Hi 

Hope you're staying cool in this heat! 

Just a quick one from me as the Atomicon flash sale finishes at midnight tonight and I don't want you to miss out if you're thinking of coming. 

A few things: 

• Use my affiliate link and I get a little kickback (thank you so much!)
  
• Until midnight today, tickets will be the cheapest they'll be, and there's a payment plan too.
• There's a no-questions-asked full refund until February 1st 2027 (I had to use it this year as I couldn't make it in the end, and can confirm it's pain-free)
• I was sorry to miss out on 2026 because I loved it in 2024 and in 2025! Just look how jolly I am!

Here's the link again, hope to see you there (now go drink some water)!

And if you have any Atomicon/Manchester questions, just ask me!

Karen

P.S. I will be hosting a meetup the day before Atomicon for friends of Goodness Marketing - so you will get to meet like-minded people in a smaller, calmer environment and walk into the party/conference knowing a few people. And how nice will it be for us to hang out IRL! Come along!

Hi 

A lot of marketing advice boils down to: hide the weird bits, polish everything to within an inch of its life, always appear completely flawless.

Which is quite awkward really, because there's scientific humans don't actually seem to like flawless people very much.

People don't trust perfection. They've met people. And there's a psychological concept that proves this. It's called the Pratfall Effect. 

(Love the name, because it sounds like it was discovered when a prat had a fall. Which, to be fair, is pretty much the entire premise.)

Anyway, back in the 1960s, psychologist Elliot Aronson ran an experiment where people listened to someone answering quiz questions. 

When the person came across as highly competent and then accidentally spilled coffee on themselves, people liked them more than the equally competent version who stayed perfectly polished.

People liked them not despite the mistake. Because of it.

The flaw made them feel human.

Which is interesting when you think about marketing.

Most of us spend ages making our marketing as presentable as possible before we put it out into the world. We delete the weird tangents, random thoughts, and genuinely unpopular opinions. Take out the silly in case it damages our credibility. 

And all the while those are exactly the things that make people 

• stop the scroll
• pay attention
• remember us
• actually like us more

All of us connect with actual real humans more easily than with Personal Brands™.

So here's something to try.

Think of something from the last month that went slightly sideways in life or business. A plan that didn't work, something that flopped, a time where your mouth started talking before your brain had completed its risk assessment.

Then add that to your marketing. A post, email, blog, anything.

It doesn't need a moral or an impressive "and here's what I learned" story arc. Just tell the story.

The thing that happened. How it felt. What happened next.

For bonus points, add a real photo. Not your best headshot or a perfectly composed work of art. Something candid. 

Then see what happens.

My money's on that getting a warmer response than the post you spent 47 minutes rewriting and still weren't happy with.

Photos of the week

1. miniature joy
2. ever look at a peonie really, really close up? 
3. I love you, will you marry me? (Sheffield)
4. mocktails in the sunshine

Picky Bits

💌 Mailerlite has changed its free plan and lots of people aren't happy about it. I have a slightly different take on the situation.

👀 What to pay attention to on LinkedIn at the moment.

🐝 Atomicon is coming to Manchester in 2027 and I'm definitely organising an in-person meetup as it's right on my doorstep! Use my affiliate link to grab your ticket during the flash sale (ends Friday).

🚶🏻‍♀️ Want to join me and other business owners IRL this Friday to reflect on the first half of the year? We'll be meeting in Marple (SK6) for a walk in the morning. Just reply to this email for more info (spaces are limited).

🪸 Click through this carousel for some brilliant facts about one of my favourite things about the ocean. 

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you and hope you have a great week. 

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from September

Power hours - next availability on 30 June

Hi 

I've just about recovered from 2 weeks of halfterm, which included the usual juggles and an overnight trip to Liverpool with my youngest for some one-to-one time.

It was absolutely lovely. Right up until I left our suitcase on the train back to Manchester.

I was hopeful we'd get it back, but I couldn't help tallying up the losses as I waited to see if it turned up. Birthday presents for my husband, make-up, sunglasses. And the irreplaceable: my son's teddy he's had since he was a baby and the World Cup sticker album he's spent every penny of his pocket money on. 

