The 30-Minute Connection Strategy That Built My Business With Chronic Illness

When I started my podcast, I was in recovery from a surgery related to my chronic illness, trying to connect with other businesses and searching for a way to keep growing my business without sacrificing my healing or well-being. Podcasting became my most aligned marketing tool. It let me show up consistently without showing up constantly. That's why I created the Start Your Podcast Planner, a digital guide to help you launch a purpose-driven podcast that feels like you. Whether you're starting from scratch or finally ready to get your voice and your story out there, or looking for a sustainable way to grow your business through marketing that converts, this planner gives you everything I wish I had. It's got step-by-step strategies that won't overwhelm you, confidence and building prompts that help you fall in love with your voice and share it with the world, and tools and templates you can use again and again without overworrying or being concerned about the tech. Most importantly, it helps you turn your story into sales or income that actually feels aligned. If you're ready to grow your audience, attract clients, and share your message in a way that works with your capacity, this is where you start. Tap the link in the show notes to grab your Start Your Podcast Planner, or visit thrivewithnikita.com/podcast-planner. You've waited long enough. Let's get your voice and your story out in the world and build a profitable, sustainable marketing system through podcasting.

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 how we make a living. This is Business with Chronic Illness.

Welcome to episode 1 of a new series here on the Business with Chronic Illness podcast, and this series is called the Business Safety Net Series.

Okay.

I created this because one of the biggest fears I hear from my clients and I have even felt myself is what happens to my business when I can't show up? However that looks, that could be with chronic illness, when you're busy with client delivery, when you're on vacation, when you're burnt out, when life is just lifing and happening. And this is such a crucial point. I think a lot of us know we need systems for automate— automating our client delivery, like getting people onboarded in a lot of different ways. But what about the most important piece of it all, which is marketing and sales. How do you do that? So most of us don't structure our businesses around to hold us, to carry us for those times, especially when it comes to marketing and sales. And that means our business feels fragile, or even worse, it stops making money. So this series is all about building your business safety net, the systems that create peace ease, and yes, revenue, even when you're not in the capacity or your capacity is limited or something has changed in your world. And this first episode is where we're going to be focusing on a bit about podcasting, about long-form content, about marketing that creates the vehicle of sales, right? So because podcasting has been such a safety net for both marketing and sales in my business, I'm going to share that with you in this series. Okay, today I'm sharing with you what I call the 30-minute-a-day connection strategy. And this is something that I have kind of configured and worked with, with my clients. It used to be called the 5-minute rule, where 5 minutes twice a day, every day gives you 2 hours a week to create this strategy. And for a lot of my clients and a lot of people that I talk to, they're like, Nikita, I can find 30 minutes a day to create the strategy that will last you for a lifetime. You won't have to do this every single time, but this is really the foundation of what we're talking about. This is the approach I used when I had almost no capacity but still needed to grow my business. And this is exactly how my podcast actually began and started to grow and bringing me clients and why I still believe podcasting continues to work as a safety net for me and for those of you who decide to do it as a strategy. A lot of people are talking about podcasting, starting one, but nobody's talking about the strategy around making it sustainable for solo entrepreneurs, service-based entrepreneurs. I'm going to teach you how to do that in this series. So first, let me tell you a little bit about why this 30-minute connection strategy is going to help you build a business safety net in your business. When I first started my business as a coach, I transitioned from a digital marketer to a coach. I was in a season of life where I had very limited capacity mentally, physically, emotionally. Spiritually even. And I was living with chronic illness every day at this time of my journey. I was at a time— I knew that I had endometriosis, I knew I had fibromyalgia, and I was dealing with the complications of what that looked like in real life. And after advocating for years to finally get a surgery that I knew would help me with my quality of life, I finally found a doctor that said yes in a whole nother state than I currently was.. And so we had moved to Florida at that time, and I knew I was going to need time after the surgery, but at the same time, I knew I needed to figure out a way to continue to sell, market my business. So after my surgery, I had a few hiccups, and I truly realized then that my brain and my body only had a very small window of energy, and maybe 5 minutes or 30 minutes and sometimes an hour, even a week, is what I could actually focus or give attention to. And now the reason why I share this part with you in the story is that oftentimes when I talk to my clients about building a business safety net, they think that they have to stop everything in order to create the safety net. They also feel that they don't have it in place, it's going to take forever to do it. And so I just wanted to give, you know, story and concrete evidence around why that's not necessarily the case because of where I started this process. You might be in a great place to actually start implementing this. You may not be. And this is why there's a 30-minute process or a 5-minute twice a day or once a day process to make this work. Everything I looked at when it came to growing my business and marketing my business at the time when I was recovering from my surgery and the things that led up to that was show up multiple times on social media, network events, all those things. And I used to do those things in my digital marketing business before I had my coaching business. But at this time in my life, I couldn't, and I didn't know how long I would be able to do that. So I couldn't do these coffee dates in person. I couldn't do this endless content creation everywhere. But what I did know that has always worked, and no matter what industry I've been in, in real estate, in corporate, in photography, having a wedding photography business, having my husband work full-time, me working part-time and having a business, every— no matter what kind of thing I've done, trunk shows, events, all of that, is that connection creates sales. I'm gonna say that again. No matter what, connection, which means people, that have that connection creates sales. That's something I had learned from all of the years that I had in real estate, sales, marketing, administrative, even reception, all of that. I knew that if I could connect with people, I could build trust, and if I built trust, I could build a business. I knew that. And so instead of trying to keep up with the hustle and do all the advice everybody told me to, I gave myself permission to be okay with 5 minutes a week 5 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day. That was my goal. 30 minutes, 5 minutes where I could focus on connection. Connection. And sometimes that meant commenting on someone else's Instagram post in a meaningful way. Sometimes that meant sending a helpful or thoughtful DM. Sometimes that meant sending or writing a short email or handwritten note to mail. Oh my gosh, faux pas in 2025. And later then I started my podcast, which led to having more people inviting people to have more conversations with me on the show when I had the capacity to do that. So it wasn't that I was trying to be everywhere. It wasn't from being perfectly consistent on these social media platforms. It was being consistent with connection. And that became the foundation for my business safety net that I'm teaching you today. Now, I did this back in 2017, and I've done this throughout my whole career as a business coach. And it's even easier to do now.. So here is the strategy and here's what it's going to look like. Commenting on Instagram posts. I know it sounds weird, like, Nikita, you don't want me to post Reels? You don't want me to post all this stuff? No, I want you to create conversations with your fingers or voice notes, right? So back in the day, that for me was Instagram. But now you have Threads, which is awesome for this. Now you have TikTok, which is great for this because not a lot of people are actually doing this part on TikTok, which is commenting and engaging with them.

