 hour day.
Understand objectives. Know what you have to accomplish, and get a good solid feel for your audience to help ensure receptivity. Identify whether your actions are based on a spur of the moment idea or a well thought out plan of action. Evaluate what you’re doing in relationship to your entire marketing campaign. Would your actions have been different if you planned them a few weeks or months ago?
Know your resources. Resources include employees, suppliers, subcontractors and an available budget. Plan for their use in the most time-effective and cost-efficient way possible. Estimate the time and cost of everything you do. Understand your labor costs in relationship to the work that’s being done. Perform the work at hand in the most productive manner possible keeping quality at the forefront of all you do.
Identify your options. Once you have an idea, look at your alternatives from each perspective: development, production, and delivery. If you have identified at least three different ways of accomplishing what you’re setting out to do, you have taken the time to estimate each, you have evaluated which is the best for the situation, then you have probably made a very good decision.
Get added value wherever possible. Use the experience and knowledge of your suppliers and colleagues. Involve them in the planning stage so that they understand what you are doing. Ask for input and feedback. Being respectful of your suppliers’ and colleagues’ input will benefit you both in the short run and in the long run. They should be treated, and nurtured as partners.
Evaluate the results of your actions. Be objective and optimistic that you will achieve your desired results. If you do, then understand what worked. If you don’t get your results, then try to understand what could have been done differently. How could you have better assured that you got your desired results? Don’t be defensive about your findings. Learn from them and share what you learned with others.
Although we should be looking toward the future one day at a time, will we be like the man who attributes his career success to working half days, albeit 12 hour days, on a consistent basis over the course of many years? Will we encourage others to work the first or second twelve hours? Will we believe in the length of a work day, or the quality of the work day? How can we become more efficient with the reasonable or lengthy hours we commit to our jobs? How can we ensure that we get quality results the first time we launch a campaign? How can we tell the difference between a productive workday and an unproductive workday when we have so much to do? Will we be able to pass that valuable information along to our employees? Will we be a slave driver to the impossible or an influencing energizer with bright ideas, and well thought out plans of action that are expertly executed with successful results each and every time? Choose wisely.
