Marketing Your Business (without the icky pitch)
What I shared on Tonya Lawson’s Plan Like a Boss Podcast
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Tonya Lawson on her Plan Like a Boss podcast, a show for women over 40 who are rebuilding and launching their businesses after major life transitions. In just thirty short minutes, we covered a lot, including:
- Curiosity marketing: how to bring a spark into your marketing
- What to do when staring down the dreaded blinking cursor
- How to start over without shame
- And more!
Want Curious Customers?
Start with your own curiosity! Good marketing starts with being curious about what you're talking about and who you’re talking to. Before I share a podcast, write a blog (like this one), craft a newsletter, or sit down with a podcast host like Tonya, I take time to ask and understand who I'm talking to. I also have to ensure I’m interested in the topic in the first place. If you’re bored by your own content, it’s going to be very hard to make it interesting to your readers and listeners.
Begin by Asking…
- Who am I talking to?
- Why does this matter to them?
- Am I lit up by this topic?
From there, you want to give people enough to chew on without handing them the answers or making the conclusion for them. Whenever possible, use clear, concrete language, show don’t tell, and avoid being overly prescriptive. You want to inform and give them the power to choose for themselves.
Find your people, then pick your platform.
There is no single answer to, “which platform should I be on?” (sorry!)
Begin by getting clear on what you offer and who you offer it to, then work backward to where those people spend their time. Sometimes that’s LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook groups. And often, your best clients aren’t on social media at all! When that’s the case, your marketing relies on word of mouth, referrals, and collaborations.
Personally, I can attest to this in the growth of my own businesses over the years. While social media has been helpful, MOST of my marketing comes from the relationships I’m building along the way. For me, this has held fast-and-true from brick-and-mortar to online to events-based businesses.
Relationships are one of the best parts of running a business; don’t treat them lightly.
Test, experiment, give it time to breathe, then decide.
Almost everything I try in my marketing begins as an experiment. I like to put a time frame on it as I’m watching for results. Three months (90 days) is my usual window, which also fits the way most businesses think in quarters. This year (2026), I gave Pinterest a little bit longer of a runway—six whole months!—because I had high hopes of it helping my podcast grow. I set up the page, posted consistently, and after six months, didn’t see much of a difference. I may go back to it eventually; I may simply reduce my consistency and call it another place I have “there there”, or I may give up on it entirely.
Another way to test your platforms, and for sure before you quit and walk away for good, make sure you’re not part of the problem. Get an expert (or a really honest friend) to review your profile and content. This will help you know whether or not you need to tweak, reduce your frequency, or drop it entirely. If it still isn’t working or isn’t worth your time and energy, let it go. Your time and capacity are limited, so never hesitate to give something the big ol’ bless and release!
Save time (and sanity) by repurposing.
Not to be confused with reposting, which is simply posting the same content elsewhere, repurposing is the next level of content creation.
Believe me, you will fall in love with this concept once you start taking full advantage of it! This very blog is a terrific example of repurposing. What began as an interview with Tonya Lawson on her Plan Like a Boss podcast is now… a blog!
This blog will also become social posts and an email newsletter. Repurposing is just that: taking one idea or piece of content and reshaping it into another one.
Apply it for yourself:
A video script can become a carousel post on Instagram
A social media carousel can become a series of images/video with words flowing across the screen
A blog can become 1, 2, 3, 10 social posts
An email can become a blog
A podcast can become an email
The list goes on, but you get the idea. Repurposing allows you to test formats and spread your content further, faster, and wider without creating 27,000 bajillion pieces of separate content. That’s what I call getting your business to work for you vs. the other way around!
Be the most interesting thing in your content.
I’ve never met a trend I liked. I skip most of them, and they’ve never made me go viral the few times I gave it a whirl. I’m more of a timeless gal myself. In general, trends aren’t great curiosity drivers since everyone else is doing the same thing.
What keeps people reading is you. Your uniqueness, specificity, difference, personality, je ne se quois… YOU!
Share what makes you you and don’t be afraid to make it weird. Weird is usually human and human is relatable.
Leave off the period.
(The one above had to stay for consistency’s sake )
In general, I don’t like telling people what they should think or do in my content.
We’re all a little over it with the do’s and don’ts, type of content, amiright?
When offering a viewpoint or opinion, leave the final decision up to the reader. It might, at first, feel like leaving a period off the end of a sentence, but I can almost guarantee you’ll get more engagement out of your content if you aren’t always dropping the mic and calling it a day.
When the cursor is blinking at you…start here:
Oy! We’ve all been there, and believe me, there’s no single fix. It also can depend on the day (or time of the month).
Here are a few tools and ideas I use regularly to stare that thing down and get text in its place instead:
- Set a fifteen-minute timer and just write.
- Step away and go take a sensory walk or walk outside. Come back after and try again.
- Call it a day: Read a romance novel, play with your dog, bake cookies, go thrifting
- Change your environment or set up your environment (I light a candle, turn on a special lamp, and put on music when I do creative work).
- Write about your last trip to the grocery store, or just type “I don’t know what to write” until something else shows up.
- Use a prompt. Ask what you wish someone had told you five years ago.
- Go back to something you already wrote and rework it (friendly reminder: half your audience probably wasn’t around for it and the other half wasn’t paying attention)
Want more where this came from? Read my blog on Finding Creative Inspiration HERE.
That’s all for now! Make sure to give Tonya’s episode a listen because we get into MORE fun topics on marketing (without the hard sell) like:
- How many times your audience needs to hear something before it finally sticks
- Why repeating yourself isn’t a bad thing
- What’s really behind the FEAR of starting something new
- And so much more!
