Find Your Marketing Minimum: A Simpler Way to Stay Consistent with Shari Balouchi

Today, we dig into how to keep your business seen—even when you’re running on empty—thanks to the brilliant Marketing Minimum framework from Shari Balouchi. We cut through the shiny fluff and get down to bite-sized strategies that actually stick.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What a “Marketing Minimum” actually is—and why it means way more than skimping on visibility.
• How to pre-decide and OWN your lowest-effort marketing actions so you don’t freeze up when you’re burned out.
• Real-world examples from guest pitching to email follow-ups—even when life hits.
• The big myths around “consistency” and why showing up perfectly every day is bullshit.
• Tactics to ditch the “all-or-nothing” mindset.
• One simple question to ask yourself to kickstart your own marketing minimum in under 60 seconds.

If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by all the content ideas, schedules, or tech BS—and wondered why the hell can’t I just get visible?—this episode is your vibe. Grab your favorite drink, and let’s do this.

About Shari:

Shari Balouchi is a business coach, marketing strategist, and unapologetic whole ass human®.

She brings over a decade of professional marketing experience—leading strategy for universities, global nonprofits, and impact-driven brands—alongside six years of coaching entrepreneurs 1:1, from solo consultants to seven-figure CEOs. Shari blends deep expertise with lived experience to help people build businesses that actually work for their lives.

As a multiracial woman navigating chronic illness, her whole ass human approach is equal parts data, lived experience, and cultural nuance. She’s helped clients create consistent full-time income, scale without sacrificing their wellbeing, grow teams that feel supportive (not overwhelming), and build systems that align with how their brains operate.

She’s also the host of Success for Whole Ass Humans, a podcast that explores business growth through grounded analysis and real-world client case studies. Today, we’re diving into her signature framework, Find Your Marketing Minimum, so you can keep your business moving, even on your lowest-energy days. When she’s off the clock, you’ll find her sipping strong tea, nerding out on the human condition, or exploring Oregon’s natural beauty with her phone firmly on Do Not Disturb.

Links:

Website: https://www.sharibalouchi.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sharibalouchi

Subscribe to The Marketing Minimum, a free email series designed to help you simplify your strategy, build momentum in a way that works with your real-life capacity, and stop overextending yourself just to stay visible.

(Shari also offers a limited number of Find Your Marketing Minimum intensives each quarter if you want 1:1 support building a personalized strategy.)

Tune into her podcast Success for Whole Ass Humans where she shares a grounded approach to business growth—for entrepreneurs who want strategy that honors their values, lived experience, and real-life capacity.

Learn more about BizMagic or the BizMagic Podcast.

Transcript

Patti: Welcome back to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast, your place for all things tech in your online business with solid. So General Biz Chat two. My name is Patty Meyer and I am the CEO and founder of Biz Magic, where my team and I support entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed by the backend tech of their business.

We create, implement, and teach the tweaks that help our clients make a bigger impact with less stress. Today we are talking about how to find your marketing minimum, a simpler, more sustainable way to keep your business visible without burning yourself out. And I'm super excited because we're talking to business coach and marketing strategist Shari Lucci, to get her thoughts on this particular topic.

And she's very much in alignment with. How I work and my thoughts of showing up authentically in your business and doing what works for you as opposed to what everybody tells you you should be doing. So I wanna tell you a little bit more about her before we dive in. Shari Bucci is a business coach, marketing strategist, and unapologetic.

Whole ass human. She brings over a decade of professional marketing experience leading strategy for universities, global nonprofits, and impact driven brands. Alongside six years of coaching entrepreneurs one-on-one from solo consultants to seven figure CEOs. She blends deep expertise with lived experience to help people build businesses that actually work for their lives.

As a multiracial woman navigating chronic illness, her whole ass human approach is equal parts, data lived experience, and cultural nuance. She's helped clients create consistent full-time income scale without sacrificing their wellbeing. Grow teams that feel supportive, not overwhelming. And build systems that align with how their brains operate.

She's also the host of success for Whole Ass Humans, a podcast that explores business growth through grounded analysis and real world client studies. Today we are diving into her signature framework, find Your Marketing minimum so you can keep your business moving even on your lowest energy days. When she is off the clock, you'll find Shari sipping strong tea, nerding out on the human condition, or exploring organ's natural beauty with her phone firmly on do not disturb.

So whether you are managing client work life stress, or just trying to do less and do it better, this conversation is here to help you reset your expectations and make marketing feel doable again. So let's get into it. Hi, Shari. It's so nice to have you here. Thanks for having me, Patty. Yeah. Um, I'm super excited to talk with you about your marketing minimum that you, uh, is your framework that you've created and talk a lot about.

So why don't you first start by just sort of telling me and the audience a little bit more about you and how you kind of got into doing all of this.

