You Don’t Have A Marketing Problem; You Have A Time Management Problem
Before you try to fight me about how I don’t know what I’m talking about, wait!
Two things can be true. You could struggle with marketing, and you can struggle with managing your time when it comes to showing up as a creative.
The more creatives I talk to about how marketing is their biggest area of improvement, the more and more I realize what the common excuse or reason is as to why.
No, I am not shaming you or trying to make you feel guilty. Just tell me if this sounds like you…
“There are not enough hours in the day!”
“I don’t have time to create content. I do everything already.”
“I start creating, and I forget to press record.”
“I post a piece of content that I spent hours on, and it gets no likes, but then I post something that took me no time, and it goes crazy. So, what am I even doing it for?”
Now, if you’re still with me and noticed a pattern, good.
It’s not just marketing or time management creatives are struggling with, right?
Creative, you have a priority problem.
Notice I didn’t say “priorities.”
“The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next 500 years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities.”
This is a quote from Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less that I found on Reddit. This person mentioned exactly what I learned during a dinner in Orlando, Florida, with our company’s advisor as I sat in the Director of Operations seat for a global fitness brand dedicated to helping women.
This is one of the many reasons the problem is no longer just marketing. It’s about how you manage your time and what you’re focused on, not just as a New Year’s Resolution or a far-off goal, but each day.
So, how do we fix it?
It may be easier to break this down into the myths, or lies, we tell ourselves. You choose the word you want to call it.
Myth 1: You have the same number of hours in your day as Beyoncé.
Yes, we all get 24 hours in a day, but how we can use them depends on our relationship status, what we do for work, if we have kids of our own, and any other duties we have outside of that. Not to mention the fact that most creatives I know are doing this solo and have yet to build a team or support system willing to tap into mutual aid.
— Important Note: Mutual aid is defined as “the voluntary, peer-to-peer exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit” according to the National Education Association (NEA). You can read more in their article, Mutual Aid is an Act of Resistance and Community Support.
So, while you may have 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (366 during a leap year), you likely don’t have the same support Bey does. While you can aspire to have that, don’t stress yourself out trying to do it all, all the time.
Myth 2: My content is only good if it goes viral.
You may not even phrase it this way, and still be one of those people who gets defeated the second you don’t have as many likes or views as you have followers. Can I tell you a secret?
Going viral doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t sustain the influx of people, can’t manage your time, and have nowhere to lead them to so they can support, buy from, or even hire you. Plus, it’s more likely your goal wasn’t to go viral, but that you wanted the right people or brands to see your content.
Besides, having virality be your goal and feeling unaccomplished when it doesn’t happen is like saying:
“My art is only good if someone else likes it.”
“Going viral is the only thing that matters.”
“I only create to be seen, and if what I do is not seen, it’s not worth it, and I should just quit.”
Like huh?!? It gave you the ick too, right? That’s what I thought.
Myth 3: There are not enough hours in a day.
Someone just made a face about this one cause I struck a nerve. Good. Be mad about it.
I am not asking you to sacrifice a thing. I am more curious if you’ve ever audited—yes, reviewed and dissected—where you spend the most time and where your priority lies each day.
There may be days when you don’t have enough hours because your schedule is that packed. I am not denying that. I am asking you to look at the days when your schedule is lighter and decide what is most important to you.
Oh, and yes, there is a way to course-correct!
Back in May, I dropped the first digital product for The Creative Conservatory to help fund our private community and bring in income to expand what we do. It was a freebie I used to share back in the days of owning a consulting agency, The Biz Lowdown, but with a twist.
I decided to add an audiobook on top of the original digital product, which was added to a workbook. As in, yes, I gave you all 3 for less than $10 and made it available on Beacons.
But I know better. I know me.
I had to offer a free version that would help people too, so I created a new series called “TCC Teach Me” on our YouTube channel. You can watch episode 1 below, where I dive into how to manage your time with ease.
