As my mornings, days, and nights start to blend together I keep realizing how hard it is for a marketing professional to juggle so many tasks and duties in regards to work and still continue to have a normal family life. In hindsight I uniquely compare it to an exhibit a colleague of mine designed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
The exhibit is centered around a student juggling balls. The juggling is an artistic view of what we do in business (and in life when you have kids, side jobs, and other responsibilities.). Back to the juggled balls….Okay, so each ball represented a third of what happens in business. 1.) My personal favorite –> Sales and Marketing 2.) Production and Operations 3.) Finance and Accounting. You look at these and you say “okay, that happens in business I guess.” But if you take any of these away, your business falls apart or is at least in chaos.
I say all of this because I realize for the last few weeks in my new endeavors I have stretched my own “marketing Plan” and my methods for attack, and have stretched myself in regards to sales and marketing efforts. With that being said, I have also let my operations and production outcomes fall short of the quality that I should be at. Then with the third ball, sheesh… have almost not even thought about the financials or accounting (they are in a special box). Not thinking about how much you need to bring in, or how well you are manging your time with the money you are bringing in with serious leads could eventually come back to bite me in the long run.
All this basically keeps me in the mind frame that I need to refocus my tactics in a more balanced way, and make sure I juggle the three balls instead of just one or two. When I think about it, I am probably juggling six balls with family, quality time, leisure time, and everything else factored in the mix. This again brings me back to the analogy that all of it is a juggling act…. life’s struggle of the juggle.