Shari: Well, the Cliff Notes version I would say is that, you know, I have a background in professional marketing, um, largely working for impact driven brands and kind of became an accidental marketer and what I call an accidental entrepreneur.

I had, um, chronic illness, so the traditional workforce just wasn't. Fitting for me and I ended up pivoting into, um, entrepreneurship as a solution. This was pre COVID before, you know, remote work was a real option. And so, um, started out in marketing consulting and launched strategizing and eventually found my gifting and coaching.

And so. Um, about five years ago, I decided to, um, go all in on business coaching and really working with. People who had really good services, really good products, but were really struggling with getting the word out there and really making their businesses profitable. Mm-hmm. And so, um, over time, you know, I've blended elements of just how I naturally view the world with my perspective, which is where the whole as human philosophy came into being, was really just like bringing that, you know, the insight, the data, the lived experience altogether.

To serve the different needs that each individual business owner has, because the marketing space is definitely one where people can get a little prescriptive. And while there are like best practices, ultimately, like the most ideal strategy isn't gonna serve you if you don't even feel like showing up for it.

Right?

Patti: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's so great. And that's one of the reasons, um. I'm so excited to talk with you is because we are in such alignment when it comes to the way we talk with people and believe in running businesses and being successful. So I'm super excited for that. So, so talk to us a little bit about marketing minimum and.

Like how you got to to this? I mean, you talked a little bit about, you kind of kind of fell into this in this way, but like over time, well not fell into it, but experienced into it. Right? And so tell us a little more what marketing minimum actually means and Yeah, how you kind of came to it.

Shari: So I solidified this framework in the past year formally, is finding your marketing minimum and it's really the amalgamation of.

A bunch of the one-on-one work that I do with clients. I always say I'm more coach than teacher. Right. But as someone who has to market their business, you often have to put together something that is marketable, something that can be taught or educated on social, on podcasts. Right. Yeah. And so this was kind of my version of.

Okay. I don't wanna give one prescriptive tool, but I could offer a framework that is basically the process that I'm applying through my one-on-one coaching work, right? And so find your marketing minimum is basically a concept that is about like, what's the path of least resistance for you? And how can you pre-decide strategies for your visibility based on a minimum set of actions that matches your lowest capacity days.

Right. And so often when I'm working with clients, I feel like, and even myself, right? Like I, I am this way too. Usually entrepreneurs are very driven. We're very ambitious. We're self-starting. And so we are really good at bringing the vision at bringing the end goal. Yeah. But we. Assume that our creativity is going to be consistent.

Right. We we're usually strategizing and building these plans when we're in a high surge of energy, when we're feeling inspired. Yeah. And so the plans that we draft are based on that capacity, but if you have any marginalized identity, whether there's neuro, neurodivergence, chronic illness, you're a parent to children like.

Whatever that might look like for you, your capacity is going to ebb and flow a lot more rather than be consistent. Mm. And so having a strategy that is low lift enough that you can make those decisions in advance, solve so many problems that come up. Whether it's like mental issues that come up around like feeling guilty and shameful for not executing on your strategy.

Whether it's like practical, you know, issues that come up with. Like I just don't have the time. 'cause client work is really high this week. Yeah. And so I don't have a lot of energy to pour into like being creative with my marketing. Right. This really like solves for a lot of those problems. And I think it's just a useful way to look at your marketing.

'cause you can always go above a minimum. That's the beautiful thing, right? Mm-hmm. It's the path of least resistance, but you can always expand beyond that when you have more.

Patti: Hmm, that's a great point because when I'm was first kind of looking at it, I'm like, oh, okay. So I'm picturing sort of marketing minimum as like, alright, so you just kind of go as bare bones as you possibly can and that's your, your strategy.

But what you're saying is it's creating this strategy. So like, okay, this is, let's assume you're always at this kind of lowest level of energy or. Have other things going on or something, you know, I mean, the other part is right, the world being what it is in moments that is distracting and makes it hard to be creative.

Mm-hmm. Um, there's a lot happening there. And who knows what can happen in your life acutely, right. Like, so to be prepared for those sorts of things as well. But the idea is like, okay, let's pretend we're always in that space, but then when we're not. We get to like push above that. But then there's no guilt when we can't, we're not doing what we've decided is what we should be doing.

We're like, cool, I'm already doing it 'cause that's the bar that I've set for myself, which is an acceptable okay bar. Mm-hmm. But if I go above that, hooray for me. And so it's kind of builds in more wins than frustrations within your business.

Shari: Yes. I think it's, from a mindset perspective, it really does set you up to have that like celebration and that almost like, I feel like for a lot of neurodivergent folks like that dopamine hit, yeah.

