Hey Powerhouse Pros, welcome back to the blog! I hope you’re enjoying summer and getting a little time to recharge. I’d love to hear what you’re up to, so send me a DM on Instagram (@jenerationpr) and fill me in.

It’s been pretty chill around here. My younger son is off at sleepaway camp for three weeks, and I haven’t heard from him in over a week. It’s SO strange. I just scroll through the camp photos every day in the app, and the AI facial recognition they use is wild.

You upload one photo of your kid and the app can find them in any picture, even if they’re turned around or hiding in the background. One of the photos was of him swimming in a giant shadow and I didn’t even recognize him… but AI did. It totally blew my mind.

Speaking of AI, we’ve been diving into it more and more inside the business. We released an amazing resource that shows you how to train your own AI assistant to think, write, and sound like you. It’s a complete step-by-step digital guide and total time-saver. We’ll link it in the show notes so you can check it out.

Summer Updates and Slowing Down (On Purpose)

We also took a trip to Mammoth this summer. We rented e-bikes, took a pontoon boat out on the lake, and went hiking with our dog Lola. Seeing her in her little red life vest floating around on the boat might be one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.

Honestly, I’ve been slowing down a bit on purpose. I always find that August, the end of the year, and the time right after the holidays are naturally slower seasons. I try not to push myself too hard during these stretches and instead use the space to get clarity on where I’m headed, what’s next, and how I want the business to evolve. That breathing room is gold. Which leads me to…

The Spare Time Spiral

Today’s episode is all about something I see a lot: what I call the spare time spiral. It’s that frustrating cycle where business growth stalls because we only focus on visibility and marketing when we have spare time.

You already know you should be promoting your business, but when you’re slammed with client work, marketing drops to the bottom of the list. Then a retainer ends, the panic sets in, and you start promoting again. Maybe you fill a few spots, feel good about it, and then… the cycle starts all over again.

Sound familiar? I know. I’ve been there too.

Why It’s a Problem

This kind of reactive marketing creates a lot of stress. It forces you into a cycle of scrambling to fill your pipeline, often when it’s already too late.

Sales cycles in our industry can take weeks or even months from first conversation to signed contract. So when you’re only showing up for visibility during the dry spells, it keeps you stuck in survival mode. You’re maintaining, not growing.

A Personal Example: My Website Wake-Up Call

Let me share where I am right now. My Jeneration PR website is pretty outdated. I don’t even think the theme platform we use is supported anymore, so I have a hard time updating it. We haven’t added new press hits in years because it’s just a really complex process.

I also realized that the contact form on my website was broken for at least 10 months. I didn’t even know until someone told me they tried reaching out and I never got their message. I was mortified. The form wasn’t working, the emails weren’t coming through, and we don’t have a log of submissions. I have no idea how many leads we missed. Ugh, super bummer.

The Mindset Shift You Need

It’s okay because I’m in the same boat. I do this when things are going really well and we’re like, “Yeah, everything’s humming along.” Then something happens with a client contract or we have the capacity to bring in more clients and it’s back to the drawing board. It’s really common. It doesn’t mean we’re behind or that we’re bad business owners.

It’s just that we’re in a cycle that doesn’t support growth. But there’s a mindset shift that needs to be made: You don’t need more hours.

Visibility is not a luxury.

Working on your marketing, getting your brand out in front of your potential clients, is not a someday task.

You need a system that runs even when you’re busy, even when you’re doing client work for your existing roster of accounts. As a CEO, marketing the business is a responsibility that we have. It’s not a nice-to-have, it is a must-have.

Five Ways to Escape the Spare Time Spiral

Let’s get into some solutions. These five steps will help you stop treating marketing like an afterthought and start building the momentum your business needs.

1. Choose One Primary Channel

Being everywhere is not it. It’s too exhausting. Just because everybody’s on Threads and TikTok and X and Facebook and Instagram and all the things doesn’t mean you have to be everywhere. You want to be unforgettable somewhere, not forgettable everywhere.

