(Mic taps. Chair squeaks. Sound of someone rifling through papers they don’t actually need.)
Alright. Let’s talk about the big one. The mother of all creative delusions. The lie that keeps us exhausted, underpaid, and secretly terrified at 2 AM when we can’t sleep.
Here it is: “I’m too busy doing the actual work to bother with marketing. I’ll get to it when I have a slow week.”
When’s that slow week coming, champ? When’s the universe going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Alright, you’ve been busy enough. Here’s three days of absolutely nothing. Go ahead and find some new clients now.”
Spoiler alert: That week never comes. It’s a fairy tale. It’s the creative equivalent of “I’ll start my diet on Monday.”
You’re booked solid. You’re working nights. You’re turning down “smaller” projects because you’re so swamped. You’re complaining to your friends about how crazy busy you are. You’re a martyr. You’re a hero. You’re suffering for your craft.
And at the end of the month, you look at your bank account, and you have…
…almost nothing.
How the hell does that happen? You worked 60 hours. You said “no” to a dozen people. You were busy.
Yeah. You were busy. Busy doing work that pays the bills but doesn’t build a future. Busy trading your time for money like a cab driver. Busy avoiding the one thing that would actually change your life.
You’re using “busyness” as a shield. It’s a socially acceptable way of saying, “I’m too scared to reach out to new people, so I’ll just bury myself in this low-paying project and complain about it.”
The 80/20 Wake-Up Call
Let me introduce you to something called the Pareto Principle. It’s an old Italian economist’s theory that says, roughly, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
In your case? 80% of your quality leads, the good clients, the ones who pay on time, the ones who don’t make you want to throw your computer out the window, come from 20% of your time spent on visibility.
That’s right. That tiny sliver of your week that you spend posting, networking, or reaching out? That’s the stuff that brings in the golden goose.
And what are you doing with the other 80%? You’re grinding. You’re doing the work. The real work. The work that actually pays you.
But here’s the brutal irony: If you spent more time on that 20%, you’d have to spend less time on the 80%. Because you’d be getting better clients. Higher-paying clients. Clients who don’t haggle over every invoice.
But you’re so stuck in the mud, so convinced that “hard work” means “suffering,” that you refuse to see it.
You’re digging a hole with a shovel, and you’re complaining about how deep the hole is, and you’re refusing to look at the excavator sitting right next to you because using it “feels icky.”
Marketing is Not a Project. It’s a Habit.
Here’s where you go wrong. You treat marketing like a project. Something you have to “finish.”
“Let me just get through this website redesign, and then I’ll do a big marketing push.”
“Let me just finish this quarter, and then I’ll update my portfolio.”
“Let me just get through this busy season, and then I’ll start posting on LinkedIn.”
It never happens. Because there’s always another project. There’s always another deadline. There’s always another “slow week” that never comes.
You need to stop treating marketing like a marathon. It’s not. It’s a habit. It’s brushing your teeth. It’s making coffee. It’s something you do every single day, not because you want to, but because the alternative is rotting in place.
You don’t wait until you have a slow week to brush your teeth, do you? No. You just do it. Because you know what happens if you don’t.
Same thing with marketing. If you don’t do it daily, you decay. You become invisible. You become a ghost with a portfolio.
The 15-Minute Marketing Dash
Alright, I’m going to give you a routine. Something so small and easy that you have absolutely no excuse not to do it.
I call it the 15-Minute Marketing Dash.
Here’s the deal: The first 15 minutes of your day—before you check email, before you open your design software, before you even fully wake up—you do one specific marketing task.
Not two. Not three. One.
It could be:
- Commenting on a potential client’s LinkedIn post. Not a “Great post!” comment. An actual, thoughtful comment that shows you read what they wrote.
- Sending one tailored email to someone you want to work with. Personal. Specific. Not a form letter.
- Reposting an old project with a new lesson learned. Take something you did three years ago and write a fresh caption about what you’d do differently now.
- Writing one paragraph of a case study.
- Reaching out to a past client to see if they need anything.
Fifteen minutes. That’s it. You do it before the day swallows you whole. You do it before the “urgent” stuff takes over. You do it before you can talk yourself out of it.
Then, you go about your day. You do the client work. You do the busy stuff. But you did the important stuff first.
The 30-Day Challenge
Here’s your homework. And you’re not going to like it.
I want you to do this 15-Minute Marketing Dash every single day for 30 days. No excuses. No “I’ll do it tomorrow.” No “I’m too tired.”
Do it. Track your results.
At the end of 30 days, look at your inbox. Look at the conversations you started. Look at the clients who reached out to you because you were suddenly visible.
You will be shocked. Genuinely shocked.
Because here’s the secret: Most creatives don’t do this. They’re too busy. Too scared. Too “booked solid.” They’re stuck in the mud with you.
By showing up for 15 minutes a day, you’re already ahead of 90% of your competition. You’re not a ghost anymore. You’re a presence. You’re someone who exists in the world.
And people hire people who exist.
So stop telling me you’re too busy. You’re not busy. You’re avoiding. And there’s a difference.
Fifteen minutes. Every day. Starting tomorrow.
Or don’t. Keep grinding. Keep complaining. Keep being broke at the end of the month while being “booked solid.” See how that works out for you.
I’ll be here. Waiting. And I’ll be the one with the newer clients.
I have become really obsessed with the lies we creatives tell ourselves, especially when it comes to marketing. I have heard them all, even said a few of them myself. It is these lies that stop so many creatives marketing effectively. All of these lies require a change in mind-set. We creatives really need to re-think this marketing.
I sat down and collated the most common marketing lies I heard creatives tell themselves. I documented 22 of these common lies, but 21 sounded better in the book title so I conveniently mislaid number 22 and came around to “The 21 Marketing Lies Creatives Tell Themselves”.
It started as a blog post, then it started to grow into a series of blog posts, but the muse was pushing hard so I just ran with it and it became a book.
I don’t just explain these lies, but I deconstruct them and then help change your mindset, and as result we’ll turbo-charge your marketing. Because that’s my goal: help you to build a marketing machine that allows you to spend more time creating, yet continue to market effectively.
The 21 Marketing Lies Creatives Tell Themselves is available at Amazon
Every week I post at least once, giving hints and tips for creatives who want to market more effectively. Pop your email in the box below to stay up to date with all future posts.
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