Why Small Business Owners Feel Overwhelmed by Marketing
January can be really loud.
As the new year rolls around, we feel compelled to try new strategies and platforms. But for many small business owner, the chorus of Q1 encouragement doesn’t feel motivating. In fact, it can be paralysing. So much easier to stick your head in the sand and carry on like before.
If you’ve ever jumped between Instagram, email marketing, SEO, ads, funnels and various content ideas without feeling like anything is really working, you’re not alone. With so much information out there, it’s natural to want to try everything. But the problem is that as a small business owner, we don’t have time to keep all the fires alive, so we end up dropping one ball after the other, and nothing has time to catch.
So why is that? Well, marketing decisions for small businesses are rarely made in a calm environment. The advice online assumes that you have unlimited time and energy, and a clear, singular business goal.
In reality, most small business owners are time-poor, juggling actual work and admin with creating content, and - more often than not - making marketing decisions under pressure.
The thing is, when your nervous system is already overloaded, adding more options doesn’t help. It just makes it harder to choose, and that’s when the ball dropping starts to happen.
From a psychological perspective, this is a classic case of decision fatigue. The more choices you’re faced with, the more likely you are to either do nothing or do a lot of things inconsistently.
Neither is particularly productive, and neither leads to sustainable growth.
What actually helps is constraint. Hear me out here. What if you had fewer options, clearer priorities, and - importantly - permission to ignore the rest.
Marketing doesn’t need to be loud or relentless to work. It simply needs to be focused, realistic, and aligned with where your business is right now, not where you think it should be.
I hear you. This all sounds lovely, but how do I do that in practice?
Worry not, my friend. I may just have a tool for you. I’ve created a template that helps small business owners nail down exactly what the top priorities are right now, to help you get past the overwhelm and into a clearer headspace.
Curious? You can download it here for free:
Good luck!