We did get it back, thankfully, but it got me thinking about expensive mistakes. Specifically, the ones we make in our businesses without really noticing.

Here are five that I see all the time.

The sunk cost fallacy

You've put time, money, or energy into something and it's not working. But stopping feels like admitting defeat, so you keep going.

The thing is, continuing to pour resource into something that isn't serving you isn't commitment. It's just expensive.

Courses and programmes that never get finished

I'm totally guilty of this one. We buy with the best of intentions, life gets in the way, and the thing gathers digital dust. 

The "too good to be true" sales pitch

I think of a lovely client who came to me after spending thousands on an ads course. She followed the instructions to the letter, spent £800 on ads, and sold £813 worth of her product.

She was rightly devastated and furious. And her conclusion? That she failed and was just bad at marketing.

The truth was that she wasn't the problem. The pitch was. She was sold on smooth promises and big numbers, with small print that sneakily shifts the blame onto the buyer when it doesn't work out. 

This is still everywhere.

Lapsed subscriptions

The free trial you signed up for in a moment of optimism. The tool you used twice. The membership that auto-renewed without you noticing. Worth a quick audit, honestly. It adds up faster than you'd think.

Not outsourcing because it feels like a risk

I kept doing my own bookkeeping for far too long because spending money on it felt counterintuitive. But just because I could technically do it, doesn't mean I ever did actually sit myself down and logged those receipts. 

Instead, I thought about it, worried about it, rushed it, did it badly at the last minute and got totally stressed. 

Outsourcing costs money, yes. But it gives me hours back. And peace of mind. Sometimes the expensive mistake is the thing you're not spending money on.

Obviously I'm not sharing this to make you feel bad. We all make these calls, usually with good intentions and not quite enough information. But it's worth a little audit now and then.

Where's your money actually going? And is it working for you?

Photos of the week

1. Birthday escape room (got out with 3 minutes to spare)
2. Iced coffee season
3. Gorgeous wildflowers
4. A cutie patootie

Picky Bits

🧀 My favourite snack betrayed me and I turned it into a marketing lesson. 

📸 You can now reorder your grid on Insta.

🔍 A good read about why you should stop obsessing about getting to the top of Google and pumping out content for the sake of it. Instead, focus on making your brand well-known and trusted so that when people or AI tools look for answers in your space, your business is one of the names that naturally comes up.

✏️ Got a kid aged 9-13 who could do with some online support with their homework? Check out this fab offer from Do Crew-er Vicky.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you and hope you have a great week. 

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from July

Power hours - next availability on 30 June

Hi 

There's a saying that goes: when you're in the jar, you can't read the label.

I've been thinking about this a lot this week.

The brilliant Becca wrote about her experience of a Power Hour with me on her blog, and I genuinely had to put my phone down for a minute when I read it.

Before our call, Becca been going round in circles. Wondering if she needed a rebrand. Convinced something wasn't working, but not quite sure what. 

Then we had an hour together, but we didn't talk about multi-channel strategies or Instagram posting frequencies. 

We talked about why she started her business. About her love of books, Wales, sea creatures, and what she actually wanted her publishing house to stand for.

What Becca couldn't see from inside the jar was that she didn't need a total overhaul of anything. She needed to reconnect with the heart of what was already there.

Does this ever happen to you?

So many of us are working so hard, for so long, that we lose the ability to see our own businesses clearly. We're too close to it, too in it. 

We circle (spiral?!) the same worries, poke at the same problems, and somehow miss the obvious thing that someone outside can spot in about ten minutes.

This is not a failing, by the way. It's just what happens when you care deeply about something and you're doing it mostly alone.

An outside perspective isn't a luxury. For small business owners, it might be the most useful thing you ever invest in.

And I'm not saying a power hour with me is the only thing that can help. Sometimes just saying things out loud - to another human, to a tree, to a lamppost - can give you perspective that mulling it over alone in your own head simply can't.

Go and read Becca's blog.  She's a wonderful writer and it's a genuinely lovely read (yes, she calls me a "marketing genius", what can I say?!).

P.S. I only have one day this month available for power hours, so if you want me to read your label for you, get booked in here!

