How to Market Your Business Without Always Being “On”

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain with no answers, to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and more burned out than I already was while managing my chronic illness to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business. I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace.

Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and well-being, you're in the right place.

Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and we make a living. This is Business with Chronic Illness.

I'm so excited to be chatting with you guys today on how to market your business living with chronic illness without being on quote unquote all of the time. What do I mean by this? If you've ever felt like business means you have to show up every single day on social media, constantly posting, and always be quote unquote on showing your face then today's episode is for you. And I'm coming from a space of living with chronic illness, and that was— I'm an extrovert, so I am very much familiar, and I have to some degree really enjoyed being quote unquote on social media, showing up, showing my face, talking a lot. But obviously that can pose a challenge when you have flare-ups, you're in the hospital, doctor's appointments, lots of life things happening, your own emotional and mental wellness at times come forward more pronouncedly. And so having to show up in the video space can sometimes feel like, man, I'm always having to produce content out of the fly or on, or be present for my business to have eyes and ears on what it is that I do. And so in this episode, we're going to talk about how to market your business in ways that doesn't drain you while maintaining what you currently have as you potentially start adding different visibility avenues that last beyond like a 24-hour timeframe. So if you are feeling like you're struggling through navigating through your different chronic illnesses, you're feeling burnt out, you're fluctuating capacity and energy, but you know, traditionally business advice tells us that we have to do things in quantity all of the time and that can feel draining. We're going to talk about how doesn't mean that you can't attract clients and grow your brand and build momentum when you shift out of that quantity and being on all the time mindset. It just means you need a marketing system and a content system that works for you and not against you. So let's get into— so first, let's bust up some myths. Let's bust up some— let me just talk about some things in real time. One of the biggest things we hear in marketing is that if you don't show up every day, your business will disappear. Basically, like, that's the messaging we hear. Like, if you aren't using these social media platforms to the full with all of the things, then, you know, your business will die. I recently was listening to a coach that I really admire, and one of the things was like, you know, social media is your job. And I was like, it can be part of your job, but it's not necessarily the job you signed up for as a business owner and as a marketer, our jobs are to market our business, and there are multiple different kinds of ways of marketing our business that has nothing to do with social media. However, if you came into the space, especially for those of you who may have started their business back in 2020 or are currently starting their business right now in this day and age, social media obviously is the space where it's the least resistance. It also feels like it's the place where most people go first to like get the masses to pay attention to them and have visibility. And so it couldn't be an aspect of your business, right? That social media can be a part of your job as an entrepreneur, but it doesn't have to be. You didn't have to start your business that way. I obviously, I started social media as a consumer only, like, because, you know, I'm the social media baby generation where social media became in existence during my, during my life, right? And so obviously I was a consumer first, and then I became a user of it for business to business to consumer. And I believe that when that shifted for me, obviously I stopped using social media mostly as just a consumer, but mostly as a business owner, right? And so there were benefits and absolutely great benefits for having it for your business. However, I knew personally from the beginning, and I talk about this a little bit differently because I know a lot of people start social media that are my clientele, start social media because they have been sold this belief that the only way to make an income in your business or to attract clients is through social media. And I think that's a misnomer, like that is a falsity, that is a myth, because there are literally businesses who started their businesses or growing their businesses that are not on social media. There are people who started their businesses on social media and then left and then are growing their businesses without social media. So Social media is not your job, marketing is, okay? And so how you show up that way is important. And so that's why having a marketing system is really important. So we've been taught that visibility equals success and that consistency means consistently posting on social platforms and being online actually in some way, shape, or form 24/7 and keeping up with every single platform or multiple platforms. And let's break down what I feel about that. Consistency doesn't mean daily effort. It means strategic effort. So I'm gonna say that again. Consistency does not mean daily effort. It means strategic effort. I'm listening to the Atomic Habits book again, and I have so many thoughts about it, but that's a whole nother episode I will share with you. But one of the things that he mentions in his book is that who we are as people is based on the habits we have developed or we're building, right? And it's the 1% rule. It's the tiny 1% that you do that's strategic, that's based in a system and a plan that creates the results you ultimately want to see of who you want to become. And so in my opinion, there's a lot of advice out there that says you need to be consistent, and most of us equate that or hear that and think I need to be showing up every single day. And it doesn't mean that. It means you need to show up in a strategic effort, in a strategic habit, in a strategic plan. It means showing up in a way that creates long-term results without burning