Of being able to succeed instead of the discouragement that comes from like, well shoot, I haven't posted again this week, or I don't have time to get this episode out.

Patti: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and consistency is a, is really hard for a lot of people for all sorts of reasons. And again, like everything that you've mentioned and, and so having something that you already have in there.

'cause I know like a lot of times what I'll do, so I, I'm a great example of this and like, I am all ears for this because I am somebody who, when it comes to social media and, and thinking about putting stuff out there, I just shut down. Like it like. Put me on Facebook to connect with my people and like my community, I'm all for it.

And I'm in groups. I'm with my friend, like, you know, but like, make me go on Instagram to show up for my business and I free. And I just, that's the end of it. And I, there's just something about that that's really hard. So when I find, like for right now my minimum is. Posting and, and promoting this podcast.

That's what I am able to do is put out posts for this podcast regularly, and that's where I'm at right now. And then if I get able to do something else, like, I mean, that's sort of what we're talking about, right? Is like me saying, cool, that's where I'm at because I just, I just don't have it in me or it just shuts me, me down.

Shari: Absolutely. And I think something that we're not always explicit about is, you know, that start stop cycle that happens with so much of our marketing isn't like a personal individual failing, right? It's often exactly what you're talking about, especially if you are like a done for you provider. Your client work has to be your priority, right?

That's your service delivery, that's your source of revenue. So when client work ramps up. Naturally, what a lot of people do is they don't have space for marketing because they built it based on the lower client seasons, right? So the marketing goes down. But once those clients are done with their, you know, uh, package, or if they're complete with the service, then you need to go do lead gen again, and you have no source of past marketing or leads to draw from.

Yeah. And so that cycle can be really stressful. I mean, the. The ebbs and flows of income as an entrepreneur is already stressful. Yeah. For a lot of people, right? That switch from like consistent monthly or biweekly paychecks to mm-hmm. Cyclical revenue that depends on your energy and output and so yeah, I think the other benefit of having that marketing minimum is, you know, what drives.

That result in your business and you can do it more consistently because you are not trying to reinvent the wheel on your strategy, and you also are able to do it even when you're maxed out, even when you do have a fuller client load. Yeah. You're not just like closing off the tap of your marketing because that's literally what's gonna sustain your business.

Even if you are in a great. Word of mouth referral, period. At some point, if you have a long-term business, yep, you're going to need to go beyond that, and it just really sucks to be in that tight spot between panic, focus on clients, panic, focus on marketing, and switching back and forth between the two.

Patti: Yeah. So can you give me sort of an example then from like some of your experiences of like, so what is an example of marketing minimum and um, yeah, just how can we visualize what this might look like and how it might focus? Because in my head too, I kind of am like, okay, do I batch? Like, but we're not talking about the same thing as batching.

We're talking about daily activities, right, that are to show up.

Shari: Yeah. So, okay. This is the part where it's gonna be annoying and I'm gonna have a little bit of a coachy response, but I promise we'll get Al too.

Yeah.

Shari: Um, so it can look a lot of different ways based on what's most useful for your brain and, and your business and how you work within systems.

Um, I think for some people having a version. That has like a low capacity, medium capacity, high capacity tier version of their strategy can be really helpful. Mm-hmm. Because it's almost like having a menu of predecided activities that you know, are aligned with the goals in your business and the strategy.

And you can pick from that list. Right. Um, another way that you could kind of do it is. To, like you said, like have an overarching goal. Maybe it's like weekly, but then having daily actions that support that, that have different levels of capacity requirements. So, um, I have an example here from a recent presentation that I gave that might help ground it, but, um.

For example, if you have like a goal in your business that is lead gen, right? You wanna be able to more consistently generate leads in your business and you've chosen as your marketing strategy that you know works for that is collaborations and pr, right? So that might be guest podcasting. It could mean writing and submitting guest articles, whatever that looks like for you.

And so. You might then break it down further into what is the action. And so you could say, apply for guest speaking opportunities, like pitching yourself to podcasts or summits or events, and then you could break those actions down by I. High capacity. So high capacity might look like attending a networking event, right?

Medium capacity might look like sending a collaboration pitch email each week. Low capacity might be sending a follow-up email to a recent connection or coffee chat. So someone that you already connected with. Mm-hmm. And even if you're in bed in pain or you know are on your phone and trying to like look after the kids, you can send that follow up and it's still moving you forward because.

If you know anything about sales, like follow ups are really the missing touch point in so many people's process. And so all of these things, they're not like random, easy to do, harder to do things. They're all connected to that overarching strategy that, you know, gets you good legion, which is that collaborations and pr.

But you can see that like attending a networking event is a much higher lift than right, sending a follow up email to an existing connection. Yeah. And so I think that's one version that works really well. Um, the other version, which I think is personally where I lean a little bit more like, um, for myself as a person is to have.

