As high achievers, we often associate success with the need to constantly hustle the need to constantly do more and the most. But what have I told you? Intentional and strategic rest is one of the most strategic tools in your marketing arsenal. That's what I wanna cover in this episode of the mindful marketing podcast. But before we dive in to all of that goodness, I gotta give a shout
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intentional marketing tool. And one of the analogies that I've been using a lot when talking to my members in the mindful marketing lab is this analogy of gardening and how marketing is a lot like gardening. And if we think about gardening, there's different seasons to this. You you plant the seeds, you water them, you prune, you watch it grow, you harvest, and then you rest and reset. Gardening also goes at different paces depending on what you
are harvesting. Right? So some things you harvest once, some things you harvest again and again. I love gardening as well because depending on where you are, like your your landscape, that could also have a different impact on your harvest. I love gardening as well because even the same exact plant in the same exact location will produce different fruit in different years. Right? There are different harvesting
moments that happen as you go year over year. So some years you'll have more to harvest than others, and sometimes it's outside of your control. Right? And so this is what I love about marketing is because there's so much nuance to it that I think is missing a lot in the short little quippy, like, one liners we
post on social media. So in this episode, I'm gonna go all the way in, because I think it's really important as social media marketers, as business owners to acknowledge the seasons, to acknowledge the variances that happen over the years without feeling that restlessness that comes from questioning. Am I doing enough? Am I doing the
right things? And then also without going too far one end and burning yourself out to where you don't have anything left to harvest because you've literally depleted the nutrients from the soil and there's nothing else you can get from it. Right? So by the end of this episode, I want you to have a a really deep understanding of how rest fits into the entire marketing plan. So let's start with spring. K? Spring is the season of planting. I think spring is the hustle
season. There is is a season for hustle. And I know I talk a lot about rest and mindfulness, but this does not mean we're not working. Okay? I, on my website, put, I like to help people find the space between hustle and the soft life. Because while it could be great to just, like, lay on the beach and rake in money in your sleep, that doesn't happen. There is a period in time where you have to, you're required to
hustle. This is that springtime energy. I consider this doing things in your marketing, like launching new campaigns, setting up new content strategies, new systems, planning, building out collaborations, creating podcast series. You know, these are all the things that we do in our marketing that set us up for success in the future.
Okay? So tactically, in this season, we are being very strategic about what we're planning because we know there's gonna be pruning seasons of editing or refining, and we know there's going to be a harvest coming up. Right? Like, we're gonna reap the rewards for that, and we need energy. We need our energy to be able to last through those seasons. K? So in the hustle season,
this is when you feel most inspired. But I also find the spring, the hustling that happens in spring is is one of the hardest moments in hustling because you know you have to hustle, hustle, and then wait. K? So in this phase, I suggest batching content. I suggest scheduling things for later. I suggest using tools to be able to set yourself up for success in the future when you do need to harvest, when you do need to rest. K? Because when you're harvesting and when you're resting, it's really
hard to put in that springtime energy. Now let's talk about summer. Summer is the season of cultivation. It's requires patience. It requires consistency. You've planted the seeds. You've watered them, and now you need to wait. I'll tell a little story here. I use the gardening analogy y'all and I'm not a gardener. I have the opposite of a green thumb. What is that? Black thumb? I have tried planting tomatoes several many times. I have
drowned them. They got diseased. They got burnt to a crisp because I have them in in the sun. I had the the world's smallest tomatoes that I ate begrudgingly. They were not supposed to be cherry tomatoes, but they came out that size. And so I understand the season of cultivation. It's very frustrating when you spend a lot of time planting, watering, and then what's growing isn't what you need. And so this is a season where you're optimizing what is working. K? I'll use my tomato analogy. I
planted 1 tomato plant, and it didn't work out. And I didn't, really even look up anything on how to plant tomatoes. I thought to myself, how hard could it be? And then I just did it. Right? I think that this is why the hustle in the springtime is so important because this is where you do your research. This is where you, try different things. This is where you plant things strategically so that in the summer, you're
cultivating and optimizing. You're looking at the plants that are the strongest and going, these are the strongest. I gotta prune these leaves here. You're looking at the plants that are the weakest and going, how can I strengthen these? Can I save these? So, in terms of marketing, you're looking at your analytics going, what posts are performing well? How can I do more of this? You're looking at your analytics and going, what posts are performing
not so well? How can I do less of this? And then you're also looking at your time and energy capacity. And this is so important in this stage of cultivation, and this is where, especially those business owners, we're running our own marketing. This is where we burn out because the plan that we set up in the spring is not sustainable for us, the human. And I was talking to one of my one on one clients recently about this.
