Everyone says I should be doing more marketing. Are they right?
Mostly no. "More marketing" almost always means more channels, and depth beats breadth every time: being present in one place consistently is more effective than trying to be in five places occasionally. The people prescribing more usually sell one of the channels they're prescribing, while your clients only need to find you reliably in one.
Run this test before adding anything:
- Is your current channel at real consistency? A weekly rhythm, kept for a full quarter, held through busy months. If no, more channels multiply the inconsistency.
- Is anything converting attention into conversations? If visibility exists and calls don't, the gap is the bridge, and a new channel won't build it.
- Would the new thing energize you or drain you? Drained consultants quit channels, and a quit channel refunds nothing.
Pass all three and an amplifier becomes worth discussing. Fail any one and "more marketing" is just a detour with a to-do list attached.
When is speaking or a podcast worth it for a consultant?
A room is worth it when your ideal clients are already in it and the host is someone they trust. That's borrowed trust, and it's the one thing a room does that your own channel can't: a credible host vouches for you by handing you the audience.
The medium itself is mainstream now. Edison Research found 42% of Americans 12 and older listened to a podcast in the past month, and the professional slice of that listening happens in cars, kitchens, and commutes where your clients spend real attention.
The worth-it checklist:
The audience matches
The people who can hire you, at their stage, with budgets. A room of peers is pleasant and produces nothing.
The host wants outcomes for their audience
That's what makes the conversation go deep instead of promotional.
You can repurpose it
One good talk feeds your channel for weeks: clips, a newsletter issue, three posts.
It feeds a system
The room should send people somewhere you own, or it's applause that evaporates.
Guesting is the low-lift version and the right starting point. Your own show is a full channel commitment, and it belongs years down the road, after the first channel hums.
What about webinars? Should I run my own events?
A webinar is a room you build yourself, which makes it the highest-effort option on the menu: the topic, the promotion, the tech, and the audience are all on you. It can work, and it works in a specific situation: when an audience you own already exists, usually a newsletter list warm enough to show up.
The honest sequence for rooms:
- Your channel first. One place, weekly, consistent. Everything else amplifies this or wastes it.
- Borrowed rooms second. Guest spots and stages where a host has already gathered your clients. A great guest appearance costs a tenth of a webinar and borrows a warmer room.
- Your own events last, once there's a list to invite and a system to catch whoever raises a hand.
If you're drawn to webinars because they feel like teaching, notice that the pull is real information: rooms suit you. Just start with the ones somebody else already filled.
Leah's take
Real talk: when Clubhouse arrived, and then TikTok, I deliberately stayed put. Part of that was focus. The bigger part was integrity: I teach women that they don't need to be everywhere, so I refuse to be everywhere myself. LinkedIn, the newsletter, the podcast. That's the whole empire, and it's enough.
And I'll be straight with you about the podcast, because I host one: it converts better than anything else I do. Women arrive at sales calls already trusting me because they've been in my actual coaching conversations for months. And I still wouldn't have started there. It came years in, once the business already worked, as an amplifier on top of a system, and that order is the whole lesson.
One more thing, for the high performer reading this: "if some marketing is good, more must be better" is the instinct that built your career, and it's wrong here. This game rewards depth, patience, and showing up in the same place until the right people can't miss you. You don't need more. You need yours, done fully.
The Academy is where I teach the whole system, with a room of women doing the same work.
