It’s budgeting season – a time that makes us marketers buzz with excitement at the prospect of bigger and better marketing initiatives while simultaneously cringing in fear of endless meetings and “but-it’s-worth-it” conversations. Amiright?

Putting together marketing budgets – and getting the buy-in from all the stakeholders – is one of the unsung pleasures of marketing.

Put together a marketing budget – they said.

It will be easy – they said.

Here are the 14 emotional stages of creating a marketing budget, and getting it approved.

 Step 1: Begin.

Step 2: Review last year’s plan. Uh…

Step 3: Time for a pep talk!

Step 4: Ask for input from your team.

Step 5: Realize that was a bad mistake...

Step 6: Create your first draft.

Step 7: Feel proud.

Step 8: Present the plan to your boss.

Step 9: Brace yourself for the feedback...

Step 10: Realize you will need therapy for this...

Step 11: Take a "break."

Step 12: Repeat steps 6 - 11.

Step 13: Agree to cut everything you didn't do last year.

Step 14: Receive approval.

The end. For those of you stuck in budgeting season - we are here for you!!! :)

Inga Rundquist

Inga Rundquist is a Public Relations Arsonist and Co-Owner at MindFire. When she’s not dreaming up ideas that will generate publicity, you can find her knee deep in the social media world, also known as the next PR frontier.