She's so convinced she needs to be on TikTok. And while I think TikTok will be great for her, I think also she dreads video so freaking much that when it comes to the season of cultivation, she's not gonna be able to last. K? And so I think when we're looking at our marketing, we're looking at our energy as
well. Yes. There's something that could on paper work really well, but when it comes down to actually doing it, sitting down recording the videos, sitting down to write the emails, recording the podcast, doing the live stream, whatever it is that you're doing in your marketing, if you find a lot of resistance, if you find that it takes you way too long, then it's time to prune and find a different way. So I'll give a practical example of this for myself
as well. I'm a talker, and I like to think on the fly. If if we look at my CliftonStrengthsFinders, my number one strength is strategic. My number two strength is positivity. I have activator up there. I like to get things done. I like to think strategically. However, if I have to sit down and write something, it takes me a long freaking time.
K? So one of the things I've been doing in my season of cultivation, in my season of pruning, in my season of how can I do this with less effort, is things like the podcast I record all in one take now? Sorry. I just hit my mic. I record all in one take. So it's easier for me to sit down and, like, think out, outline the
episode, and then record it all in one take versus prior to this. I had an intro, I had ad recordings that I had to do, then I had the actual episode that I did, and then I had, like, a prerecorded outro that I swapped out. It was too many moving pieces for me personally, especially now that I have a reduced team. So I record my podcast all in one go. It's, like, 80% there. It's great. We ship it out. It's wonderful. Y'all love it. You still get all of the pieces. It's just not as fancy
as, you know, I could make it. And that's me looking at my own energy and going, how can I make this and edit this to be more sustainable for me, the human behind the marketing? Right. So that's summer season of cultivation. Then we have fall season of harvest. This is the season we love. If business owners could stay harvesting all day long, we would live here. Okay? This is like you post
your Black Friday campaign and it sells out immediately. This is you finally hit the viral post and everyone's, like, clamoring to work with you. This is where your the results come in, the cash is flowing, you know, people are buying. Like, this is the phase where we wanna stay and live, and this does require hustling in its right own right. Right? This oftentimes is delivering the product or service. So now that everyone's purchased, we
have to do the thing. Right? So it's hustling in a different way. And I do find that this season of hustle tends to be easier for a lot of people because that we have that instant gratification. We have the reward of, like, somebody found us through our marketing. They bought the thing. We're delivering the thing. Right? But this is just one of 4 seasons, and we don't live in this season all of the time because coming up is winter. Winter is a season of rest. This is
the season of reflection. This is the season that this entire episode is about. K? This is the season that helps you nourish yourself, the human, and nourish your business in a way that you can have seasons over seasons over seasons of harvesting. Because you can only harvest from something that is able to have something that you can harvest it from. Okay? So back to my
tomato plants. What I learned in my research is that, yes, you have the soil and you have fertilizer, but if you keep using the same soil over and over again, the nutrients deplete. And especially the way I was doing it, I put it in a pot. K. So in potted plants, those of you who are like my plant babies, you guys will understand this. But I'm a newbie to this, and I'm like, wait. What? The soil, you have to, like, change it out and refresh it. And then
sometimes you can't plant things in there for a while. You just gotta let it sit. You can, you know, put nutrients in it. You can fertilize it. Some people even use, like, like manure, k, to do that. It's so important. I also the farmers do this a lot with, fields, and there's a lot of farm fields around us. Sometimes the fields will they, you know, they plant them, they harvest the things, and then they just leave
that field alone for a whole year. They're like, this field, it served its purpose, but we need to let it rest so that the nutrients can revitalize in the soil, and then we can plant there again. And sometimes even plant different things in that field again to have different outcomes. K. So in terms of marketing, in terms of you and your business, to me, winter is so important
because it is a season of reflection. If we don't take the time to sit down and prepare for future seasons, we will guarantee burnout. We will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. We won't take the time to actually reflect on what's working and do the actual deep work that's required in marketing. I'm talking audits. I'm talking planning experiments. I'm talking talking about trying new things. So in practical terms, let's talk about AI in marketing. Right? Chat
GPT. I love it. I love it and I hate it at the same time. When Chat GPT first came out, I resisted so much. I said, I don't wanna learn something new. Y'all may relate to this. I don't wanna learn something new. It's like another new thing. Right? But the more AI is becoming embedded in the very way that we do our work, the more I recognized in my season of rest, I need to study this tool. It's actually a requirement
