In thumbing through The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, I came across one particular anecdote that I think is quite useful. We live in a culture that embraces the standard 9-to-5 work day. Whether you accomplish a lot or a little during that eight-hour timespan is secondary to the fact that you were at least working during that time. Unfortunately, this may not necessarily be the most productive strategy available to you.

Timothy used to work for a company wherein he would be given a list of names and phone numbers, and he’d proceed through his eight hours at his desk, cold-calling all of these people to offer whatever product or service he happened to be selling. What he quickly discovered, however, was that he got very little response and oftentimes, couldn’t even speak to the person who made the purchasing decisions at the company. Instead of phoning from 9 in the morning till 5 in the evening, he devised a different strategy.

He would get into the office an hour early and start calling at 8am, stopping at 9am. He would then return to calling at 5pm and do it until 6pm. (At least that’s how I remember it; the exact numbers might be a little different, but it’s the concept that’s important here.) The reason why he did this is because when he called during the day, he was tossed into a pretty severe bottleneck: the secretary. He would not be able to talk to the boss and thus, was not able to make the sale. But calling early and late in the day, he was able to bypass the secretary and get his hands on a decision-maker more often. More sales were made in those one or two hours than what would have been made if he called for eight hours between 9 and 5.

This same philosophy can be translated into marketing. It’s not necessarily about bombarding your customers with advertising and sticking your nose to the grindstone for eight hours trying to get your message across. It’s much more important (and effective) to think of a smarter strategy that could possibly take less of your time, yet make you more money. There’s a reason why telemarketers are more likely to call you during dinnertime: during the day, you’re at work, whereas later on, you might be sleeping.