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Procrastination as money maker

Written on
Feb 26, 2009 
Author
Bob  |
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Procrastination as money maker

schmoozing2.jpgDM CONFIDENTIAL — In less than a week, we set off to Vegas once again, this time for the second installment of online lead generation trade show, LeadsCon.

Last year, in its inaugural year, the planners hoped that they would attract 350 to 400 people – not bad considering it had no track record and didn’t offer an exhibit only pass. Come the day of the event, a little more than 600 people had registered. The organizers found themselves at capacity and in an otherwise great position – scrambling to find enough bags, badges, and wondering how big the open bar bill would climb.

This year, given the macro-economic environment, the folks at LeadsCon thought matching last year’s numbers would amount to a success, and when the number hit 800 people, they sighed, feeling good about the value they would deliver to the sponsors and to conference attendees. That was three weeks ago. Now, with one week to go, the number of confirmed registrants has topped 1100, again with them offering full conference passes only. When asked, they would like the explanation to revolve around the high caliber speakers, great sponsors, and/or the unique keynote address, among other things; and, while a show without those things would struggle to gain traction, another factor comes into play just as much as the intrinsic qualities of the event – procrastination. Despite the benefits of signing up early, people simply don’t.

Pushing Back the Unpleasant

Companies do lots of things to try and drive action earlier. With respect to conferences, they offer heavily discounted pricing to those who commit earlier rather than later. The savings also extend to flights, hotels, and other certainties like restaurant reservations. Do we do it? Only a few. We know for example that we will probably go to ad:tech SF. We’ve done it year after year, and it’s not like it’s that far away – less than two months. How many reading though have booked their flight, gotten their hotel situation squared away? Not us. That’s for sure. We know we should, but we probably won’t until not quite the last minute but the last minute before it gets price prohibitive.

We will go, but we’re procrastinating. The problem with procrastinating, is that it provides only a temporary relief. It’s like stacking the dishes in the sink rather than doing them, or any number of less now because I do it all later activities. In those cases, the procrastination stems less from commitment and more from not wanting to do something unpleasant. So, we either don’t do it or as is often the case in our ADD industry, we do something else ultimately less productive but that helps us convince ourselves that we are still busy.

Procrastination in Business = Flake

The joy of procrastination is that it makes sure there is always something to do in the future, but it’s a Catch-22 as it tends to lead to nothing getting done. Perhaps the underlying cause is perfectionism, choosing to do nothing than do something when needed but below standards. Whatever the cause, it comes across as a lack of follow-through. We’ve talked about it before, but what we must instill is a sense of urgency.

How many times have we either said to someone or had it said to us, “I’ll get you that IO today,” or, “I’ll get you (to you) the code.” I imagine you’ve heard it more than you think. The end result has the person saying such words coming across as a flake, as someone whose words can’t be trusted. Much of that goes back to what we do on time – the short-term items, because things that feel good often get greater attention. Items with an immediate outcome drive action easier than those without.

Continuity and Procrastination

Procrastination certainly doesn’t impact our industry indiscriminately. It actually makes our industry a lot of money. For everyone of us that has a gym membership or Netflix account we don’t use, there are even more getting charged 89.99 per month for a diet product they don’t use. I belong to a gym that I don’t use. It’s one of two I ultimately joined because it offered a month-to-month agreement and no contracts. But, it requires me to go there in person during a certain window to cancel. How many months of revenue have they gotten from me as a result?

In this case, I’m more upset with me than them, but even in our space where people harbor anger towards feeling tricked into something they don’t ultimately want, their procrastination is what allows the marketers to stay in business and not modify their tactics. In a fluid market, the users would act according to how they feel and force change to those doing the selling, but idleness truly is the mother of evil, or in this case profit.

Procrastination as Money Maker?

Not to pick on the continuity marketers, more specifically the flogvertisers, but despite their success, they are the ultimate procrastinators. You wouldn’t think given how hard they work and how quickly they move that they would fall under this category, but they do.

Flogvertisers are the ultimate keep busy marketers. They all know that it won’t last, but given just how much can be made in such short time frames, they are just like the people who buy the ultimate products. They put off what they should be doing for something a lot less painful. Making short-term money certainly beats investing in longer-term product development that might not only yield less profit but no profit. And, while each knows that it will end, and that they will have to change, the threats forcing that aren’t strong or immediate enough.

The vast majority started doing what they do by copying someone else, and given what they have made, what incentive do they have to try to invent? True, those who got into certain flog spaces early made more, but not so much more in the eyes of those who followed that would motivate them from being follower / early adopter to innovator. The threat of legal action is also not enough, for it happens often years later when the perpetrators have moved on, so the feeling of invincibility remains. Are we going to change any time soon? No, we’re all the same, just playing different positions in the same field. And, this isn’t the kettle calling the pot black. Even this piece on procrastination was the result of procrastination.

Courtesy of DM Confidential editor

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