Pick a platform (whether it’s Instagram, podcasting, YouTube channel, something that plays to your strengths) and really go all in. Focus on being the best, showing up consistently on that primary channel. You can leverage those assets and use them in other places, but rather than creating new content for all these different channels or feeling like you have to optimize it for everything, focus on one.

We do the podcast, I record it with video, we put the video on the YouTube channel, we take clips and use those clips on other social platforms. What’s the least you can do every single week to stay visible? Is that one email that you send out every week? One post? Maybe it’s one outreach email to a prospective client or to a former client to stay connected?

Remember: Consistency is more important than intensity.

2. Build an Evergreen Library

Collect your greatest hits. We love case studies… they’re the best way to attract your ideal clients. Ask for testimonials from existing clients or former clients. It always helps if you offer to write it because your clients are busy. Let them know you can give them a draft as a starting point and they can edit it as they see fit. They always say yes and then they always come back and say, “Looks great, no changes.”

Any past posts that performed really well… look and see what had the most engagement, what really connected, what people maybe sent around and forwarded or reposted. Go through your whole history and pull those past posts. I don’t want you having to reinvent the wheel every single day or every single week on social.

3. Separate CEO Time from Client Time

Even if you block just one hour a week, focus on what’s happening inside your business, not just client communications. Really focus on what strategies you’re working on, what you need to implement to continue your education so that you’re ahead of the curve on certain innovations in our industry.

Set it up as if it’s an appointment. When you’re only working IN your business and not ON your business (on your strategic growth, on building a team that’s healthy and productive and has processes in place) you’re never going to grow. It just won’t happen.

4. Don’t Go It Alone

You need support in your business. It doesn’t mean you have to commit to multiple salaries and benefits and a large team. You can use a virtual assistant or AI (by the way, check out our Agency AI Assistant. We have that training process that will take you an hour max and you will have created a virtual employee essentially that will help you save so much time.)

Think about writing an email response to a client. Normally I would sit and really think about it, spend a lot of time trying to get the right words. Now you can craft a prompt to your trained AI and tell it the gist of what you would say to the client.

Even having mastermind buddies is support in your business. You get additional eyes on some of your projects, a sounding board to ask people, “Am I crazy? How would you approach this?” All of that is so helpful and doesn’t really cost anything.

5. Create a Bare Minimum Weekly Flow

You’re always going to be busy. There’s never going to be just a chunk of time where you’re like, “Look at that, I’ve got the whole day to myself. Why don’t I work on my marketing now?” You need to treat it like it’s a client of your own and put it in the calendar and commit to it.

The Bottom Line

Your growth hasn’t stalled because you’re not good at business or not a good enough business owner. It has maybe stalled or plateaued because your marketing tends to stop when the client work starts.

You deserve a business that grows sustainably without that panic feeling of “Crap, we lost a client. We lost that revenue. Our team needs something to do. Got to get back out there and look to fill the pipeline.”

It doesn’t have to be that way. That panic feeling doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Marketing is not optional. It is an essential part of growing a successful, sustainable business.

Take Action This Week

I want you to think about one habit that you’ll implement this week to escape this spare time spiral. If you need help in your agency so that you can escape this hamster wheel of trying to bring in new clients only when you lose a client, check out our Agency AI Assistant at https://jenerationacademy.com/the-agency-assistant

This is our new edition of Powerhouse Prompts designed to help you outsource overwhelm to the robots. We have prompts on topics ranging from handling tricky client situations to providing social media content support and pitching support.

If this resonated with you, I want to hear it. Send me a DM on Instagram or post in our free Powerhouse Pros Facebook group. When I say it’s the nicest, most helpful collaborative community of PR professionals online, I’m so proud of that.

Go out there and crush it this week. Schedule your CEO time in your business and start pulling your greatest hits on social, some testimonials from clients. I’ll be here crushing it too.

You got this. Go kick some butt.