You could have the goal and the strategy again. So if your goal is like con um, converting like existing people in your audience, into clients, right? So maybe you have an email list or an Instagram account and you're not really focused on lead gen, but you're focused more on the conversion part, right? So maybe your minimum in that case looks like.

Um, focusing on your Instagram audience, and you wanna make sure that you're publishing one promo post per week and sending two emails per month, right? That is your minimum standard for yourself. And then. Under that, you kind of have like the daily actions that support that minimum goal. So it could be filming B-roll content for an Instagram reel.

It could be recording a story. It could be brainstorming caption ideas. It could be writing copy and drafting copy. Those are two different ways you could approach it. And they're quite frankly, like. Multiple ways that you could do this. Yeah. But really just getting clear on like, what's the goal you want your marketing strategy to do?

What is the strategy that you're using that you know gets results in your business that you wanna focus on? Because that will also help curb the shiny object syndrome as you're consuming content. Often when we're lower capacity, we end up consuming a lot because it feels easier to consume than create.

Mm-hmm. And so this is just a really good. Slap in the face from your past self that's like, Hey, no eyes on our own paper. Mm-hmm. We are focusing on this strategy. Yeah. This is what this strategy looks like for us. And pick anything from the list. You know, I feel like it's really easy to do, like most of us can do anything for five minutes.

It's the idea of the big task that feels daunting, right? Like, ugh, I have to send an email out to my list, or I have to post, you know, twice this week. But it's like. 30 seconds. Let me film, film some B roll, or I'm in the car, I listen to a podcast, I just had some inspiration. Let me record a story. Like those things are a lot more bite-sized.

And again, give you that win, that momentum that helps you get out of that start, stop cycle that happens when our capacity fluctuates.

Patti: Yeah, that's what's really great about this and the, the idea of, which kind of, it's very helpful for me in thinking about, because that is a bit of how that feels for me when I shut down, is it's like, oh, okay, I have to create all this content and I have to be creative and I have to come up with ideas, and I have to, because I've been working with my content manager who's.

Bonkers. Amazing. And I'm scaling back with her a little bit to save on some money to do some stuff myself. And so what do I do is nothing, because I'm like, well, I can't do anything near as great as she does. And you know, so it's like, how can I stop and, and bring these down to bite-sized pieces? And I love the bite-sized piece idea because that is a great point, is we can do anything for five minutes.

What is one piece of this that I can do right now that gets me a step closer to where I need to be so that I don't feel crappy about myself because I didn't do anything and I'm not doing anything and nothing's moving and. We're gonna get this done because we're doing one step at a time. That is, is really great.

And the other piece about sort of identifying the different, um, energy levels that things take and the different lifts. I love that when. Um, in our, my team's project management tool, that's how I have it set up for tasks is so that when we're assigning out, we can say, this is heavy, this is medium, this is light.

So that when we're sitting down to planner, oh, I love it work. Yeah. We can say, oh, huh, I, I'm not ready to do this whole big heavy project. I would rather start with something lighter. That's where my brain is right now, and I'll wait till later so that it just is a little easier for us when we're starting to plan our day.

Oh, can I steal

Shari: that? Can I, oh yes, of course. Um, I feel like. My team would be obsessed with that. Yeah. I've seen high, medium, low priority, but I haven't seen high, medium, low lift. I, yeah. Love this.

Patti: Yeah, I love it so much. 'cause it's very helpful for myself because I work really well in those bite sized pieces.

I have to literally, and I say this, I've said this so many times on my podcast, is like. I use all of the project management tools and stuff, but at the end of the day, I literally have a tech doc that I just use to put what I have to do. Same now today, like same 'cause it's too

Shari: overwhelming. Good's too overwhelming.

It's good to have a brain dump place, but you can't. No, it's too much. I can't work than that.

Patti: Especially when you're running a whole business and you have all these moving parts and stuff. So literally I have running other

Shari: people's businesses. Yes. Like you are.

Patti: Exactly. Yeah. And so that's, I have like literally it's a tech doc, it says today, this week.

Sometime. And then every day I am like, okay, what goes into today? And then, okay, that goes to today. And then click, click, click, done, I've done today. And that is how I function. Like, so I, I, I resonate a lot with your bite-sized pieces idea that goes along with this. So what are some common myths about marketing that you love helping people unlearn in your work?

Shari: Well, this probably won't come as a surprise given our conversation, but I think the whole concept of consistency, um, I won't get like too deep into, into my thoughts on like the origin of that, but I do feel like it's a very like colonial capitalist centric thought and framework and the way we apply that in online business is very much like.

We are humans with consistent energy who can again, like show up the same every day. Right? Not only is that. Not true for the majority of women because we often operate on a more cyclical 30 day period as opposed to a 24 hour cycle.