out yourself in the process or feeling drained in the process. However, this might be challenging if you started your business with this different mindset of being on social media every single day, doing the thing is what creates success. And it can. And I'm not saying it doesn't. And I'm not saying there's obviously not success stories of people actually doing this. What I'm saying is, for those of us with different types of capacity and are also triggered by the things that is designed within social media, it can feel literally unhealthy for us to be on these platforms all of the time. And when we have that conflicting aspect of things, it can feel like an energy suck and it can affect our energy and our ability to actually run the other aspects of our business. And so it's important for us to reframe what consistency looks like and how to build it in a business that you have. So I want you to think about if you're just starting, then you're in the perfect space to be hearing this episode. But if you have a business and you have been running, let's say you're an Instagram girly like me or TikTok girly, and you have been on these platforms and that's your main way of marketing, there's going to be a transition period if you move out of the identity or the belief that in order for my business to be successful, I have to be on social media all of the time, doing all of these things, you have to change your identity of what that means for you. And you also have to train your audience to know this is a different— another way of creating or connecting with me. And what's cool about this is that when you start training your, your audience on the difference of how you have been constantly on social media to a more— what I will share with you in a second— a more sustainable content marketing system, you will attract new people that were never on the hamster wheel of social media. Anyway, right? Or if they were, they weren't on the hamster wheel, they were just visitors every now and then. And I have found like right now in 2025, a lot of people are distancing them— distancing themselves from social media for the just pure fact that it's kind of mayhem right now. Like there's a lot of negative political news, life, you know, life and world news, and we are becoming much more protective of our mental health and our physical health and the energy that it's there. And I think we learned that because of the pandemic. And I think a lot of find the value in that. So I'm going to share with you how to market your business without being constantly on with a marketing system that helps you, whether you're just getting started or you're transitioning out of this mentality that social media is the one-all, be-all, the only way, your job. And let's reframe some of these narratives. Okay. But first, let me share with you, I had a client inside of my coaching program who felt extremely like this, right? She came to me feeling like, you know, it's hard to keep up with social media. Me. It's hard to be on there all the time when I'm in pain and I don't look great. And, you know, I can relate to that because there have been times where I felt the same way. I'm currently in a season of that, but I'm not worried because I have platforms like my podcast that's a part of my evergreen marketing sales system and my marketing content system. And it doesn't freak me out when I'm like just not that active on social media because I have a different strategy for attracting clients. For me, it is definitely long-form marketing and it's definitely relationship marketing. So she just— this client of mine just really felt like she needed to keep going and posting, even though literally the energy to create one post just felt daunting at most, to say the least. And it was always a requirement for her in her mind that I had to show my face and create new content all of the time. But we actually looked at her audience, and this is something I want you to think about, is looking at your audience and find your strength of maybe using it in a different way and realize how you can build trust in a different way on these platforms that is more focused on strategic effort versus daily effort. Okay, so we worked on creating a system that made her content work harder for her even when she needed to be, quote unquote, on and even when she didn't. So How did she do that? It was because she started focusing more on long-form and high-impact content, and she could repurpose multiple pieces of her content while still increasing her actual visibility while she worked less without having to feel the pressure. And that's the power of intentional marketing. Okay, so let's get into how to market with out being consistently on my kind of, I guess you can say, my 5-point plan, if you will. Okay, so let's talk about how to build a marketing strategy. And now, like, I like to see is like a marketing strategy or a content strategy that allows space for resting. You know, I think oftentimes we think about our businesses in the context of getting to a goal of making a certain amount of money. There's a lot of things wrapped up into the thoughts around safety and all of those different kind of things, and rest doesn't actually come into the equation, right? There isn't an idea that we're not corporate machines with multiple, you know, people in our world helping us create this vision coming to life. And so I truly believe that having a marketing content strategy system that allows you to have some more space for rest to rejuvenate your creativity, your life outside of your business, all of that is very helpful for a more sustainable business. And so if you have been on this, I want to say, hamster wheel of constantly creating content on social media, this— two things I want you to keep in mind. If that's been the main way you make sales, the first thing you need to do is identify what pieces of content have done well and why they have done well. Okay. And number 2, how can you strategically show up differently than you have been to allow more space while you transition into having a different main focal point for where your marketing and sales leads come in? I think the biggest thing that I think a lot of clients— I, and this is very generalized, so this is— I want you to know that if you have a business and you have been in business for a while, right, doing it this way may feel like, man, I'm cutting off, I'm cutting off my sales. And I want you to know you don't have to do that. However, there are some clients of