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You are listening to the Grow youw Local Business podcast, where local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnell shares the strategies and the mindset to help you reach more people in your city and bring in a steady stream of clients. All right, let's dive in.
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Hey, welcome to episode 131. Today we're going to talk about making time for your marketing, because, let's face it, like, we all know we're not going to find all this magical leftover time at the end of our day. Anytime I find myself thinking, oh, I'm going to do that later, I'm going to find time for that later, I know it's not happening. Anytime we find ourselves thinking, one day I'll have more time for that. It really is wishful thinking. We're always able to fill our calendars every day, and then things end up taking as long as we give them. So we never really seem to find extra time for things unless we make it, unless we prioritize it. So that's why I wanted to be very clear that this episode is about making time for your marketing, not finding time for your marketing, because I just doubt we find it. We can just be honest. We're not going to find it, but we do need to make it. So I'm just going to dive right in with the first way to make more time for your marketing, and that is, number one, you just have to decide that your marketing is one of the most important things for you to do in your business. Like, making time for your marketing is a decision. This is not something that is outside of us or that we hope we have time for. It's a decision that we get to make. We are in control of our time and how we spend our times. And we really need to remind ourselves of that, because I know sometimes we forget. We always create our day and create our calendars. We are in control of our time. And when you are working in your business, you have to decide that marketing is a top priority. It's one of the most important things that you do to grow your business. So if you're thinking of your business like a pie chart, like, imagine that pie, and then imagine it split in half. There are only two things that you should really be focusing on when you're growing your business, and that is marketing your business so you can always have more eyes on your business. And you're always inviting people in. And then the other half of the pie is serving your clients really well. Like working with your clients, delivering to your clients, giving them a Great experience. Those are the two more most important things, marketing and serving your clients. And if you give your clients a great experience, technically that's also marketing because they're gonna go tell their friends, they're gonna refer you, they're gonna go write testimony testimonials, they're going to be repeat customers. So really, you could argue the entire pie is marketing. But really, marketing and serving your clients, like, those are the two things that I want you to think of every day. This is how I'm spending my time. Like, these are the two most important places to be giving my time to. So if you don't have the number of clients that you won't, that you want right now, you have to be honest with yourself and ask, where are you spending your time? It's so important that you get clear on this and that you get honest with yourself about it and that you just get clear where you are spending your time every week if it's not in your marketing. Which brings me to my next point number two. The second way to make time for your marketing is to spend time marketing during any open slots you have. So if we think about that pie chart, and if half your time is marketing and half of your time is giving a great experience to your clients, if you don't have the clients yet, we want to really give more of the pie chart to the marketing at that point. And this is one of the best pieces, pieces of advice that I ever got, and that's to market just during any open slots you have. Like do any marketing activities during any spots that you aren't currently booked in. So you, you need to be clear on how many people you want to work with each each week and how many spots you have available and how many current clients you have. So, for example, let's say you want 15 clients this week, but you don't have any on the books, then that means every open spot is time for you to be marketing. So if you have an open client spot on your calendar, if you don't have a client today, or if you have a client and then an open spot, that means sit down and a post during that open time. Create a piece of content, hop on story, send an email, call someone, go meet someone, reach out to a referral partner, like do something during that open slot to gain a new client. I see so many business owners with no one on their schedule and they aren't using that time. Instead, they're doing things like running errands, they're going to the gym, they're Doing laundry. Like, they're really using it as free time. It's like, well, I don't have any clients today. And then they're telling themselves that they don't have time to market. And the reason really this is a problem. Well, number one, it's not doing the work to get the clients. But winner, if you ever do get clients, you haven't worked in your schedule on this time management piece. So I see clients who do start to get bookings, but they haven't been used to working in their business. Regular work hours every day. Then they or they say they want a certain amount of clients, but they aren't even working those hours in their business. It's like, oh, I want a full practice that's 40 hours a week. But they may be only spending like five or 10 hours in their business a week. Like that math is not going to math, right? Like if we're just out having free days or watching TVs or at the gym. So it's like, set your work hours, decide how many clients you want, and then you are marketing yourself and working during those hours until you fill those spots. That is literally the best advice I ever got. Now, the third way to make time for your marketing is just keep it simple. Like, do the same things over and over. Your life gets easier when you stick to the same strategies, the same platforms, the same ways to market yourself because you know what you're doing every day, you spend less time deciding on what to do or if you're going to do something different. This is why my students inside the LocalPreneur Academy love the local marketing plan. Because they do the same thing over and over, on repeat, every single day, every single week. It's simple, it's quick, it's a checklist. We can waste so much time when we don't stick to the same things. Like when we start posting on Instagram for a while, and then we're like, well, that's not working. Like, I'm gonna try Facebook groups now. And then that doesn't really work. So it's like, well, I'm gonna start running an ad, so then let me go spend all this time learning Facebook ads. And then it's like, well, that's not really working after all. I'm gonna go put an ad in a magazine. Well, I tried that. That didn't work. I'm gonna go to networking events. Well, I did that. That didn't work. I'm gonna start a TikTok. That didn't work. I'm gonna try Blogging, it's this vicious, time consuming cycle of starting and stopping and jumping from thing to thing that slows