Hey Reader,

Happy Saturday. Pour whatever you're having - this one's a slow weekend read, not a between-meetings scroll.

’m writing this from a bowling alley.

It is loud. There’s a children’s party in the lane next to me, something is beeping aggressively near the claw machines, and I’m sat at a sticky table with my laptop, pretending very hard not to watch my eldest, Tristan, who is on a date. On lane 9. I am being extremely cool about it. He would tell you otherwise.

What I want to be doing is completely different. October has arrived and every cell in my body wants to drag the blankets and cushions out of storage, light a candle that smells of something called “Spiced Hearth”, and make the whole house cosy. I want to nest. I want soup. Why is this the only time of year that I want to eat soup?

Instead, I am run off my feet. Because, it turns out, I’ve accidentally onboarded two new clients in the past week.

So between now and the start of November, I’m writing two full client websites, building a go-to-market launch strategy for a third, running a whole stack of power hours, and, on Tuesday, hosting my first ever in-person mastermind day, where we’ll be rolling up our sleeves on packages, pricing, proposition and pitching. (Tiny bit terrified. Big bit thrilled.)

The cushions will have to wait.

But my god, September, you were a good one

Before I get to the marketing bit, and there’s a really important marketing bit, I want to look back, because September was full of moments I don’t want to rush past.

Dawn Owen’s retreat. I spent time away with my business coach, Dawn, and came back with my momentum for Q4 completely supercharged. The big shift wasn’t a tactic or a plan. It was learning to trust my own instinct, and to properly own the results I get for the people I work with. No more burying the wins in caveats. I’m good at this. My clients’ results say so. (Writing that down still makes me want to add “…even though they worked really hard for them”, which tells you how much I needed the retreat.)

My son’s 13th birthday. We did an escape room. We escaped. Just. As in, the final lock clicked open with the clock basically screaming at us. Glorious, chaotic, a bit sweaty, and I'm sure I will be bringing it up again shortly, because it’s a perfect metaphor for something.

Holly Nixon’s conference. I wrote all about it last week, so I won’t repeat myself, except to say I’m still buzzing.

And restarting the equality committee. This is the one that’s got me.

Six years ago, when my son was in Year 2, he went through some pretty horrendous bullying. It was ignored and ignored until a new head teacher started, dealt with it, and asked him what he throught the best next step would be. His idea was to start an equality committee. So that's what we did. He and I, and the deputy head, with a group of kids from across every year group, working together to promote inclusion and celebrate diversity. This month, we restarted it for its sixth year, and it’ll be the last one I’m part of, because my daughter, Imogen, heads off to high school next July.

I didn’t expect to feel quite so emotional about it. Since the committee started, the school’s bullying problem has pretty much completely disappeared. And our Fab Friend scheme, which celebrates children for showing inclusive behaviour, has now recognised more than 180 kids. One hundred and eighty children told, publicly, that being kind and inclusive is something worth celebrating.

That’s hundreds of kids who’ve grown up in a school where difference is noticed for the right reasons. I’m so proud of what they’ve built. I’m going to give this last year everything, and then I’m going to have to let it go and trust it’ll carry on without me.

I really hope it does. (Pass the tissues.)

Right. Back to the marketing bit.

The feast or famine trap.

Here’s the thing about being run off your feet:

It’s the most dangerous time for your business.

Because when we’re busy, what’s the first thing to go? Marketing. Every time. The LinkedIn posts dry up. The newsletter “takes a month off”. The follow-ups don’t get sent. The networking event gets skipped because, honestly, who’s got the time?

And it feels completely fine. You’re busy! The money’s coming in! The diary’s full!

But your current workload is the result of marketing you did two or three months ago. Busy is a lagging indicator. It tells you how well your marketing was working in the summer, not how well it’s working now.

So if you stop marketing in October because you’re flat out, you won’t feel it in October. You’ll feel it in January. When the projects wrap up, the diary empties, and you’re staring at a blank calendar wondering where everyone went and scrambling to fill it, just as everyone else is doing exactly the same thing.

That’s the feast or famine cycle. Feast, stop marketing, famine, panic-market, feast, stop marketing. Round and round, and it is exhausting.

It’s the escape room, basically. You can get out with seconds to spare, but you’d never choose to run your business that way.

The minimum viable marketing plan for busy months

You don’t need to do everything. You need to do enough, consistently, so the pipeline never runs dry. Here’s what I’m doing myself this month, while I write two websites from a bowling alley:

1. Book one marketing slot a week and treat it like a client. Thirty minutes. In the diary. Non-negotiable. You wouldn’t cancel on a paying client because you were busy, so don’t cancel on your own pipeline either. Use it for the single activity that’s proven to bring you work. (If you did September’s “one thing to double” exercise, you already know what that is.)
2. Let part of your nurture run on its own. If you’ve got a welcome sequence, a regular newsletter, or a lead magnet quietly doing its job, this is the month it earns its keep. If you haven’t, put it top of the list for your next quiet patch. Nurture that runs without you is the single best feast-or-famine insurance there is.
3. Ask while you deliver. Busy periods are when you’re doing your best work and your clients are happiest. That’s the moment to ask for the testimonial, the referral, the LinkedIn recommendation. Not in three months’ time when they’ve half-forgotten you. (This is the bit Dawn would want me to say loudly: own your results, and let other people say them out loud too.)
4. Know your pipeline number. How many conversations are in progress right now that could become work in January? If you don’t know, find out this weekend. If the answer is “none”, that’s your cue, and far better to hear it in October than in January.
5. Repurpose. Don’t create. Busy months are not the time for brand new content. Turn the client win into a post. Turn the question three clients asked you into an email. Turn this week’s chaos into next week’s story. (Hello. You’re reading one.)

That’s it. Not a reinvention. Just enough marketing, done consistently, so that January-you sends October-you a thank-you card.

One more thing (a gentle one)

If this has got you thinking about your visibility, your nurture, or how you actually convert people once they’re interested, that’s exactly what Don’t Quote Us On This: LIVE is built around.

It’s on Tuesday 14th September 2027 at the CLM Conference Centre in Coventry: one day, three workshop streams (visibility, nurture and conversion), and you pick the one your business needs most and stay in it all day.

Yes, I know September 2027 feels a long way off. That’s partly the point. Right now you can spread your ticket over 12 monthly payments of £12, which works out at less than a fancy coffee a month. That option closes on 14th October, because after that there just aren’t twelve months left to spread it over.

No pressure. But if you’ve been meaning to, now’s the moment.

Right. Tristan has just bowled a gutter ball and is laughing about it, which I’m taking as a good sign. I’m going to look away now, like the cool parent I am.

Have a lovely, cosy weekend. Get your blankets out for me.

Rowena

P.S. If you're reading this thinking "I'm not busy, I'm in the famine bit", hit reply and tell me. The fix looks a bit different from that end, but it IS fixable - and I'm happy to point you in the right direction.