mine who are like, I don't mind just taking a break from social media. I have enough leads. I have a support system where I have a person, you know, in my, in my household who's able to help me financially in the meantime, or I have savings, whatever, right, that I just really want to focus on pivoting into this new content marketing system and then come back to social media in a more strategic way, your situation is going to be different. So I want you to keep that as a filter for the, the coaching or the strategy I'm giving you through this on how to show up without feeling like you have to be consistently on again. So the first thing you want to do is leverage long-form content because it can be repurposed in multiple different ways, and it also can be a trigger for you creating new content for platforms, but in a more organic feel., but it doesn't have, have that taxing process of trying to break something that's already a small piece of like thinking, like one piece of content that's like 3 minutes versus one piece of content that's 45 minutes and you have multiple touchpoints that you can literally go and create content from. That is a way that you can leverage long-form content to be repurposed instead of focusing on daily posting, creating content. Content that is just kind of— I want to say hot pants, like off your seat hot pants. Like you, even if you have a content strategy, right? Even if you are like, your content strategy is like, okay, I have my month worth of content and I'm going to talk about this one thing. I'm going to talk about this one thing. I'm going to talk about this plot pillar. I want to talk about this category. I'm going to talk— I'm going to do some lifestyle here. What's beautiful about long-form content the way you can leverage long-form content is that all of those pillars, all of those categories are within one episode or one, one blog post, right? You weave those things in there. And then when you go to repurpose this content, you have multiple pieces of content to pull from, from within that place. That alone helps your energy and capacity. That alone helps you not to have to, you know, segment your thoughts on who you are and what your business is all the time in these little staccato little pieces of content every single week. So it will make your content plan a lot easier. It will make your content creation, even if you decide to stay on social media, a lot easier. And it's not that you're just going to take your long-form content and just like cut it up and put it on the platform. You will just use the outline of that long-form content to produce organically new appropriate kind of content for the platform that it's going to be on and/or creatively reuse the content that you have, have in your long-form content. So let's talk about the long-form content for a second. A podcast episode. You guys know I will always say a podcast episode is like the easiest way to do this because that's my easiest way of doing this. Blog posts, another way. Video all can be repurposed in multiple pieces of content. One episode or one topic can equal multiple social media posts, an email. It could be even a video snippet or snippets or reels or whatever that you can repurpose for, for Instagram. And it could be in a fun, exciting, creative way. This way you're not creating more. You're just making what you have already created work harder for you instead of you working harder for the content. Okay. Okay, number 2. Now I have lots of thoughts about number 2 because for some of us this is just challenging, and I'm one of those people. Okay, so batch creating. I'm not a batcher, you guys. I'm a collector, if you will. I am, uh, eclectic. I am a, a, like if you go to a buffet and you're like— by the way, I hate buffets, I don't love going to them— but if I did go to a buffet, I'm very particular, right? And I'm like like my plate is very put together. My husband jokes with me, he's like, I'm the person who like, if I order a sundae, I need all the right things on it. And if it doesn't have it, it's not it. And it's just, it's, it's the truth. It's like my favorite meal. One of my favorite meals is green beans, macaroni and cheese, and ham. Like, oh my gosh, that's so good. But if you give me a piece of ham that hasn't been cooked right, and it's not like a real juicy ham, it just kind of throws off the whole thing. And that's how I view you batching. Like, I feel like I am naturally an organic, like, piecing things together. You can think that to my hypervigilance over the years of seeing things collectively over time and then making decisions or making calculations of what things may be. And so I'm a documenter, and I have found that document batching is a little different than what I hear a lot of people talking about batching. So I'm going to share the traditional way of people, how they batch, and then the way that I have found that has worked the most effectively for me to be able to have content on the ready for long-form content. And it doesn't require me being on, like, I literally can be in bed, I could literally be in the car, I could literally like be walking. It literally doesn't matter. Okay. So batching, you can batch and create content when you have higher energy days, when you feel good, when you feel like, hey, I have all of these things I want to talk about. I have found that for me, again, like I said, I have one of those days, but batching would end up being like one thing that I will actually do. So if you're like me, just hold on. Let me share with you a different approach. But you can record multiple podcast episodes in one sitting, so you can literally in an hour or 2 hours record depending on if your episodes are short or long. 30. Let's just say you're doing 30-minute solo episodes of just yourself. You could literally create 4 pieces of content in 2 hours and that 4 pieces of content, honestly, could be repurposed and be used like for 6 months, right? So in other platforms, right? Or if you want it to be releasing something new all the time for a long-form content strategy, you could literally have an episode once a month. And so for the next 4 months, you could literally be dropping these episodes. And then in between those episodes, you could share little snippets again of the same episodes, kind of going maybe deeper if you want. So many different creative ways that you can like extend the longevity of long-form content. That's kind of hard to do with a reel, right? It's kind of hard to do with a TikTok.

