One of Marlon Sanders's key mantras is ''produce and promote.'' A wise set of words if ever I heard any.
I've been deep in production mode the last few days and have let the promotion aspect slip. Hence, the question: where is the balance between producing and promoting?
When dealing with products the production often happens up front. Physical goods have built-in limits on how much promotion to do because once they are sold there isn't much point in promoting them more!
Information products are the other end of the spectrum. Produce them once, promote them indefinitely (or at least as long as the information is relevant and/or useful). And with print-on-demand books and the equivalent for CDs and DVDs even the physical version of information products can be sold independent of how many copies you have in your spare bedroom closet.
Services raise an interesting balance between the extremes mentioned so far. The natural tendency is to promote like mad, generate paying gigs, and let the promotion die down while fulfilling the signed contracts. The trouble comes when all the gigs get wrapped up and the cycle starts again.
A better idea is to promote like mad, generate paying gigs, and budget time/money/energy to maintain promotion through the busy periods. This limits the amount of work that can be taken on but those of us with a strong desire to deliver quality work every time can actually use that to our advantage.
The economic rules of supply and demand suggest the solution: when demand is high (from consistent promotion) and supply is low (finite time/money/energy to put towards maintaining quality work) then the price goes up! I've heard from a number of copywriters that when they hit that significant busy point in their business that they started raising rates, attempting to turn people away, and extending a waiting list to those who were not turned away easily.
How nice will it be when you've got a six month waiting list filled with clients paying two to ten times as much as you're paid now? How much better when you can do the equivalent with information products and indefinitely feed your service queue with qualified prospects (to extend that waiting list as long and as deep as you desire).
So, how much promotion versus production? It depends on what you're producing, but almost always more than you're already doing! I know I've turned to the man with the plan, Marlon himself, to learn more about pitching at his 6 week round table. If you move quickly you can still join us for the first official call this Wednesday.