Mm-hmm.

Shari: Um, it's also just not very friendly to people who don't have the privilege of buying that consistency.

Right, right. Like a lot of the people who preach consistency have either. Worked their asses off and burn themselves out to achieve that consistency early on in their business and then been able to scale out of it. Or they have so much support that they can be consistent in certain areas because there is.

That energy is still being made up. It's just not being made up by them. And so a lot of that context is missing when we talk about consistency. So when we're talking about like smaller teams or even solopreneurs, right? I think consistency needs to be more about like being in the effort of something consistently versus like the increment being the same from week to week, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think. One of the shifts that I made for myself when I started my business and was in the first like couple of years, was that change from like goal to intention. Because for me, goal felt very rigid. It felt like something you could hit or not hit. Yeah. Versus an intention was something you could hold and keep.

And because there wasn't that like immediate win or lose, it was easier to stay motivated and realigned to it. Right. And so I think. Same thing can happen with your consistency is like, consistency is not the gold standard in my opinion. Yeah. It's more about like, like you said, like either batching if you need to, or like I was laying out, like working with higher and lower quality versions of the same task.

It's more about. I would say like the touch points over time than looking the same from day to day or week to week. Right. And it's building that momentum because one post does not make or break your business. It doesn't ultimately, neither does seven by the way. Right. But when we kind of get in that place where we've missed a couple of things.

We, we feel so guilty, we start, you know, shitting on ourselves. Mm. We really start to get in our heads and that is what stalls and keeps us from getting back in the game. Right? Yeah. And so I think there's just consistency in my book is not the key to success with marketing. And you don't have to put in consistent effort to get consistent marketing.

I do think there's value. And being consistent in your marketing. Right? But that doesn't have to mean showing up every day, and it doesn't mean that you have to be consistent. You can batch four podcast episodes. They can still drip out weekly and. It's, it's consistent in the terms of the touch point.

Your audience is being nurtured. Yeah. But you don't have to have consistent energy to put that. So I think there's a lot of nuance missing from those. Like quotable consistency is the key to success. Um, tips that are just pervasive. And even if we ultimately know that that's not realistic, it's like we've all internalized it to some degree, where if we.

Have an ebb or a flow. We're pretty hard on ourselves. Yeah.

Patti: Yeah. I really like the perspective of looking at it from like looking at consistency differently and I think that, I mean that's something I've talked about a little bit too before is like you show up how whatever is, whatever showing up is for you in the moment, whether that is.

Just replying to an email or sitting down and batching for podcast episodes, right? Tomorrow I have scheduled, I'm gonna sit and batch. Three or four episodes. That's how I function best. And that's just the recording. And then I have time when I have that creative energy, or for me, sometimes when my en energy isn't as creative and I need more tedious, that's when I sit and edit.

'cause I can just sit and listen and I don't have to think as much, but I get so I have those tasks ready for where am I and how do I feel right now. In this moment, okay? Huh? I am not trying to write something right now, but I can sit and listen to me talk. And edit me. Right? That's something that I can do, and that's something that, that's huge visibility for me with my podcast, and that moves me forward.

Mm-hmm. So I really love looking at consistency in a different way and reframing it because I think that's really powerful. Which leads me to this other thing that kind of, I. Um, popped out the idea of like, when we feel like we've fallen behind, sometimes it's hard for us to then be like, oh, okay. To show back up.

And this example that I, I actually don't think I've ever really talked about is when I was younger I had a problem with cutting school a lot. Mm-hmm. Um, and it is not something I'm proud of, but it's where I was at and, and you know, whatever. But it was like to the point where I almost didn't graduate and all this stuff, but I say this because what would happen.

Is that I would miss a couple classes and then I'd go, oh shit, I'm behind. And the thought of going back to class while I'm already behind on homework and classwork gave me such anxiety that it made me not want to go. And so I'd keep cutting and I'd keep cutting and, and it just was this cycle that kept happening.

Um. It's similar in that sense of once you feel the shame already or the frustration, or just that you feel so underwater or so overwhelmed and behind. Mm-hmm. It's sometimes hard to pull yourself out and be like, it's okay. Just start over. Just pick up where you left off and you'll figure it out. You'll find your way.

And that's, I think the beauty of having your own business in this way is it's like you're, you're the one that gets to be like, fuck it, I'm gonna try again. Like you're the one making the rules for your business, and so you get to decide, well, that was okay, or, Hey, that kind of sucked and I'd like to do better next time, and this is how I'd like to do this differently, and how can I do this differently now?

How can I do this type of framework and put something into place that changes how I'm showing up in the future so that it doesn't feel like an all or nothing situation? Right?

Shari: I think what was so interesting about the example you gave of yourself as a kid was like, there is a consequence externally for like not going and then going again.