people down. But it's when you stick to the same core things every day and you do them over and over, you never have to question, what am I going to do today? That's the number one thing that slows people down. You just sit down and you do it. And then what happens is you start getting faster at those things, you start getting better at those things, those things start working better. And so the fourth way to go off that last one, the fourth way to make time for your marketing is to schedule your marketing. You have to schedule when you're going to market yourself. Like, when are you going to post and create things? I don't care as much. Like if you schedule your content ahead of time and have it scheduled and ready to go in advance. Honestly, I rarely do. I feel like I find people think we should be really ahead of the game and have things batched out and pre scheduled and then when we don't, we beat ourselves up. So that's just not a priority or thing I even try to worry about. I'm. I'm just like, can you be consistent? If, if batching and getting that ahead is really important to you, obviously then that is something to work on. But I care. Like, can you show up for the things you said you were going to do today, this week? So I don't typically schedule very far in advance or have things batched out, but I do have on my Google Calendar every day or every week when I'm going to sit down and write post, or when I'm going to sit down and write emails, or when I'm going to sit down and work on a podcast. I decide ahead of time how long I think that task is going to take. I create a time block for it and I put it on my calendar and then I honor it. I show up for it just like I was going to show up for a meeting with someone else. I treat it like it's that important. Because if you think about it, your marketing is you showing up for someone else. It's you showing up for your people and they are waiting on you. It's like, imagine if I didn't schedule time to work on this podcast and it didn't get put out at 4am on Tuesday mornings. You guys would be emailing in like, Leslie, what's going on? Where's the podcast? But I time block it on my calendar every single week. I add it on my calendar it's there. I decide ahead of time how long I think I'm gonna need to write it out, to record it, to edit it, to upload it, to write the show notes, to write the email, to go along with it, to create the stories. Like, all of those pieces get put on my calendar. I don't just write do podcast on a to do list. Because if I just put down do podcast on a to do list that's so big, there's so many components that go into a podcast, I would just keep skipping it over. I would keep skipping over it on my list. I would pick every other easier task on the list instead, and it just would not get done. But instead, I schedule each part of the podcast. Like, write it out, record it, whatever, do the social media, the emails. Like, each of those gets its own time block. On my Google Calendar, I taught I time block it based on how long I think it will take. I just take my best guess, which you get better at figuring out how long things take you the more you do them. And then I show up when it's time for that time block. And this is perfect. Going back to number two, where we talked about spending time marketing when you don't have clients, if you have open spots on your calendar, you can just put these tasks there. And when you do start getting more and more clients, you just start reworking your calendar until it all fits. It's like a puzzle. You get to play with every but it's how you make sure it all gets done. Because you can look at the hours that you're working every week, whether that's 40 hours, 20 hours, whatever it is for you. And you can see all of your blocks of time. And then you can clearly see does it all fit, yes or no. And then you just start playing around with it. It's a puzzle. It's math. And then you just show up. Once you get everything fitting, then you just show up for the things on your calendar. So those are your four ways to make time for your marketing. Not find it, but make it. Number one, you have to decide that your marketing is one of the most important things to do in your business. Number two, market during any open slots you have in your calendar, anytime you don't have clients. Number three, keep it simple. Do the same things over and over. Number four, schedule your marketing, like time block it out on your calendar and show up for it. And here's what I really want you to take away from this episode. Typically, we don't really have time problems. We just have thoughts about the time we have, or we have problems with making decisions about what we want to do, or we have feelings about what we're doing or. Or we aren't taking action in the time that we do have. But once you decide that marketing is a priority, once you start using the time that you do have wisely, you keep things simple and you schedule what you're doing on your calendar and you start showing up to those things consistently, everything changes. You feel in control of your time. You become the person who gets the things done. You become the person who focuses on the things that are going to move the needle forward in your business. We call these revenue generating activities and that is marketing all day long. That's where we want you spending your time when it comes to getting more local clients. And if you want my direct help with this, because look, we all have unique schedules, different circumstances, different obstacles, different things getting in the way, different thoughts about the time we have or what we can get done in that time, or how our time should be or how it should look. This is where coaching comes in. This is what we solve for when we work together inside the local Preneur Academy. We look at the real reasons right now that your marketing isn't getting done. Like the circumstances, the things going on in your life, in your business, your current schedule, your limiting beliefs, what you're thinking about your time and your schedule, everything that you're feeling like maybe it's perfectionism, imposter syndrome, fear, doubt. All of these things slow you down even more or stop you from showing up to your marketing. And we, we look at the way you're currently spending your time and then we create a schedule that works for you. And we, we work on overcoming all of it one by one. We personalize it to you and your business and your life so you can stay consistent in your marketing and start showing up how you want to in your business so you can get fully booked. So if that sounds like the type of work that you know you need to be doing, then definitely come check out the LocalPreneur Academy. I would love to have you come join us. Guide where we were able to take everything you're learning here on the podcast deeper and really personalize it to you so you can click on the link in the show notes to learn more. Join today. Get instant access and I will see you there. All right my friends, have a great week and I will talk to you soon. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, I want to invite you to check out my program the LocalPreneur Academy. This is the only program for small business owners who want to become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more information@lesleypressnell.com and I'll see you inside.