Photos of the week

1. With my Manchester 10k medal and the sign my supporters held up for the runners last Sunday.
2. Did an overnight trip to Liverpool with my youngest (Stockport primaries have 2 weeks off at Whit and get a shorter summer break). What a fab city!
3. Moody skies and meadows.
4. How cute is a 10yo in full cricket gear?!

Picky Bits

 🤳 Tips to reduce your screen time

👀 LinkedIn has launched new analytics that show whether your posts are reaching new people or just your existing followers. This makes it easier to see what content is helping you get in front of the right people and grow your audience.

😍 Applications are open for the Nation's Favourite Small Businesses (formerly SmallBiz100). Goodness Marketing made this list a couple of years ago and I've had some lovely opportunities off the back of it. Highly recommend entering!

🥳 Get weird on socials. In an age where AI is everywhere, one of the best things you can do to stand out is be your weird little self. I tested this theory by posting on Insta like it was 2016, in all the ways the algorithm hates (11pm, not about work, no video or audio, non aesthetic)... And voila, my best performing post for months. 

So basically, that's what I'll be doing now on Insta. Want to join me? Shall we take pics of our lunches this week?

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you and hope you have a great week. 

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from July

Power hours - next availability on 30 June

Hi 

A few years ago I sat down and did something I probably should have done sooner.

I tracked where my time was going. Then I tracked where my clients were actually coming from.

Oh boy.

The two lists looked nothing like each other.

Sound familiar?

Here's the one question I now ask about every marketing channel I use:
Is the time I'm spending on this proportionate to the job it's actually doing?

Or, as I often phrase it: is the juice worth the squeeze?

Go through each channel: email, Instagram, LinkedIn, networking, wherever you show up — and answer it honestly. 

Not what you hope it's doing. 

Not what it feels like it's doing. 

What it's actually bringing you.

You'll probably find one or two things working harder than you realised. And at least one thing that's just keeping you busy.

You don't need to look at this as failure, btw. Look at it as data. Useful information.

During May in the Do Crew we worked through this as part of our theme 'algo-proof your marketing'. Members now have a simple one-page map of their whole marketing ecosystem, with clarity about what's working, what they have control over, and what is all squeeze no juice.

It's easier to keep posting and hope for the best than to sit with the honest numbers. It's uncomfortable, facing the gap between where your time goes and where your clients actually come from. 

Especially when it feels like the whole marketing world is telling you to just post more, show up more, do more. 

But the bravest marketing move is actually shutting out that noise for a few minutes and looking honestly at what's actually working for you.

Photos of the week

1. This was what my office looked like for 2 days this week. So much cricket.
2. New rose in bloom in the garden.
3. The Barketing Assitant is forever committed to finding sun spots - even in a heatwave, even in her thick fur coat.
4. I'm forever committed to this hammock.

Picky Bits

🤑 Meta's no longer content with just your data. It wants your money.

🏆 Enter the Prolific North Marketing Awards here (I've judged these and can confirm the judging process is legit, ethical, and above board!)

🐸 I adore these meditations for children (and adults) by my friend Sara Starling. She just added a new one here.

🌱 Moss lovers, this one's for you (thanks Maggie for this in your newsletter)

💖 Coming soon to Manchester: Cowork Crew! I've long been an admirer of this wonderful community so I was thrilled when Penni and Jo said they're coming up North. Join the waitlist here. 

By the time you're reading this I will have hopefully completed the Manchester 10k. Look out for a medal pic next time!

Hope you have a great week. 

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from June

Power hours - next availability on 10 June

Hi 

It's Sunday evening on a sunny bank holiday weekend, and I hope you have glass of something cold nearby. 

Let's get a little vulnerable.

A friend and subscriber wrote something on LinkedIn this week that really got me thinking (hi Jeremy!). 

He shared how an event he ran didn't quite turn out how he'd hoped - and then he wondered out loud whether he was being too honest and authentic... Whether he should just smile and keep the difficult stuff to himself.

And I thought: I really hope not.

Because the reality is it's genuinely tough out there for lots of us at the moment, and, well... misery loves company I guess? 

Or rather, it feels less rubbish if instead of spiralling, we read something something that makes us realise maybe it's not that we're just crap at everything and need to burn it all down... 