And LinkedIn.

Perfect places to try this strategy. Sending thoughtful DMs based on people's content or questions. Don't just randomly send people a DM, like create the connection that leads to having a conversation on a DM. Writing short emails. If you have people that you know in previous industries or backgrounds like I did, so I had people that I had connected with through multiple different ways because I had a digital marketing business. So I knew a lot of people. I would send short emails of just connecting and checking in with them and seeing what's going on. Okay. And then inviting people. When I started my podcast that I thought would be amazing to share and get their story out in the world, to be on my podcast, to share their story. If you don't have a podcast and you're not ready for that yet, which I'm going to teach you in this series how easy it can start and why it's so important, but you can have them write an email to your email list. If you don't have an email list, you can have them write a post for your content. You can sponsor them, if you will. You can do an Instagram Live or a TikTok Live or a LinkedIn Live or something like that. You can find ways to connect with these people and share the room and the stage with them and elevate them, elevate them. And you don't have to do this by posting. Notice a lot of the stuff I'm saying is just about creating conversations. It's not about having all of this content figured out quite yet. Right. That comes with the podcast. If you just start having conversations, you have started creating opportunities for sales long term. Why is this the foundation of Business Safety Nets? Why is this the foundation? Because when you later on in your life, in your business life happened or whatever, you have a network of people who you can connect with and say, hey, I'm out of pocket, I'm busy, I'm looking for this. I would love help with this. You need to send one email. You don't need to create 7,000 posts on social media. You might be able to just create one podcast episode or one voice note and an email to your list. You don't need to do all of the things, right? So this is why this is the foundation of your safety net. Here's the thing I want you to know. I want you to realize it's not about showing up everywhere. It's about showing up with intention, even in the small windows that you currently have. So many of us are like, I can wait till I'm like less busy. I can wait till I'm not as in pain. That might be true for you, might need to wait for that. But a lot of us are like just waiting to the perfect time to create this foundation that if you didn't start your business with, is not there. It takes less than 2 minutes to pick up your phone and text or comment on someone's comment or answer a question in someone's thread or on someone's Instagram or to compliment someone truthfully, like genuinely. It takes 5 minutes. Okay, why this works? Business isn't built on algorithms, it's built on relationships, period. You can't have a business if you don't have relationships. You can't have a business if you don't have people, if you don't connect with people. So those little windows of connection stacked over time will bring you opportunities to sell and clients long term. Okay, these little steps that I'm sharing with you are the steps that led me to having podcast guests and having people still to this day send me referrals or send me people to my podcast to be on my show. And when you layer this in into a long-form content strategy like podcasting, it can easily become a stronger safety net for your business. Episodes that I record, whether with an interview or solo episodes like this one, will keep working because they are creating connection. They're creating conversations with that person, with themselves, or with the ones that want to make a decision, which we will talk about in the next episode. Here's your challenge for this week. Pick 30 minutes, maybe 5 minutes if that's all you have, 2 or 3 times this week and use it to connect, not create content, to connect. Comment, DM, compliment, email. If you have a podcast, invite someone into a conversation about a specific problem you know that they can help your audience serve, or a story that you think that will benefit your audience and theirs. Notice how much more powerful this feels than trying to keep up with algorithms. Right? If you are watching this in 2025, September 25th, Instagram just rolled out something brand new where now audiences can choose who is going to be in their algorithm, who they're going to listen and watch and listen for. So even more so is it important that you take the initiative to create conversations. Now, for all my 6 and 7-figure business owners, you might have people doing this for you. You might decide, I'm going to create an SOP or a place for someone to do this for you. And I think that's kind of helpful. But to me, as a CEO, your job is to create marketing and to create sales. That is the main thing you do, right? And if you cannot find 5 minutes a day to have a conversation with someone that could potentially be a customer or client or someone you can partner with, You have other issues we need to talk about. We have other issues we need to talk about. So even you, the CEO, can find 5 or 10 minutes a day to communicate and conversate with your audience. Okay.

