Why Doing Every Marketing Tactic at Once Smothers Your Progress

You come home from a conference fired up. Your notebook is full. New ideas. Tactics the speakers swore by. Things the person next to you at lunch is already doing.

Monday morning you start on the list. By Wednesday a client needs something. By Friday the notebook is under a stack of mail. A month later you can't remember half of what you wrote down.

I've lived this one. And if you’ve seen the piles of notes and ideas stacked on my desk, I’m probably living it right now too.

I've also watched it happen with team members. They'd come back from a conference with a laundry list of to-dos. If I didn't ask them to pick one thing to put into place, the whole list gathered dust. The daily demands of running the business crowded it out every time.

The pull to do it all

Conferences are just one way it happens. You hear an expert say you have to be on video. Someone else says email is where the money is. You notice a peer in your market posting every single day. Maybe someone who's been at this a lot longer than you has a podcast, a book and a retreat.

So you try to do all of it … and all of it right now.

That's the fastest way I know to burn out. You spread yourself thin. Something drops. You feel bad about it. Then something else drops.

Or you hustle so hard to keep every ball in the air that you always feel three steps behind. Late nights. Early mornings. Somewhere in there you start wondering if working for yourself is really worth it.

I've felt that pull too. I looked at other coaches and consultants and figured I needed videos, emails, social media, a book and retreats. All at the same pace. All at once. Without a rhythm, I was simply trying to do everything.

What a campfire can teach you

Picture a kid watching a campfire finally catch. The flames are small but growing. He gets excited. So he scoops up every leaf and stick in sight and dumps them on the fire all at once.

The flames disappear under the pile. Smoke rolls out. The fire he was so excited about starts to die.

A young fire needs air as much as it needs fuel. Pile on too much too fast. And you smother the progress you already made. People who build good fires add fuel a piece at a time. They watch what catches. Then they add a little more.

Your marketing works the same way.

Match what you do to what you have

The fix is to balance your marketing activities with the resources you actually have to work with. Mainly time, money and energy. Those limits are real. Respecting them is how you keep going.

Start by asking what you can realistically do to move your business forward on a few different timelines.

Daily activities should be quick and easy. You're serving clients and juggling other commitments, so think ten or fifteen minutes. Commenting on a referral partner's post or a future client’s post. Sending a short check-in note to a past client. Making at least one phone call to someone in your network.

Weekly, you can carry a little more. Maybe that's writing one article or recording one video. Or scheduling 2-3 social media posts.

Once a month there's room for something bigger. A new tool or worksheet. Going to lunch with someone to build a relationship. An email series you’ve been wanting to write.

Save the heavy lifts for each season. A workshop. A new offer. A new breakout session. A project that takes real time and energy to pull off.

The pattern is simple. The more time or energy something takes, the less often you do it. That gives you room to do it well.

Building up one piece at a time

I'm doing this right now. I recently met with a business coach who helped me map out some significant shifts in the services I'll be offering. I'm excited about them and how they can help people in ways I haven’t before. And a big part of me would love to launch them all tomorrow.

But I can't. So I'm sorting out what to launch in the next 30 days. Then 90 days. Then six months and a year. I have a vision for how often something like a three-hour workshop or a weekend-long one would be offered. I'll build up to that and start with how many I realistically feel I can pull off in the next 12 months.

Starting with one piece lets me learn and refine as I go. It also helps me settle into a rhythm. And once one thing is working, it's a lot easier to add one more. And I’ll be keeping a “not now, but later” list of ideas to pull from when I’m ready to add the next activity.

I'm still adjusting as I learn. But I'm getting more done now than when I tried to do it all at the same pace.

Your next step

Grab that list. The conference notes. The expert's must-dos. The things you've seen others doing. Or all the things you’re trying to do now but can’t seem to keep up with.

Pick one activity to start with. The one activity you feel will make the biggest difference in your business. Then decide how often you can realistically do it so you keep it going.

Add another activity when your first piece is running steady.

Not sure where to start? Look at the ways you naturally show up. My Find Your Marketing Strengths tool gives you ideas on how to use your natural strengths to build a marketing strategy that fits you. It’s free. Takes about two minutes. And no email is required to see your results.

Next time, I'll walk through how to pick one core activity and get more mileage out of it.