I have a very good friend here in Kansas City, Stephen,  who gives me loads of ideas for books that have really helped me in business and also personally. Generally speaking I agree with his (very educated) opinions but we do diverge a little when it comes to “The Four Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss.

What can you give up?

I encourage you to read this book even though I have a couple of issues with it! I went to one of Stephen’s book review sessions last week and it has encouraged me to re-read it to see what different aspects I can pull out the second time around. The key point I am particularly interested in is the concept that there are things that we should all give up to make our lives less cluttered and more rewarding.

In the context of marketing, what does this mean?

Is everything strictly necessary?

As much as I love books and thirst for knowledge, I can’t really agree with Ferris when he recommends going 5 days without reading, following the news etc. However in the marketing world there are surely a lot of things that we do that we could give up, or should at least evaluate as to their effectiveness.

So the simple point of this post is this: Take a look at your marketing activities - do you know why you are doing them and what you expect out of them? Can you point to the results and are you tracking those results?

Here’s the kicker - what would giving up those activities cost you? Is it really necessary that you do them yourself or can you outsource them?

I suspect there are a great many marketing things we do that are not particularly effective but we continue with them because they are fun, we can’t think of anything else to do, someone told us to etc. Make sure you know whether this is the case or not!

Maybe I should read the book again - perhaps I am coming round to it’s key message!