Okay.

So you can write out a month of social media content in a day from your long-form content. You can schedule things in advance. That's what this is like, the traditional bulky way of creating batch content on high-energy days. Let me tell you, Nikita Williams, I can't. I am not. I am more strategic but adaptable. Like, I make bashing make sense for me. Like, my first thought is usually, how can I record this on my phone? How can I document an experience? Or if I had a thought that could be a great episode, I literally write it in my notepad and like add the context to it and then save it for later when I'm going to be ready to record. I, over time, collect all of those things and it could be for you. You can create a system where it's like, hey, you're going to check in every Friday to see what you've literally added to your memo pad in your phone or your voice notes that you have and be like, okay, I'm going to pick one or two of these things to record today or to write about today, right? It's very energy aware. I feel like the type of batching, it allows me over time to creatively be inspired and also be very strategic. Because sometimes for me, one of my best— I feel like one of my superpowers is I engage with people, and what I receive from people is a really great catalyst for me having my thoughts on a subject matter, right? It's focused on that. And so because of that, it it's more engaged focus, like it's more focused in real-time content storytelling. So when I create the content, it feels very brand new. It feels very fresh, even though it's something I collected over time. So for those of you who are not Batchers, what I recommend you— what I recommend for you to do is document your thoughts, your ideas, either through a memo pad, voice notes, and have a collective day where you look through it and you pick one thing and you do something with it, right? That's how I do batching. It's much more like practical over perfectionist. I try not to overcomplicate batching in that way. It also avoids this rigid, like, focus around getting something done in a certain day, because God forbid I'm having a horrible day on the day that I said I'm going to have energy for, or I'm going to batch for, then my whole plan is messed up, right? And so this allows a lot more flexibility and freedom, and it just gives me power and empowerment, and I hope it does the same for you. Okay, so the next thing you want to do is automate and schedule your content. Take advantage of the tools we have to work smarter, you guys. There's too many AI tools out here now that makes it so much easier. I remember when I first started my podcast back in the day, like, automating or scheduling podcast episodes was like not a thing yet, and it was so frustrating because it's like, ah, I know there's a way to do this, but technically I haven't figured it out. And now just your hosting platforms, blogging, your email sequences and things like that, all those things can be on automation with an RSS feed. You literally can set it up with your email list to literally just remind your audience, hey, we have just dropped a new piece of content without you having to actually do it every week. Unlike social media, right? Sometimes with Instagram stories, you have to kind of be on there every day. There are features— again, some of these features are available on Instagram where you can pre-record and schedule things on stories. But I think I have found from the research that they don't necessarily perform as well because you aren't always engaged in that content. It's just kind of put up there to go out there, and stories really are meant for engagement in real time or connecting in real time. So Anyway, for, for those of you who want a content marketing system that is sustainable and allows you time for rest, automate and schedule your content, especially your long-form content, right? You can record something today and it's not gonna come out until 3 months from now, but you can schedule it out. It just reduces the cognitive load that you have. It reduces the amount of energy you have to think about something. It just helps a lot with capacity. Set up content workflows so marketing doesn't feel like a daily demand. So what I mean by this is that when you have your long-form content, once you have produced it, you can have another day where you're pulling, you know, 3 or 4 pieces of content that you want to use for a different platform than where you originated your long-form content. And that could just be on a schedule schedule a workflow with all these AI tools, y'all. I mean, this is probably— I'm going to have someone on the show who can really talk about AI again, because I think for lots of us, it's a tool that is underutilized by many of us because we're kind of afraid of it or we're concerned. But there are, just like any tool, y'all, social media is a tool. It could be used for good, it could be used for evil. We can use it for good. Okay, then you want to create evergreen marketing Assets. Not every marketing effort should expire in 24 hours. So you wanna focus on content that lasts. So I feel like what this means for you all is to think about there are core topics and stories that will inevitably always matter based in the context of your business, like always, right? So are you creating new content around those topics in the long form space. And when you repurpose and when you bring those things out on different platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which are focused on like, what are you known for, it's easier to create that content in that space. This helps bring traffic long after you've created something, right? Especially when they're rooted in those core areas that are important. So when I mean creating evergreen marketing assets, you should have an asset in in regards to your story, who you are, your values, your, your mission, what's so important for you, your thought leadership thoughts, why you think things should be or shouldn't be, how you have helped clients, what you offer, how you have created results on top of what are the main core problems, at least 4 or 5 of them that you are on rotate talking about consistently with your audience. That is part of your content that people are searching searching for the answer to, that they're like on YouTube or they're on Google or they're in ChatGPT asking these questions. Where can you be creating content around these pieces of content that people will always be looking for and doesn't expire and is not based on trendiness but based on like human beingness as a business owner? And number 5 is to set boundaries around your marketing energy. Energy. You don't have to be everywhere. I know a lot of people say we have to. I know a lot of people say that it's the best way to grow your business quickly, but it's— it— if you're just starting, that's not what's going to help you. Relationships is what's going to help you. Being strategic is what's going to help you. As you grow, if you're like me and you've had a business for a while, yes, obviously you will explore different aspects and different tools. So you might be on different platforms, but even still, when you are, you want use your long-form content as leverage of figuring out how to recreate it in a platform-appropriate way. Okay? And so that's what's going to be really important. So you just have to be strategic about where you show up and how you show up. So pick 1 or 2 platforms if you're just starting. If you're like me, um, who's been in business for, you know, a while, over 3 years, you might be on different platforms. Play with with the, with the platforms of where you think your people will be, but don't get, don't get too fancy beyond like, literally even for me, I'm like, I'm playing with a couple of different platforms right now. Cause I'm trying to decide which one I want to like really lean into outside of my long form, my podcast and Instagram. So I'm like, what's a third one? But I think 1 to 3 places is enough.

