Getting a bare minimum in place to get you through busy or stressful times
An approach to showing up when you don’t feel like it
Just a week to go until my TikTok Workshop in Leighton Buzzard, Weds 18th June, and I’ll be doing it all over again online the week after. Find out more and get your tickets.
Weirdly, I had already decided what the topic for this week’s post was going to be when I found myself in the position of actually needing the very thing that I am about to write about.
When you’re running a small business, and you’re the one that does pretty much everything, including your own marketing, what do you do when you are having a week when it’s all too much?
This week was always going to be a busy one for me. I’m out and about recording for my own podcast for Leighton Buzzard Local, as well as taking part in an event for Big Green Week as a host for a live podcast. And then yesterday, Monday, I woke up feeling completely awful. I have no idea what it was, but I was completely out for the count, and spent the whole day in bed with the worst headache I think I’ve ever had. Not fun.
I’m not ill very often but I do also have weeks where I’m just not feeling it. I find that this is usually when I’m having some kind of creative idea, I’m working out what a project is going to look like, how I want to do it, how I’m going to approach it, but often this comes with a side order of my brain deciding it can’t settle on anything else. Unhelpful.
And sometimes, no matter how I plan it, projects come together all at once and I’m in a situation where I’m trying to make sure that it all gets done, without becoming a stressed out mess in the process.
At any of these times, it’s really easy to end up dropping your marketing. It feels like the one thing that you just don’t have time to get to, so it’s one of the first things to get forgotten.
This is where having a marketing plan, and within that a bare minimum marketing plan comes in.
First, let's tackle the idea that doing the bare minimum sometimes is in any way a bad thing. It isn’t.
You are an expert, that’s why you run your own business. You know all about the industry you work in, and even on days when you think you’re not giving your all, what you provide is way above any kind of ‘bare minimum’ that you actually have in your head.
Your bare minimum is still of amazing value to your audience, so first up, don’t think that this is about putting out ‘bad’ content, or content that you aren’t pleased with, it certainly isn’t.
What it is about, is setting up your marketing so that you can still show up, even when you feel like it is at the bottom of your list.
Take this post for example. Given the week I’ve had so far, I could easily have just decided not to write a post this week. I could have just decided to skip this one and come back again next week.
But I have things set up so that I didn’t have to do that. This post, which I’m sure that you are finding useful and helpful, is still out there in the world, and I’ve still showed up for my weekly Substack post.
To do this, I make sure that I’m collecting ideas for my newsletter all the time. I also team up my content so that often the thing that I put into my post is also the subject of my live session for The Content Club in the same week. This means I can use the same ideas in different ways for both audiences - this post will be a great overview of it, and then I get into it in more detail in my live session.
I usually write this on a Monday, so that I’ve got some time built in, just in case things don’t go to plan and I need a bit of extra time. Often though, because I’ve collected ideas in advance of writing this post, I sometimes write it over the weekend because the idea just keeps filling out until I realise I’ve got pretty much the whole post in my head waiting to be written down!
All of these things help me make sure that I can get out a post every week, that it doesn’t all hinge on one thing that I have to do in order to get it done, it’s more about small things that get done everyday which work towards this.
When I’m talking to my Content Club peeps, I call this Content Flow. It’s the idea that you are pulling apart everything that goes into creating content, so that you aren’t just planning to show up, create and post at the same time. Instead you are:
Keeping a list of content ideas that you add to all the time
Setting aside time for content creation, so you can give yourself time to write, film, take pictures, and create great content ahead of posting it
Posting content - this is the final piece, where you show up and share your content, tell your audience why it’s so great for them and get to engage and see their reaction
If you are working on your content list then I find that there are often small, quick ideas lying around on your content ideas list that you can pick up when you need them, when things aren’t going to plan, to get something out that keeps the momentum going for your marketing.
I find that one of the great things about having a list of content ideas is that actually now that I’ve got into the habit of capturing these, I often have an idea and use it straight away. More and more my content list is becoming a great fall back for weeks when I’m not so inspired, to know that I can still just show up and get on with it when I’m creating content.
It’s the same with working on your content creation. When I started creating little vlog style reels for Leighton Buzzard Local at the start of 2024 they took me ages to do, to put together, to get the voiceover just right. But now? It’s been a year, I’m much more skilled at knowing what content I need, how many clips I need, how they’re going to flow together and what I want to say about them.
Working consistently - little and often - on getting the content creation skills you need to create the content you want to show off your business, is again something that gives you a great fall back at times when you can’t put in as much time. You already have these skills now, it will take less time to create something, and you can go back to gaining more of those skills when you have more time.
And finally, a word on posting. One of the main ways in which people use your social media for a small business is to check you out. I don’t know about you, but if I went to someone’s profile and they’d posted something this week and last week, I’d think that’s great, they’re clearly actively working in their business. I’m not looking for them to have posted 3 x per week, or 3 x per day (I can never fathom how anyone actually does that!), I’m just looking to make sure they’re out there somewhere.
So having a week where just one thing gets posted, that’s fine. Aim for a few times a week if you can, across different types of content (again, you don’t need to be doing 3x reels per week!), as this will be far easier to keep up over time and give you the consistency you need to gain traction on socials.
As always, I hope this is helpful. If you’d like to chat, or have any questions then do get in touch.
Chat soon
Laura