All right.

You don't need hours of content creation, okay? You just need conversations. You need 5 minutes of conversations to create opportunities to sell. You don't need perfect consistency to do this either. It doesn't have to be every day at the same time all the time. Doesn't need to be that. It needs to be an intentional decision that today, if I have 5 minutes, I'm going to spend that 5 minutes communicating and connecting, period, with strangers or people I know on social media or connecting with people I haven't connected with in a long time. You can build a business safety net for marketing and sales when you do small, persistent actions.. And you can leverage a podcast on this because it helps you do all of this, helps you literally do all of this. So when I started this process, it was with the intention of growing my podcast and creating marketing and sales. And so when I would reach out to people, I would comment and talk with them and share with them and connect with them and all of that. And then it ultimately ended in, hey, I would love to have you on a podcast, or I would love to feature you on my podcast. And that led to multiple conversations, right? And then a conversation that lives on the internet forever and ever that even AI now to this day is using that brings people to me. That is part of my marketing and sales foundation, period. So find a vehicle that you doing these little steps of connection makes it even easier. And for me and for a lot of my clients, that is through podcasting. Okay? So you can build a safety net with small persistent actions. And my choice of doing that is through using the vehicle of podcasting. So you can turn those micro actions into evergreen assets that keep working for you well beyond that, that DM comment, that episode you recorded, that Instagram Live, or that email. Okay, so if you're ready to build a business safety net through podcasting and through rooted sales and conversations, this is exactly what I help my clients do inside of Chronically You and Profitable and through my one-on-one coaching private container. If you want to join CYAP, which is my course, you can go to the link in the show notes and purchase. But if you would like to figure out, is the course for me or do I need hands-on support in doing this? You can book a sales call in the link in the show notes as well. And in the next episode of the Business Safety Net series, I'll show you how to turn a small audience into a mighty audience that turns into profit. And why downloads and likes and follows don't really matter when you have a small audience that makes decisions. All right, see you in the next episode.

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.

So let me tell you about one of the tools that has quietly become the heartbeat of my business over the years. It's HoneyBook. I use it for everything. No, seriously, everything. It's how I book my podcast guests, bring on new one-on-one clients, even manage group coaching calls when my other platforms decide that they wanna have a meltdown. From contracts and payments to contact forms to task reminders, HoneyBook keeps all of the moving parts in one place and it is all automated. And here's the real kicker. It works with my capacity, whether I'm having a low energy week or need to automate a bunch of stuff. In one go, or just create a system that makes it easy for me to run a flexible business, HoneyBook gives me that freedom to still move my business forward. If you are looking for a central hub to help you work smarter, not harder, I highly recommend you checking it out. So if you head on over to the show notes, you'll get 50% off your first year. And yes, that's my affiliate link, but I only share what I actually use and love. HoneyBook is my jam, and I hope you check it out.