For me personally, Jeremy's post resonated in particular this week because as you know, doors to the Do Crew were open until Friday, and, well.... things didn't go quite to plan. 

While the new members are of course absolutely ACE...

Yeah, there's only a handful of them. 

In fact, in terms of new member numbers, it was my worst launch in nearly three years. By far.

This is not to take anything away from the wonderful people who did join, because I am truly grateful for each one of them. 

But I'll be honest, with big ambitions to grow the Do Crew: six was nowhere near what I’d hoped for. 

And yeah, it knocked me a bit.

So of course I've been questioning everything. 

The offer. The timing. Whether I’d explained it badly. Whether people even want this anymore. 

The usual delightful 2am carousel of nonsense 🙃.

But I think there’s something important about saying that out loud, here, to you.

Not because every disappointing thing needs turning into content (there's more than enough performative vulnerability out there already).

But because I don’t think pretending that everything is always thriving and sold out and “so exciting!!!” actually helps anyone.

The honest emails/posts are always the ones people reply to, not the overly polished or super strategic ones. 

The ones where you can feel there’s an actual real human sitting behind the screen and you can hear their real voice underneath the marketing.

I think people can absolutely feel the difference.

And I don't know about you but I think more real, honest feelings - the whole spectrum of them - can only be a good thing.

Anyway. Since we’re here.

If you saw the Do Crew launch and decided not to join, I’d genuinely love to know why. I promise I won't reply with a sales pitch (that would be gross).

So, wrong timing? Wrong format? Didn’t really understand what it was? Too expensive? Not enough urgency? Already got enough on your plate? Accidentally deleted the emails while trying to unsubscribe from something involving fast fashion or collagen?

I’m genuinely curious and surprisingly difficult to offend!

Photos of the week

1. There have been some late nights at Goodness Marketing HQ this week - here's the BTS chaos at 11pm...
2. Pavement wildflower joy
3. Stockport barmcake
4. Calling in to see Stockport's brand new podcast studio. Love what Dan has created with Mill Podcast Studios (and genuinely a little tempted to start a podcast just to hang out in that cool space more often)

Picky Bits

💖 Coming soon to Manchester: Cowork Crew! I've long been an admirer of this wonderful community so I was thrilled when Penni and Jo said they're coming up North. Join the waitlist here.

🤳 Curious. Facebook is playing with a standalone app for FB Groups. Basically a Reddit dupe, and currently available in the US and on iOS only.

🏆 Loved this public celebration of Do Crew-er Emma's recent win - THIS is why I do what I do! 

🐩 Another Do Crew celebration: Katie and her dad John has just announced the next drop of their super special clothing line. Order here, and do yourself a favour and check out their Instagram... 

🧠 You may remember me telling you about my client Sort Brainhealth who will be launching private ADHD assessments with profits going back to health services for communities in need? Well, the service is live and you can now book here!

Super proud of being involved in this project that will help so many people. 

OK, I'll leave you to your bank holiday (and maybe your half-term? We have two weeks here and have been pretty disorganised on the childcare front... send prayers and rosé)!

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from June

Power hours - next availability on 10 June

This email tells you about the Do Crew. If you don't want any more promo about this but you do want to continue getting my weekly emails, click here and I won't email you about it again.

Hey 

Right, I'll keep this short because it's Friday, it's sunny (fiiiinally), and neither of us wants to be staring at our inboxes right now.

Today is the last day to join the Do Crew.

Doors close tonight. Then they're shut for a good while.

If you've been hovering, uhmming, or "I'll do it tomorrow"-ing ... today's the day.

For £10 for your first month, you get:

✅ Two live coworking sessions a week 

✅ Me, on hand to answer your marketing questions and cheerlead you

✅ Bite-sized training (including on a private podcast -- actually useful, I promise)

✅ A brilliant little community of people who get it + want to see you succeed

What you WON'T get:

❌ Faff, shoulds, egos

❌ Complicated systems to implement 

❌ A course graveyard to feel guilty about. 

Sounds good, doesn't it? That's because it is! 

So if you're craving a friendly marketing nudge, a bit of structure, some proper support to get your marketing done ... join us.

Have the loveliest long weekend. You've absolutely earned it.

