There is No Room for Perfection in Marketing…or Anywhere for that Matter!

When I first started my business I was co-authoring cookbooks with my mother, teaching cooking classes, baking up a storm, facilitating craft parties, and helping families host great home parties. In other words, I was a Martha Stewart want to be! So when it was time to create my first website I was paralyzed. Martha and the likes had beautiful sites that had so many features and great ideas, and with my resources, I didn’t even know where to begin—so I didn’t. I kept drafting designs with the help of my “people”, but they were never perfect, so I kept pushing it aside. My company was evolving through the process and so it never seemed like the “perfect time” to implement it—what if I needed to change it? My husband (the web developer) was my scapegoat. I told everyone that he just hadn’t made the time to work on it, when in reality; even if he had I had nothing for him to do! This went on for YEARS and it’s amazing that I have as many great clients as I do in spite of only recently launching a website—one that is just right!

Many non perfectionists have the belief that perfectionists get everything done better and faster, which is an outright myth! As a recovering perfectionist I will attest to the fact that if I couldn’t get it done perfectly then it didn’t get done at all. One of the tools I used in my “recovery” (which is ongoing) was the FlyLady, which many might recognize as the guru of home organization and housecleaning, which is exactly what she is. But her philosophy that perfectionists can’t get out of their own way and get anything done, be it laundry or decluttering, holds true in the workplace as well. With her help I realized that getting it done is much more important than getting it done perfectly. I also am now hopelessly addicted to my timer, which is a topic for another day!

Is the need for perfection getting in your way of updating your Facebook status, coming up with witty exchanges on Twitter, launching a blog, or getting a direct mail campaign together? Take it from me—let it go! Be yourself and just do it…I promise you, it’s “just right”!