Like you knew on the other side of that essentially you were gonna finally deal with the consequence. So you wanted to delay that as far as possible. Right, right. The thing that we forget in our own businesses is the consequence is just us. Yeah. Right. Like it's just. It's us beating ourselves up and we can be a better boss to ourselves in those instances.

But again, there's, there's a lot of conditioning. It's not just, we're making this up in our head. There's a lot of conditioning that's like, if you fail now there's gonna be a consequence. Right? Maybe not fail that, that might be strong, but like Right. You know, if you fall off, if you. Are inconsistent if you make a mistake, right?

Yeah. Especially in how heightened our culture in society right now is about making a mistake in public. If you make a mistake on the internet, like there is so much weight. That that holds. And so being able to like at least remove yourself from giving yourself a consequence, right? At least being the one to be nice to yourself first.

Make a plan, figure out how you would wanna deal with it. How do you wanna come back? How do you wanna restart? Do you want to just start back and say nothing and. Maybe nobody even noticed that, right? Since it was in your head. But you know, if it's, if it is a longer thing. Like a year and a half ago, I ended up pausing my podcast and I decided I wanted to do that formally.

Like I wanted to let my audience know, I made an episode announcing that, like that felt important. But when my consistency on Instagram shifted, because I changed strategies to do more collaborations and just events. I just started posting once a week and then once every two weeks, and then I think after six months I maybe mention like, Hey, this is not where my primary platform's gonna be.

You can follow me here, but like ultimately, I. You don't have to be held accountable for every little change in the system you've created in your head about what consistency looks like.

Yeah. Um,

Shari: yeah. And so just like giving ourselves the gift of removing that extra pressure, I think is really important to then being able to regain that momentum.

Patti: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we have sort of this tendency though, I mean you, you kind of said, you know, you feel like if you miss a few things then you're failing. But I think we catastrophize things and so we do kind of look at it like we've failed. And so I think that is a great point of like, how are we nicer to ourselves?

And I often say those sorts of things. I'm like, I can change any of this at any point because I'm the only one in charge here and this is my business. Mm-hmm. And. The chance of somebody sitting at their email being like, oh, where is her email? I haven't seen her email come in. Well, I would love to pretend that is happening.

It is not. I can pretty much guarantee that. And so I think when we remember that we're not as big and great as we think we are, I mean we're probably are. Mm-hmm. To ourselves, which is where we should be, you know, but like, we're there, there is that wiggle room out there for us, and we're all so wrapped up in ourselves that there aren't other people judging you as harshly, um, as you're judging yourself.

And if they are, fuck 'em. Like they're, you don't really, or being able to

Shari: hold that judgment, right? Being like, oh, you know what? I did fall off and I can, I can own that, right? Like. Um, I have had someone notice like, Hey, I haven't heard from you in a while. What's going on? And it's like, oh, I'm actually just pivoting away from mm-hmm.

Instagram and I am guessing a lot right now. And work is really busy. Like, thanks for checking in. Right, or like I'm having a really hard life period. I've had to pull back. Like just if, if you own it for yourself, then it's easier to own it with other people. But sometimes you're trying so hard to outrun anyone noticing that.

It's like, well, what if they did notice? Like how would I respond to that? How could I handle that? How could I. Let that not be an anxiety inducing Yeah. Experience for myself.

Yeah.

Shari: I think relieve a lot of pressure. 'cause the potential of what if can be so overbearing in those situations.

Patti: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I recently, I think it was, I.

At the beginning of this year, I think I had at the beginning of last year had all these grand plans of how I was gonna show up and do all this stuff. Mm-hmm. And then I just did it and, and 2023 or whatever last year, 2024. Exactly. It's gone so fast. Um, was really challenging for me in a lot of ways, and so.

I didn't show up. And so when I started showing up again consistently for me in January, I called myself out in a really positive way and was just like, whoops. I know I said You were gonna hear from me and then you didn't, but you are for real now. And like, you know, I made it light and playful and, and showed my humanness.

Because, right. That's such a big part of all of this too, is I think we forget that especially those of us who are dealing directly with other small businesses, that human part of us is attractive and, and it gives PE others the permission to be human and to show up human and themselves in their business.

And I think there's power in that as well.

Shari: Absolutely. I think one of the things that I use a lot, um, particularly if I'm like coaching a client who's kind of like struggling with that, is just reminding us of what this looks like in real life outside of the niche of. Small online business. Right? Yeah.

Which is such a subculture in itself sometimes, but like with our friends, right? Like our really close friends, or even like our parents or our partners, like people we stay in regular contact with, it's not always the exact same in every season. Right? You might have a period, especially for me, like I don't live close to a lot of the people in my life.