Right.

And the other piece of this is that I truly believe in relationship marketing. So if you're on these platforms and connecting with people, connect with these people, like connect with these people. If you're having people on your long-form content collaborations, you're having collaborations within your long-form content, make sure you stay connected to them, right? This is what's gonna help you have more time for rest. I have a whole episode about, I think about like collaborating and how that leads to more rest. It plants seeds for us. So I have several clients who have gone inside of my group program who had felt like they went from like, I always have to show up every single day doing the thing the most all the time on social media to building this type of marketing system that allowed them to step away when needed. Not that they stepped away forever, but just stepped away from needed and didn't have the pressure or the, the, the, the stress around, okay, I didn't show up on stories today and that means I don't have any clients happening because she built this. She started to build this long-form content strategy that now she knows people are finding her regardless of whether or not she's on social media today. And that's the power that you get back. You get energy back, you get time for rest back, and you get peace of mind when it comes to your marketing and not fighting against your energy. So let's recap. Marketing doesn't mean being on all the time. It means creating a system that works even when you rest. So focus on long-form content that can be repurposed. Find a way to quote unquote batch or schedule or automate your content. So you're making— you're not having to making— you're not having to make marketing decisions every day. Also, keep in mind, you can repurpose your content in a creative way that's appropriate for a platform that's not just cut and snip if you don't want to, right? You can use automation and evergreen content to build sustainable visibility around your core core messaging values and results for your clients that people are looking for today that will serve you till whenever. I'll tell you this, for example, I have a couple— I have several episodes because now we're almost at 200, but I have several episodes where I talk about a core part of my process around building a business with chronic illness. And those episodes are the ones that usually are the ones that are bringing random people I've never met. They don't even follow me on social media to a sales call. Okay. So that's something to keep in mind. So set marketing boundaries that honor your energy. So if this episode had some aha moments for you, I would love to hear from you. And I would love for you to send me an email or comment on a post when we talk about this episode using the word sustainable marketing, so I can cheer you on and answer any of your questions. And if you found this episode helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review and share with others because that's how we continue to grow. This community and this message around doing business differently when you live with chronic illness. So till next time, your business should support your life, not consume it. So keep that in mind and we'll talk soon.

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at www.craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.