Karen 

P.S. Doors are closing tonight. That's not fake urgency ... it's real urgency. In the nicest possible way, don't faff about. 😄

This email tells you about the Do Crew. If you don't want any more promo about this but you do want to continue getting my weekly emails, click here and I won't email you about it again.

Hey 

Hands up if social media is doing your head in at the moment.

Thought so!

You're not alone AT ALL, but when I chat to people about rubbish reach and paying to play and the general drudgery of showing up on socials, one thing surprises me...

It hasn't occurred to people that they can just ... stop making quite so much of an effort with social media. 

I mean it. 

For years social media has been built up to mean marketing. And yes, it can work well as part of your marketing. 

But it isn't the only thing. 

And for many small businesses, it shouldn't take nearly as much time, effort, blood, sweat and tears as it does. 

That's what May is all about in the Do Crew: algo-proofing your marketing.

We're looking at:

• which channels actually work for your specific situation
• how to make your marketing work harder given your real time and real budget,
• figuring out how to put more energy into what actually works, and 
• sacking off the stuff that's draining you for no return. 

You know, like your email list, relationships, good old fashioned flyers. The stuff that keeps working even when Instagram is having an annoying moment.

If that's making you think 'yes, that is exactly what I need to sort out', come check it out for just £10 for your first month .

Worth it even if you just come for some tips to algo-proof your marketing this month. 

Reply if you have questions - you know I'll give you my honest answers!

👉 Doors close on Friday 

Karen

P.S. There's no minimum tie-in, and no awkwardness if you decide to leave, so the risk is pretty low. Make sure you sign up before Friday!

Hi 

We'll never survive unless we get a little crazy.

Heard Seal singing these lyrics on my run on Saturday and had 2 thoughts:

1. This isn't a running song really, and 

2. He has a point.

Because I spent a few days in Poole this week at a most unusual conference, and that lyric felt like my key takeaway from Creator Day distilled into nine words.

So let me tell you about what Creator Day wasn't, because that's actually the point.

Creator Day didn't have a single talk on AI. There wasn't the usual avalanche of tools, tactics and business cards. I was more likely to end up in a karaoke duet than in someone's funnel. I didn't come home with pages of notes or a list of 17 things to implement.

What I came home with from the seaside was something harder to name. A kind of recalibration and remembering.

The golden thread running through every aspect of the event was community. And not community as a strategy per se, but as a way of being. Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is a concept I grew up with in South Africa that roughly translates as "I am because we are". The belief that our humanity is interconnected and we thrive through collective compassion and shared purpose — that our humanity is bound up in each other's. It's woven into my DNA and in my work, and Creator Day was a reminder of why that matters.

On Friday morning, ubuntu looked like standing on a beach in Dorset at 7.30am repeating to myself "the sea is your happy place" as the freezing cold water stabbed me. 

I got in anyway, because I was doing it with others. There's something magical - super-gluey - about doing something like this with others. When we're being a bit brave and a bit vulnerable.

(Can you see me jump for joy in this pic by Anja Poehlmann?)

Moments like that in the water, and singing karaoke, and laughing and feeling along through the talks ... they stack up and they are what will stay with me most from these few days... a different kind of key takeaway from a conference.

The main thought for me is that we are very, very good at fitting in. At making ourselves palatable and acceptable. At smoothing off the weird edges and presenting the version of ourselves most likely to be accepted.

And the world is genuinely worse for it.

In business, this looks like safety. Safe content. Safe opinions. Safe offers. Watching what everyone else is doing and doing a version of that, slightly adjusted, just in case, to make it "ours".

But safe is not where the good ideas live.

The best ideas — the ones that actually move things, change things, connect people — come from looking inwards. They come from the weird connections, the unexpected combinations, the moments when someone says the slightly uncomfortable true thing and the magic when someone says "me too" or "yes and" or "why".

They come from people who are, to borrow a phrase from Seal, a little crazy. (Yes, I know this word is loaded, but let's go with this 1990s lyric here for a minute.)

The world right now — the actual state of it — needs that from us. It needs actually new thinking (not the same thinking with slightly nicer branding). It needs people who are willing to show up as themselves, risk being a bit much, say the thing, ask the question, make the weird offer, start the strange conversation.

That's not recklessness; it's courage with decent intentions.

