Multi-tasking business owners not prioritising by Lawrence Maynard, Director, Pitney Bowes on 05-Mar-2013

Owners of SMEs spend more time buying stationery than doing marketing; while one in six prioritises cleaning. According to Lawrence Maynard of Pitney Bowes, stretched small and medium business owners are multi-tasking to the extreme and it’s affecting their focus on success. That’s the finding of research conducted by Pitney Bowes. Small business owners are taking the brunt by juggling an average of seven different roles on a daily basis. When asked to list their daily responsibilities, many are prioritising low-level tasks with 35% saying they buy the stationery over more business critical processes such as marketing (32%) and top level business strategy (25%). Statistics also show that one in five small business owners are helping with office repairs, while 16% get stuck into the cleaning.

Our research looked into the marketing habits of over 500 UK small businesses and found that the traditional enemies of SMEs, time (21%) and money (36%), are holding back marketing aspirations. This is despite 77% of those questioned viewing it as important, while half of these (28%) considered it as very important to the success of their business.

Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Jo Behari said, "Every small business owner prioritises the wrong thing from time to time. Our passion and desire to succeed means that we throw ourselves into every element of the business, but it’s vital to remember the goals of the business and stick to the business plan. Ultimately outlying and following a robust marketing plan will be more value to your business then a sparkling clean office."

One in five of the businesses questioned professed to have a marketing plan, but most carry out marketing activities on an ad hoc basis (35%) – especially those in micro-businesses of 1-10 employees (45%). When asked why marketing can fall off the radar, 14% of the UK’s smallest businesses admitted to the discipline being out of their comfort zone, while surprisingly, one in eight larger businesses (51-100 employees) confessed to forgetting about it entirely. Despite this, one in five businesses questioned want to ramp up marketing activity over the next year.

When it comes to how businesses are marketing themselves, print advertising comes out top (40%), but encouragingly online is not being neglected with email marketing (37%) and Facebook (26%) appearing in the top five most popular methods. Mobile is also moving up the agenda and whilst just 8% have a mobile optimised website, 49% say mobile is a part of their marketing activity.

Lawrence comments, "Starting and then running a small business requires huge investment of time and money, while the owner of the business is often found approaching disciplines that he or she has little expertise in such as mobile marketing. However, this activity doesn’t need to fall by the wayside as a result of this resource issue – there are easy-to-use, time efficient tools available at a low cost that help small business effectively embrace newer digital marketing channels as well as support the traditional ones."

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