If You Wait Until You Have Enough Money—That’s the Point!

By Betsy Allgeyer

“I need to wait until I have enough money to ______.” Go ahead and fill in the blank. We’ve all uttered our own personalized version of this cliché at one time or another, whether it’s in regard to having a baby, buying a car, going on vacation or—my personal favorite—marketing your business.

It’s amazing how many times I go to an event and explain to people what I sell. Invariably, they nod and tell me the “some day” story. It basically goes like this: “Some day” when I get more money, I’m going to spend some on marketing.

Isn’t this the cart pulling the horse?

I hear over and over that marketing is expensive and doesn’t increase sales. Since promotional products are where my expertise is, I will try to dispel this myth using the poor, misunderstood business card magnet as an example.

This item costs approximately $.21 for a minimum order of 500 to 1,000 pieces. On average, a business card magnet gets 6,000 glances a year. That takes your cost per impression to $.000035. Maybe people are right. They just can’t go spending $.000035 here and there. Next thing you know they’ll have spent $105 for an order of magnets that received 3 million glances. And who would want that much exposure?

I come across many small businesses that have the mentality that only larger firms use marketing tools, because they can afford to. My reaction is that they can’t afford not to. You have to start somewhere. Even if it’s with a press release—which doesn’t cost you anything but time—you need to get started.

The point is…there are any number of excuses for not marketing your business. If you wait too long, you might not have to. It will be gone from a lack of interest.

Betsy Allgeyer is president of Business by Promotion, Inc., a promotional products distributor specializing in catalog fulfillment programs. She can be reached at (816) 350-8811, by e-mail at or online at www.businessbypromotion.com