The Client Work Dilemma: Why Sales and Marketing Always Loses to Client Delivery
- Simon Hale
- Aug 18
- 4 min read
How to make business development work WITH your client commitments, not against them
Every Help to Grow graduate faces the same dilemma.
On one hand, you have client work: immediate, urgent, revenue-generating activities that your clients expect and your business depends on.
On the other hand, you have sales and marketing work: important, strategic, growth-enabling activities that will determine your business's future success.
When these two compete for your time and attention, which one wins?
If you're like most HTG graduates, client work wins every single time.
And then you wonder why your Growth Action Plan sits untouched while your competitors seem to be systematically building their businesses.
Why Client Work Always Wins
This isn't a failure of priorities or time management. There are logical reasons why client work consistently takes precedence over sales and marketing activities:
Client Work Has Immediate Consequences Miss a client deadline, and you have an unhappy client, potential contract issues, and immediate revenue impact. Skip your planned LinkedIn posting for the week, and nothing happens immediately.
Client Work Feels More Urgent Client emails marked "urgent" create immediate pressure. Sales and marketing activities rarely feel urgent, even when they're strategically important.
Client Work Has Clear Expectations Clients have specific expectations about deliverables and timing. Your sales and marketing activities often lack that external accountability.
Client Work Generates Immediate Revenue Every hour spent on client delivery directly contributes to current income. Sales and marketing activities contribute to future income, which feels less pressing.
Client Work Uses Established Skills You're confident in your client delivery abilities. Sales and marketing might require skills you're still developing, making client work the easier choice when you're tired or stressed.
The Traditional Approach (And Why It Fails)
Most business advice treats this as a time management problem. "You need to block time for strategic work. Set boundaries with clients. Delegate more."
While this advice isn't wrong, it misses the fundamental issue: treating sales and marketing as separate from client work creates an unnecessary competition.
When strategic work competes with client work, client work will almost always win because it has immediate, tangible consequences.
The Integration Solution
The HTG graduates who successfully develop their businesses don't solve the client work dilemma by choosing sides. They solve it by integration.
Instead of asking "How do I find time for sales and marketing separate from client work?" they ask "How can my sales and marketing activities support and enhance my client delivery?"
This changes everything.
What Integration Looks Like in Practice
Content Creation That Supports Client Work Instead of creating content as a separate marketing activity, they write about problems they're solving for clients. This creates valuable content while deepening their thinking about client challenges.
Example: A consultant writes LinkedIn posts about implementation challenges they're helping a client overcome. The writing process clarifies their own thinking, the content demonstrates expertise to prospects, and the client benefits from more thorough problem-solving.
Client Conversations That Generate Marketing Insights Instead of treating client delivery as separate from market research, they use client conversations to understand market trends, customer pain points, and competitive challenges.
Example: During client check-ins, they ask strategic questions about industry challenges and market changes. This strengthens client relationships while generating insights for content, positioning, and service development.
Case Study Development Through Client Delivery Instead of writing case studies as a separate marketing task, they document client success stories as part of their delivery process.
Example: They create client success summaries that serve both as project completion documentation and marketing case studies (with appropriate permissions and anonymisation).
Networking That Enhances Client Value Instead of networking purely for lead generation, they build relationships that can benefit their existing clients through referrals, partnerships, or expertise sharing.
Example: They attend industry events not just to meet prospects, but to connect with other professionals who could help their clients or provide valuable insights for client projects.
The Psychological Shift
When sales and marketing activities support client delivery rather than competing with it:
They feel less like "extra work" and more like enhanced client service
They create immediate value rather than just future potential
They use skills you're already confident in rather than requiring new capabilities
They strengthen client relationships rather than taking time away from them
They feel integrated with your professional identity rather than like a separate "business development" role
Making the Integration Practical
Here's how to start integrating sales and marketing with client delivery:
Audit Your Current Client Activities Look at your typical week of client work. Where are opportunities to add strategic value that also creates business development outcomes?
Identify Connection Points Where do your client challenges connect to broader market trends that would interest prospects? Where do client success stories demonstrate capabilities that prospects need?
Start with One Integration Choose one client activity that could serve dual purposes. Perhaps client check-in calls that also gather case study material, or project summaries that could become thought leadership content.
Design for Client Value First Ensure that any integrated activity genuinely enhances client value. The business development benefit should be secondary to client service quality.
Your Next Step
The client work dilemma isn't solved by choosing between client delivery and business development. It's solved by making them support each other.
The question isn't how to find time for sales and marketing separate from client work. The question is: how could your Growth Action Plan implementation actually improve your client delivery this month?
When you can answer that question, sales and marketing stop competing with client work and start enhancing it.
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