And you don't have to do it alone. That's the whole point of ubuntu. That's the whole point of community. That's the whole point of being alive, actually.

So this week, I want to ask you something.

• Where are you playing it safe when you could afford to be a little crazy?
• What's the idea you keep almost having and then talking yourself out of?
• What would you do if being unlikeable wasn't a risk?

You don't have to answer me (though I'd love it if you did — just hit reply). But answer yourself. 

Because we'll never survive unless we get a little crazy...

Photos of the week

1. Great slide at Creator Day
2. Pulling to get to the stationery shop during National Stationery Week
3. Lots of cricketing at the moment
4. Barketing assistant tucked in for a cold night in May

Do Crew doors are open until Friday

On the subject of community and getting a little weird with your marketing — Do Crew doors close this Friday (we even have a manifes-DO so you know what you're letting yourself in for).

If you've been umming and ahhing, this is your nudge. It's a warm, no-nonsense group of small business owners tackling marketing together. 

We keep each other accountable, share what's actually working, and make marketing feel considerably less lonely.

Considerably less terrible, too, if I'm honest. 

Picky Bits

📸 How to use the new Instagram Instants feature (I don't have it yet - do you?)

🔎 12 ways to improve your search ranking (I rolled my eyes a bit when they called these easy tips and the first one is literally to build a 'well-designed, attractive website' ... not sure that's easy!?)

🤠 49 ways to have fun right now

Hope you have a great week, and think about how you can bring more YOU into all you do this week!

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from June

Power hours - next availability on 10 June

This email tells you about the Do Crew. If you don't want any more promo about this but you do want to continue getting my weekly emails, click here and I won't email you about it again.

Hey 

Happy Friday - we made it! 🎉

But before you shoot off for that well-deserved weekend, a quick question for you: how much of your marketing actually got done this week?

Be honest. I won't judge. 

The thing is, I've been doing this long enough to know that for most small business owners, marketing is the thing that gets bumped.

Monday it's a client deadline.

Tuesday something urgent.

Wednesday you're exhausted.

Thursday you meant to.

Friday you're reading this email.

Sound familiar?

I said I won't judge and I stand by that. Mostly. But you and I both know this isn't a one-off, and your business deserves better than the leftover scraps of your week 👀

The problem isn't you. Marketing has no deadline, so it gets pushed out the way by everything that does. 

Every. single. time. For almost everyone. Until something changes.

That something is usually structure. And company.

Which is exactly what the Do Crew is. Every week we get on Zoom, sit down together, and actually do the marketing. Not plan to do it. Actually do it

👉 Doors are open until next Friday 

Join us for £10 for your first month and make your Monday "Done-day" instead of "Didn't-(again)-day".

Reply if you have questions - you know I'll give you my honest answers!

Karen

P.S. This month our theme is 'algo-proof your marketing'. So if you're done with over relying on socials and want to do things in a new way, this could be a great time to dip in and see what it's all about. 

This email tells you more about the Do Crew. If you don't want to join this time round but still want to get my regular emails, just click here and that's what will happen.

These are all screenshots from real Do Crew coworking sessions. None of it's particularly pretty or ground breaking or glamorous, but that's the thing with consistency and progress, isn't it.

Like going to the gym: you want the amazing, strong, healthy body that's capable of achieving great things, but you only get there through turning up even when you don't want to, sweating and grunting (just me?) and keeping going even when nobody is cheering you on. 

It's how marketing progress looks most of the time too. (Of course it's funner with friends.)

In the Do Crew marketing progress looks like...

• Showing up to a Zoom call even when you have other priorities competing.
• Sitting with other people who are also trying to do the thing they've been avoiding all week (usually longer).
• Being ok with it not looking how the marketing gurus on the internet tells you marketing 'should' look.
• Finally sending the email/starting the reel/finishing the blog/updating that thing on your website that's somehow been wrong since 2025. You know the one. Oh and the bloody Google Business profile we all forget to keep up to date.
• Feeling chuffed and going again.

A lot of us have absorbed this idea that progress should look organised and intentional — maybe even a little photogenic. And when our real progress looks messier than that, we assume we're doing it wrong.

You're not doing it wrong.