They live in different cities, different states. We might have some weeks where we talk like every other day, and we might have some weeks where we go like two, three weeks without talking. Mm-hmm. We might even have periods of like a month if like none of our schedule align, but that doesn't necessarily like wither away at that relationship.

Right. If you are being transparent, if the person knows what's going on with you. Right. There's enough trust built there where it can ebb and flow like. Every person has to like buy that trust with their audience at the beginning. But at a certain point, like it's a relationship, right? And it's very extractive if the instant something happens to you.

You lose their loyalty, right? Like Right. Especially in a service-based industry. Like you wanna be able to take a sick day. You wanna be able to, yeah, take a sick week and and afford that in your business and have enough relationship and trust where that's okay and the relationship doesn't dissolve. But a lot of that is predicated on communicating and coming back and the ebbs and flows of that.

So I think. Just because of how we learned professionalism, sometimes we can misinterpret what that needs to look like in our marketing and in our business or sales relationships.

Patti: Yeah. I really, really love that looking at it from that perspective and, and remembering that like if you've done sort of the marketing minimum and you've mm-hmm.

Spent this time building this trust that if you don't show up in a way that you usually do or feel like you should. You've already kind of got that base there and it's not the end of the world. And when I didn't show up for a year, because I had been consistent in other ways, and I do have these relationships, nobody, you know, people were like, oh, I get it.

Ha ha ha. You know, and there wasn't any weirdness and there wasn't any, because that was the relationship I've spent, you know, seven years at that point building. So. Mm-hmm. Um, it really, I think that's a great perspective also, and a great point to make is look at it from that trust. That trust side of it.

So, so one of the things that I see a lot when I work with people is avoidance behavior, right? Mm-hmm. So when I think about marketing minimalism in this way, how can you tell the difference between being in that place where you're really doing the minimum with marketing and, and honoring yourself and your energies?

Versus like sneakily getting yourself out of like, you know, not pushing yourself right, and saying, well, well I don't, I mean my energy is this way and I don't have to do this, and like, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. How do you catch yourself and call yourself out in those moments, and what's the difference between that, if that makes sense?

Shari: I think so. Can you give me an example of what it might look like to avoid? Yeah,

Patti: sure. So saying, so sort of like what we're talking about, like maybe just saying, well, I don't, it's okay to just show up maybe once a month or something, or mm-hmm. Um, I can just do a quick little picture of something and just a half-ass caption or like, do you know what I mean?

Something in that way where you're not gonna voice it in that way, but it's just sort of like, what's really a thing of like. Look, I found what my minimum is versus giving yourself permission to just not show up, I guess, maybe, right? Mm-hmm. Like using it as a reason or as the permission to say, well, I, you know, yeah.

I'm not feeling it, and that's okay because it says I don't have to, you know? Yeah.

Shari: I think two things come to mind. The first is that pre-decision, does your action align with the pre-decision that you made? Mm-hmm. Right, because so much of like being at lower capacity is I. You're reacting a lot, right?

Like, oh, you have a bad health day, or, or your kids are sick again for the third week in a row because the three of them passed it around to each other. Right. You know? Yeah. Or you have like a loved one in hospital that you're caregiving for. Like a lot of that is reactive, things that are weighing on your capacity.

Um. But the whole purpose of pre-deciding is that when you're at a lower capacity, you don't have to ec decide what's possible. So if you, I would say, if you continually find that you're like your, the way that you are, I guess, relating to your marketing minimum is different than what you pre-decided.

Yeah. Right. That's a good signal that you're probably avoiding. But I would say like. I don't look at avoidance usually as a personal failing. I usually look at it as like. What's making you wanna avoid it. Like what? Right. There's something going on. Right. And so I would say that probably means that your minimum is too high.

Mm. If you're consistently not able to achieve it. So maybe you need to recalibrate your minimum, um, or your actions are too big, so you need to chunk it down. Right. You. If your tasks are like, too daunting that you're avoiding it, like how can you make it into something small enough and doable enough?

Yeah.

Shari: Um, so I think that that pre-deciding helps take out the, like in the moment decision making. Yeah. Because if you're making a different decision in the moment than what you pre-decided, you probably need to realign that minimum to something that's more realistic. I think the other thing I would look at.

Is, are you getting the results that you want or need in your business? Right? And so if you are, like, if you're continually, let's say. At your, you know, when we did those three tiers of the high capacity, medium capacity, low capacity.

Yeah. If you're

Shari: consistently operating in your low capacity and find yourself going maybe like two months without ever doing that high capacity one.

We had the example of like following up with people you cultivated a relationship with, or coffee chat versus like attending a networking event.

Yeah.

Shari: If you're still having the momentum you want in your business. Like, let yourself off the hook. It's fine that you did low capacity three times. Let's not create a benchmark then where it's like, well, I know I have this low capacity option, but I can only really take it if I like deserve it.

