Running your own business was supposed to be sexy

When does it become too much?

In the last few months, I’ve been trying to do a bunch of stuff on my own.

On the business side:

• Writing copy and designing my new website (you should check it out if you haven’t already)

• Creating marketing content, writing posts, and doing outreach, designing the graphics for some of these posts.

• Blog post writing, editing, SEO.

• working on client projects, and communicating with clients

• Other miscellaneous things like taxes, networking with other business owners

• Talking to leads and following up (which takes us a lot more time than I’d like)

And that’s already quite the mouthful.

But let’s not ignore the personal side of things:

• Managing my health and going to the gym regularly

• Keeping in touch with friends and family

• Reading, writing fiction, cooking

• Travelling

• Trying to keep up the pretense of being a normal human being

It’s all too much and at one point, you’ll sit at your desk writing a newsletter ranting about how it’s all too much (meta much?).

Running a business is overwhelming when you’re one person.

Your to-do list never seems to run out and even when you think you’re on track to completion, another task seems comes out of nowhere.

Maybe that’s why they say running your own business is fighting fires.

Earlier this year, I’d even brought on someone to help me with my marketing but to send them work means completing this stuff on time and that’s another task on my to-do list - not their fault, but solely mine.

Perhaps it’s why I’ve made the decision to add this newsletter to my very convoluted task list.

To actually figure out the kind of marketing I want to do for my copywriting business.

The thing about listening to the so-called experts is that you forget that getting lucky in marketing involves something special - luck. And most of the times, a big team and lots of money to spread yourself across different platforms without spreading yourself too thin.

But when you have limited resources, it means figuring out what works for you and more importantly, what are the things you can do consistently without burning out.

I know that the thought of having to be online for 30 minutes and replying to other posts after hitting ‘publish’ on LinkedIn makes me feel like a sitting duck. Sending cold emails makes me feel like an awful human being 90% of the time. Writing out blog posts takes up 50 hours because I embody the worst bits of perfectionism.

And testing out any new marketing ‘thing’ makes me second-guess myself every step of the way.

While I’ve said this many times, it seems I need to repeat it for myself.

Marketing should be figuring out what you enjoy doing and being able to repeat it in a consistent manner.

I seem to have forgotten this with every ‘enter’ I press for a formatted LinkedIn post.

And it’s understandable. The ‘marketing’ I did prior to February 2024 was referrals and retainer work. But that only gets me so far, especially if I want to make a name for myself.

This newsletter is a nice way for me to be honest with myself. Maybe a little too honest - I’m not sure. You tell me.

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What I did this week

Read: ‘Bird by Bird’ by Anne Lamott which I think is a very okay book on writing and I wanted to do everything in the world except read it. The chapters on writing first drafts (which got me interested in reading it in the first place) and the one called ‘Letters’, however, are must-reads. Currently in the middle of American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Watched: Steven Universe. Sometimes, you want entertainment that gets you away from your to-do list and this is one of my favourite shows.

Something that brought me joy: Attended a journaling session organized by a Doha-based influencer and ended up winning a giveway for an Atelier dress. It was my first time winning something in a luck-based draw, so I got a little too excited.

Screen-grab from the video

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What I wrote this week:

Blog: Currently working on a blog post about creating ideal client personas (ICPs). I initially planned to release it as a freebie, but as you might recall from my first newsletter, I’m a bit sick of them. So I’m just going to release it as a value-packed blog post. I also had the most fun writing this blog post on About Pages ( my favourite web page copy to write) and I didn’t expect it to cross 4k words. The funny thing? I could write at least 10,000 more words about it.

LinkedIn: I won’t add everything I wrote this week but I shared my experience getting my name, which happens to be a rather common name, as a domain. You can read it here.

End Notes

I gained 10 new subscribers in a single day. Where did you all come from? I’m being very serious when I ask - are you bots? I got to say though- if you’re not, it is very cool that people want to read my more casual writing.

Happy Marketing,
Maria