You're doing it in the real world, where your kids get ill, the to-do list keeps somehow getting longer every time you look at it, and sometimes the win is simply: "I started the reel and didn't finish it... but now I'll actually finish it."

It counts. 

And if any of those screenshot messages at the top sound like something you'd type after an hour with us — come and find out for yourself. Your first month is just £10, with no minimum tie-in.

You can literally come and join the next 8 coworking sessions, pick my brains, access the 200+lessons in the members' area and the 120+ private podcast episodes, and even book a bargain 1:1 with me - and then leave again. 

But history tells me once you've felt the magic of messy marketing momentum you'll want to stay, like these people. 

Doors are open until Friday 22 May. If you’re tired of thinking about marketing and would quite like to actually finish some, you’ll fit right in.

Karen

PS If you scrolled right to the end, it means you're a busy person. The Do Crew is made for people like you because it's all about doing what you can in the time you have available. Join now for £10 for your first month (no tie-in).

This email tells you more about the Do Crew. If you don't want to join this time round but still want to get my regular emails, just click here and that's what will happen.

Hey 

Today was a Monday Done-day session in the Do Crew, and it was a perfect demonstration of why I created this membership. 

In about an hour, this is what got done:

• Three newsletters drafted and done
• A blog wrapped up literally as we were logging off
• Fifteen review request emails written, workshopped, and sent
• Ideas bounced around for turning podcast listeners into subscribers and clients
• Feedback on a press release 
• A chaotic to-do list turned into something that didn't make its owner want to lie face down on the carpet
• A decision someone had been stuck on for months sorted in about four minutes
• Subject lines fixed, a CTA tightened up, a lead magnet sense-checked
• And one member landed a new client landed off the back of being in the Do Crew community

Check out these absolute winners just getting on with it (so quickly, they're a blur 🙃!)

These sessions are not about adding to your list of shoulds or to-dos. We're not here to give you another pile of information to absorb while your tabs breed like soggy gremlins.

Just a focus hour, twice a week, with proper marketing support when you need it.

And the doors open today for you to come and join us. Try it for a month for just £10 and see if it's for you. 

Inside you’ll get:

✅ 2 weekly “get it done” coworking sessions
✅ Bite-sized training that cuts through the noise (including a private podcast)
✅ My 25+ years of marketing know-how on tap
✅ 50+ brilliant biz owners who actually get it
✅ Your first month for just £10 (no tie-in, cancel any time, no questions asked)

Read more about it on the brand new Do Crew website. 

It’s the kindest kick up the bum your marketing will ever get. And it works. Here's what Emma Shergold says:

👉 Join the Do Crew now for a tenner

Doors are open until Friday 22 May. If you’re tired of thinking about marketing and would quite like to actually finish some, you’ll fit right in.

Karen

PS If you scrolled right to the end, it means you're a busy person. The Do Crew is made for people like you because it's all about doing what you can in the time you have available. Join now for £10 for your first month (no tie-in).

Hi 

My coach set me homework and now I’m making it your problem 🙃

Here it is - please tell me:

If I gave you an hour of my time, what would you want from me?

Can you answer it please? 

Maybe you know immediately. Maybe there’s something you’ve been wishing I’d help with but never quite asked. Maybe you’re reading this thinking “huh? no idea”.

I promise all of those answers are useful (and I won't be offended - I'm highly committed to this data gathering phase).

And seeing as I don't like to take without giving, I thought I'd share a few questions you might want to ask yourself too while you're at it:

• What am I doing in my business that I’d happily pay someone else to deal with?
• Where am I spending loads of time for basically no return?
• What would I do more of if I trusted myself a bit more?
• What have I been avoiding for so long it’s become part of the furniture?

And if you ask your own people questions, ask things like:

• What made you decide to buy from me?
• What nearly stopped you?
• What do you wish I offered that I currently don’t?
• If you were recommending me to a friend, what would you actually say?

That last one often cuts through the polite answers. 

Anyway, please please please let me impress my coach - reply and tell me:

What would you want from that hour with me?

Photos of the week

1. Bank hol walk with the fam
2. Hugged this beaut
3. Goslings!
4. Gorgeous sunny walk with Stockport founders

Do Crew doors open this week

I'll be promoting the Do Crew the next couple of weeks. 