I need to be doing the hike. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah. If you're still, if things are good, great. If they're not right. If you're like, oh, I'm consistently opting. Out of the lowest option and I'm not getting the results. That's where you need to be like, am I okay with that trade off? Am I okay with letting this go and getting worse results?

Or I need to own the fact that like my actions are having an impact on my results. Let me recalibrate and I feel like people are. We're motivated when we see the purpose of why we're doing things versus like just doing them to do them.

Yeah. So

Shari: if we can understand the connection and the consequences of our actions, then we can just.

Choose better. Right? Right. We can choose, like, you know what, that extra client a month isn't worth it to me to be sending that extra email a month. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna let myself off the hook there and Yeah. You know, be more minimalist because I don't really need that at this phase of my business. Or I'm complaining every single month about not filling my, filling my one-on-one, and yet I'm not doing no marketing like.

Is it worth, right, not loving this task, doing it anyway in order to get this result.

Patti: Right. So it's really paying attention to what sounds like a really core, um, point of marketing minimum, which is that pre-decision. Yes. And then. Looking at the goal or the outcomes so far. And so what are we seeing? And if you're not following what you pre-decided and you're not seeing, then you're probably doing, you're, there's something that needs to shift in one area within that kind of funnel.

Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. Um, so great. This is all just. So interesting. So if there's, if there's one tip or step that you would suggest people do to just like get started right away, the tiniest little thing, what, what could that be?

Shari: I would say if you aren't already implementing some version of this, like ask yourself the question, like, if I only had one hour per week to spend on my marketing, like what tasks should I be doing?

And just give yourself that question because you probably have a lot more things that you're doing for your marketing or that you feel like you should. So if you can just like sit with yourself and be like, my capacity went to shit and I only had one hour to pour into this. Yeah, what would I be doing?

What do I need to be doing to keep the business moving forward? I think that's a really good starter question.

Patti: Yeah, that's great. I love this. So, um, since I'm really into tech here mm-hmm. And that is my jam. Do you have a favorite platform that you use, either in your business or with your clients, um, that you'd like to share?

Shari: I'm a really tough customer to please when it comes to tech. 'cause I like. I am really big on user experience and I've played with a lot with my marketing background. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's, it's tough to please me, but one, one, um, tool that I, I really have been loving and leaning on a lot lately, um, is D Descrip.

Mm-hmm. I think that's, yeah. Especially for like long form businesses, right. Where. Where you have to play the the short form content game. Yeah. Being able to take something longer, like a podcast episode or a live stream and be able to chunk that down into short form, and again, having the text editor that you can do.

Mm-hmm. Having some of the built-in AI and sound enhancing capabilities, if something went wrong, instead of having to completely rerecord something, you can just like write in the word and use a little magic. Mm-hmm. I think. I think the script is a pretty amazing tool that's come along and, and is really helpful for like getting more leverage out of your marketing.

Patti: Yeah, I love the script. I use it regularly for my podcast. I'll pop my podcast in and get the transcript and use the clips feature to get a few like choice audio clips that I can use for social. It's a brilliant, I just love it so much. It's so great. So good choice. I support that. Um. This has been just super helpful and informative and I just, I love this so much.

Um, if anybody would like to work with you or find you, how do they do that?

Shari: Um, everything is available through my website, so it's shari bucci.com, S-H-A-R-I-B-A-L-O-U-C-H i.com. Um, I've got a podcast which I mentioned that I paused, and I am bringing that back at the end of summer. So it's called Success for Whole as Humans.

Um, you can find me there if you're into podcasts, um, and. I also have a free email series called The Marketing Minimum, where I talk a lot more about these kinds of concepts. It's a mixture of like. Mental shifts that I'm making, mental shifts I'm sharing with, with clients. Um, sometimes even like little tips, like I had this really cool AI rabbit hole.

I went down the other day and came up with some really like helpful meaty prompts and so I shared that with our list. Um, sometimes I'll share case studies, so it's just a really good place to like be in the space if you're like. Wanting to immerse yourself in embracing more of that minimalism approach.

It's just a good place to like be in that ideation, get inspiration, be encouraged on that path, because if you're consuming content, it will take you off that path in a second. And so, um, yeah, everything through my website.

Patti: Awesome, and I will have it all in the show notes as well. So thank you so much, Shari.

I really appreciate you coming.

Shari: Thanks, Patty. I appreciate you just being willing to share your story too.

Patti: Yeah. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast. Like most small businesses and podcasts, we rely heavily on word of mouth. So if you like what you heard today or in any episode, please share with your friends and colleagues.

And rate, subscribe and comment on your favorite podcast platform. Till next time, cheers to your magical biz success.