of me to do my job effectively and efficiently. And now that I'm on the other side of it, I'm, like, how can I not use this tool? It's amazing. It's it's literally embedded into my program now. I built custom GPTs for my members because I'm, like, listen. If you wanna do an audit, yes, you could do this manually and spend 3 hours on it or 15 minutes with my custom GPT. Like, it's it's a no brainer. Right? But in order to get to that spot, I had to pause, which is my winter,
reflect and rest and analyze things. Is this working? Is this not? I also do this with my, pro members in the lab. So I have, like, your all access members, everyone's in there. My pro members, these are the people who are social media managers, freelancers, agency owners, digital marketers. Like, they're doing this for their clients. And one of the things we do in our season of rest every single year is we audit our clients,
and then we audit ourselves and our businesses. We take a look at what our clients need and what's available in the marketplace. So one of the things that has come up this year is that if you're if you don't have video as a part of your agency packages, you either need to find a video partner or you need to learn video. Like, every single platform is putting an emphasis on video. And as a marketer, if you're not doing the same thing,
you're behind. So you need to take your winter, pause, rest, reflect, look at the needs of your clients, and look at what's available in the marketplace and find solutions for those problems. Otherwise, a year from now, when you're in your next harvest season and the harvest is filled a little light, you'll be sitting there scratching your head like, what the hell? What where did I go wrong? And part of that is you didn't take the time to rest and reflect on the
previous seasons. Now I talk about the seasons, but I do have to note everyone's seasons are different. K? Everyone's seasons are different. I used to live in Atlanta, Georgia. And when I lived in Atlanta, fall was my favorite season. Oh, I loved fall. The weather was cooling down. The leaves were changing. I put on my little coat, maybe even a little scarf. And my birthday's in October, so it always felt like my own version of, like, a new year. Right? I'm
turning a new age. And so I love fall. Then I moved to Canada from Atlanta, and I realized, oh, the fall season, totally different here. And now my favorite season is summer. Okay? Because here in Canada, it feels like we have what I would consider fall. It it it's actually more like a late summer weather here. And most of the year is, like, too cold for me to want to leave the house, so I end up hibernating and staying inside for the winter. Okay? So, seasons look very different
based on your circumstances. When we think about businesses and marketing, it works the same way. You could take the same plant and plant it in Atlanta and plant it in Canada and have different harvests. K? So you could take the same marketing strategy and apply it to one business and apply it to another and have different harvests. Your circumstances have a huge
impact on the outputs and inputs that are happening in your marketing. And this is where I also find marketers get very frustrated is when they don't take the time to rest and reflect and analyze what's working for them. And instead, they're looking around at everyone else and comparing their harvest to someone else's harvest and going, why is this not working? And I'm putting that in quotes. Why is this not working for me? I'll give another
example. One of my private clients, we're going through strategy work, and, honestly, she came to me looking for social media support. And after going through her work, I'm like, you don't need social media that much. Your business actually would thrive to do other things. But her competitor, she's looking around, the people who she considers competitors,
they're very loud on social media. And looking at her business and the amount of business that she actually needs, the types of clients that she serves, they're actually not on social media that much. So spending a lot of time on social media for her will produce a different harvest than podcast guesting, which is what I recommended for her. So now we're working on a strategy for her to go out and be on podcast and she wants to also
do some speaking as well. That's her marketing. Yes. There are some things we're gonna do on social media and it will definitely support her podcast guesting and her speaking, but her clients aren't very active on social media. So for her, it is not helpful to look around at other people's harvests and go, they're on social media, so I need to be and I will have similar results. Instead, we hunker down. It's
winter. We're analyzing what works for her and her business. We're actually looking at the data, looking at the stats, looking at her goals, and going, will this work? Yes or no? And so I think it's very important as business owners to understand your circumstances, your business model, your only your your preferences as a marketer. So, like, do you prefer to speak? Do you prefer to write? All of those affect your marketing. K. And everyone's seasons of marketing are very, very
different. I also want to kinda talk a little bit about this in some real world examples because, conceptually, yes, I understand this works really well, Andrea, but, give me some examples. So I like to use Chick Fil A a as an example. I know. I know. It's controversial, but y'all, I love Chick Fil a. I'm a Chick Fil a fan. I worked at Chick Fil a when I was 14 years old. It was my first real job. Okay. I'm putting that in quotes because I was doing jobs
