That time a CrossFit gym owner ruined my day.
“What’s your methodology?” she asked. It was 2013 and I was teaching an arm balance workshop at my local studio. A local CrossFit gym owner sent me a message and asked me, “What’s your methodology for teaching hand balancing?”
I had only been teaching yoga for two and a half years at that point, and I didn’t really have a methodology other than—well, yoga.
Truthfully, she had managed to trigger my imposter syndrome with this single comment, and the resulting spiral was not pleasant.
I got defensive. I wrote a snarky blog post. You know how it goes.
I taught the workshop, but I couldn’t shake that feeling that my “methodology” wasn’t good enough.
That’s because there was a part of me that believed that my success as a yoga teacher hinged on whether or not I could practice and teach advanced poses.
Over 10 years later, I own my own yoga studio and I’d say I’ve had a pretty successful career as a yoga teacher.
I haven’t practiced or taught “advanced poses” in years aside from the occasional crow pose here or there.
My classes move slow. And we get exactly where we need to go every single time.
Looking back, I realize that my lack of confidence as a new teacher was a big part of what triggered me. It seems that time, maturity and practice really do make a difference when it comes to feeling comfortable with my skills as a yoga teacher.
The same is true of my journey as a business owner.
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When I first started coaching in 2016, I bought into the dream of having a million-dollar coaching business. The sales page for my certification program boasted the possibility of a lucrative career as a coach—I was going to build my empire.
I signed up for B-School, listened to Amy Porterfield and James Wedmore, and joined the Goal Diggers Facebook group.
And… I never surpassed 30K a year.
Until I started my OBM/Strategy Coaching business in 2023.
I’m in the slow yoga era of my business. I’m a confident, wise, practiced business owner who’s finally figured out her shit.
I used to think that I shouldn’t even be giving business advice if I haven’t built a million-dollar business. Now I know that my advice is grounded in the reality of what running an online business looks like for MOST people.
Just like MOST yoga students won’t ever do an arm balance, handstand, or shoulder stand, most business owners won’t make multi–six or seven figures in their business.
And that doesn’t mean they’re not successful yoga practitioners or business owners.
I teach “slow marketing” to regular people who have an online business doing work they feel really passionate about.
The principles of slow marketing are similar to the principles of slow yoga.
1 - Consistency
2 - Connection
3 - Balance of Ease & Effort
4 - Foundational Integrity
5 - Time
Slow marketing is all about acknowledging that good things take time and over the past three years I’ve grown my feisty little business into a 6 figure business that feels stable, sustainable, and deeply enjoyable to work on and in.
I’d love to support you to do the same, so let’s break down what slow marketing looks like in action:
Consistency
This word can trigger stress for a lot of people. Consistency is often conflated with frequency and they’re not the same thing. You can be consistent with any level of frequency. The more important thing is that the things you do in your business are predictable in their frequency.
Doing this builds trust.
Your audience will notice a consistent cadence in your marketing efforts and look forward to hearing from you. Don’t underestimate the power of this when it comes to selling your offers and building your referral network. Staying top of mind is never ever a bad thing!
Connection
Relationships are important. We have funny words for the connections we make in our online businesses: Leads, subscribers, followers, etc.
And we have a really weird obsession with accumulating connections without really taking time to sit with what it means to get a new subscriber or lead.
We worry about having “only” 100 subscribers, yet if we got invited to an auditorium filled with 100 people who wanted to listen to us read our newsletters, we’d probably be pretty darn excited about it.
I love seeing Notes on Substack where someone is genuinely celebrating their first subscriber. Because IT IS a BIG freaking deal and each one of those “numbers” is a human being who has expressed interest in your work. Your job now is to build a connection with that person.
Balance of Effort and Ease
Running a business takes work. There’s tech to figure out, content to create (always content to create), client sessions to run, invoices to send, and launches to plan. It can be very easy to work 10+ hours a day on your business and still have things you want to get done.
I don’t lie about the amount of work running an online business requires. Often the volume of work is too much for one person to do without support. Whether that’s a supportive partner at home creating space and time for more work to happen, or a team member supporting with tasks.
Businesses move forward when tasks get done.
And it can be really easy to get caught up in all the “doing” and forget about life, sleep, movement, relationships, and your well-being along the way.
Support, really good task management systems, and healthy boundaries around “work” time and “me” time are essential for ongoing, sustainable success.
Foundational Integrity
Solid task management systems are one part of foundational integrity. It also includes your marketing ecosystem, your tech stack, your onboarding systems, and how you manage your client work.
Without functioning systems, your business will always feel stressful and haphazard. These systems don’t have to be complicated and simple is almost always better.
Having good systems ensures a smooth flow for your clients from when they first discover you, through working with you, and eventually to referring your work to others.
Here’s how to get started building a solid foundation for your business:
Know where and how people find you and ensure you’re doing what needs to happen for new people to discover your work (social media, podcasts, Substack, Pinterest etc)
Make it really easy for someone to get started with you whether that’s joining your email list, learning about your offers, or booking a call (website, booking calendar, email marketing platform)
When someone says “yes” to your offer, make the transition into your work smooth and seamless with payment and email automations (payment system, email marketing platform, program platforms or portals)
Send regular communication to your subscribers and clients so there is no question about what their next steps should be (email marketing platform or CRM)
Have a smooth offboarding process that invites your clients to send referrals your way (affiliate programs, feedback forms)
Time
Finally, this is “slow” marketing after all, which means, it will takes time.
It took me three years to build my business to 6 figures this way and I have a relatively easy product to sell.
You have to keep your nose to the ground, trust the process, listen to your people, respond to what they need, and just. keep. going.
Don’t try it for a couple of months then ditch it for some shiny new strategy. Develop your offers, build your foundation, sell, refine, sell again. Until it works.
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This isn’t a million dollar “methodology”—this is real marketing, for humans who deeply crave to do meaningful work. It’s slow, mindful, and honest. What this builds is a business that allows you to be well-resourced doing work you love.
Because. you don’t need a million dollars to be successful at business, just like you don’t need to do a handstand to be successful at yoga.
