Marketing and Opportunity Cost: What is your TIME worth?
A very interesting concept, normally taught in Economics 101 is opportunity costs. What is opportunity cost? The most simple definition is the value of the best alternative forgone. Value in this definition can mean not only money, but time and other resources, peace of mind, happiness, any positive value one may find.
The costs in opportunity costs come in two main categories: explicit and implicit. Explicit being direct monetary differences between alternatives, and implicit (or implied) being the failed allocation on existing resources. The article will focus more on implicit costs and marketing.
No matter what your business is (unless it is marketing, like us) you are best spending your time working on or for your business instead of marketing. This applies especially to those who work for themselves or own a small business. What can a Real Estate Agent sell if they do not show homes or network? Deciding where to spend your time each day is one of the most important decisions a business owner can make.
In our business, we run into our fair share of people who want to save money (and who doesn’t?). For direct mailing, they may want to forgo paying someone to stamp and send their materials and do it themselves. In this instance, they have avoided explicit costs ($) by accepting implicit costs (time and energy). The key to knowing which cost is greater, is knowing what your time is worth? What else could you be doing that may lead you to a financial victory greater than the original expenditure?