before that, things like tutoring and babysitting. But this was my first job where I had, like, the uniform, clock in, clock out. I went through the training. I'm a fan. There's a Chick Fil A in Buffalo, New York. I live in Fort Erie, Ontario. Yeah. It's a different country, but I still will cross the border just for Chick Fil a, and tell the border people where they're, like, where are you going? I'm, like, I'm just I'm just going to Chick Fil a, and I'll
be right back. I have done that before. So, yeah, Chick Fil A. They're notoriously closed on Sundays. They're closed on Sundays. K? Chick Fil A closed on Sundays, and yet they are one of the most popular, fast food restaurants, and they have one of the most intense fan bases. And their revenue, is estimated at $1,000,000,000 annually. And their loyalty, like I said, people who
like Chick Fil A love Chick Fil A. K? And we all if y'all are fans like me, we've all had those moments where we're in the drive through on a Sunday, and we're like, dang it. This place is closed today. I love me some piece of chicken. Okay. Chick Fil A. Great example of building rest into their business plan. K. And it's it is for religious reasons, that aside. No matter what you believe, I think that that is very smart as a company. Next company, Glossier. I always call this Glossier in my
head, but I'm pretty sure it's Glossier. They're a beauty brand. Right? They have a very community driven model, so I'm always looking at them for inspiration because of the way that they launch their products, the way that they, like, cultivate their community. They really focus in on engagement, and they focus in on quality that their community wants versus just, like, producing as much as possible and hoping people like
it. And so they actually have announced that they don't launch as many products intentionally because they recognize in their winter season that a, their community has very specific needs and requests, so they try to stick with that. And then b, that when they focus in on the quality, they actually end up
building stronger community members. Right? So instead of having a bunch of products that they just keep releasing, releasing, hoping people like it, they take time to strategically plan winter season so that the products that they do release are higher quality. Last example here is Patagonia. This one was new to me, came up in my research for this episode. So they're an outdoor apparel company, and they have a lot to do with, like, environmental activism.
And so they're known, apparently, for pausing their marketing campaigns to advocate for environmental causes. So, no, we're not marketing, but we're gonna take this marketing time to protect the planet, to make our world a better place. And it deepens their customer loyalty when their people are able to, like, fall in love with their products because they know that this company is loyal to a bigger cause. K? And so that's just another example that popped up in my research. So back to
you. Tactically, when we're thinking about rest as a marketing strategy, I want you to plan a season of winter. Schedule breaks for yourself, regular breaks and long term breaks. So for me, for social media, I typically don't work on the weekends on my social. I typically am not posting on the weekends. There are a few examples, throughout the year where I'm like, hey. I'm checking in or I feel inspired. But for the most part, like, 50 of the 52 weeks of the year, I'm not on social
media on the weekends. So I want you to think about what that looks like for you. And then also evenings for me. I have a thing on my phone that automatically will, turn my phone to, like, silent after 9 PM so I don't get any notifications, and that's done intentionally. The same thing with your email marketing, with your podcasting. So for with my podcast all throughout December, I, tend to lean on repurposed content. So typically, this is like interviews
I've done elsewhere. So you all see that will pop up in the feed. That's me taking a break from recording new episodes and bringing you content that's new to you. Highlighting old content, batch recording, prerecording, like, all of these things are tactical applications of rest. So my challenge to you is to plan your winter season. What does winter look
like for you? How are you going to have an intentional moment where you pause, where you reflect instead of constantly launching and putting out the next thing? Right? How are you going to learn new tools? When are you going to learn new tools? When are you going to grow? When are you going to innovate? Apple does this very well. You know, Apple, they work quietly for long periods of time, and then they go, ta da. Here it is. That's their
winter. They have a long winter season, and they're customer loyalty shows for that. Even TV shows, if you think about it, they release a season, then they rest. They release a season, they rest. Artists do this too. They work on their album, then they rest. They go on tour, then they rest. K? You can do this too. What is your season of rest? Because it's essential for your growth. If you wanna learn more about this, I do have a free
resource for you. It's called the social media unwind. You could also find it inside our social media reset challenge. It's free. Go to onlinedreya.com/reset. Go through the 5 day free reset challenge and figure out how you can reset your relationship with social media and give yourself a season of rest. As mentioned, coming up, I have, replays for you from some interviews that I've done throughout this year that you may have missed. Enjoy those,
and I will see you back in the new year. Thanks so much, everyone. Bye for now.