If the membership isn't your jam (at all or right now) and you don't want to hear about it, click here and you won't get emails from me about it! 

(Let's hope it works this time, as last time I made a whoopsie with it...)

BTW if you do decide to try it for a tenner for your first month, our current theme is 'algo-proof your marketing' - I feel like you might like it?

Picky Bits

💌 These are some great email marketing tips from Brevo.

🤖 AI slop is everywhere, so how can your content stand out? Humanness (did I tell you my guiding principle for Instagram this year is 'cringe and unhinged'?).

💖 I’ve been part of Lucy Werner’s paid newsletter membership since before it got completely wiped off Substack and it’s super impressive to watch her rebuild a year later by announcing a small business bundle with another newsletter. Get her Hype Yourself AND Revenue Rulebreaker for 50% off for two days only!

🌸 Spring clean/declutter vibes have well and truly hit at my house (my poor family). I've even reorganised my whole office this weekend. Here are 99+ things you can get rid of this week for less clutter. I made it into a checklist for me here (and you can save a copy for yourself).

Hope you have a great week - I'm excited to be heading to Dorset for Creator Day and a dip in the sea!

And a final beg, please reply and tell me: If I gave you an hour of my time, what would you want from me?

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from June

Power hours - next availability on 10 June

Hi 

A bit of a bonus midweek email from me, as I’ve had such interesting replies to Sunday's email (the whole "we're all spending hours on social media but it's rarely where the actual buyers come from" thing).

That same conversation comes up in lots of places at the moment, like in the Do Crew, the Spring into Marketing challenge I'm hosting this week and also in a podcast I was on recently, and that went live yesterday.

My conversation with Jessica Freeman on The Ordinary Business Podcast was about exactly that - why so much marketing time goes into social media, and why it so often doesn’t match where results actually come from.

We talked about where clients tend to come from instead, how to build something a bit more solid (so it’s not all resting on posts and algorithms), and what that can look like in practice.

There's also a bit on newsletters, ecosystems, and the idea that being consistent and human tends to matter more than trying to keep up with everything online.

So if Sunday’s email made you do a bit of an internal "hmm", I think you'll like it.

Now, a small favour. If 100 people download the episode, Jessica gives me a free ad on the podcast - which is a pretty nice win all round. 

So if you fancy a listen, I’d be very grateful! And if you enjoy it, feel free to share it with someone who might be stuck in that same loop!

Thanks so much, 

Karen

Hi 

I'm going to ask you something mildly annoying, so brace yourself.

When was the last time someone bought from you straight off social media? 

Not "we're connected on socials then they bought from me" vibes. I mean properly - they saw your post, had no prior attachment to you before and then money happened. 

Because here's the thing ... if you ask most small biz owners where their marketing time goes, it's social media. Obviously. Endlessly. Like feeding a very needy houseplant that never actually grows.

But if you ask where their actual buyers come from, it's suddenly very quiet, a bit awks. Because it's almost never social media, is it?

And that gap is interesting and kind of sad. Because that's h o u r s of thinking, writing, second guessing, third guessing, rewriting, scrapping it all, obsessing over fonts and colours in Canva, posting, checking refreshing... all poured into something that mostly just sits there. Looking pretty and occasionally getting a "love this!" from someone who was never going to buy anyway.

It's a bit like Betsy the Barketing Assistant's very serious perimeter check of the garden. Purposeful. Committed. Largely symbolic.

And yet, every morning: the check must be done. Sniff, patrol, absolutely nothing to repawt.

So why do we keep doing it?

Habit of course. It's muscle memory: open app, post thing, scroll scroll scroll, watch post like it might hatch into cash money if you stare at it closely enough. 

And of course, everyone else is there. It's a bit like standing in a long queue just assuming it must be for something good. 

And here's the bit you might not love to hear my say. It's because the alternative requires actual thought. Like actually thinking about why you're doing the marketing, and why you're doing it in a particular way, and what you're going to measure... no thanks, I'd rather post a carousel with 3 top tips and hope for the best. 

But what I'm thinking about a lot (and what we're getting into inside the Do Crew this month) is what would your marketing look like if the algorithm and your feed and all the stories just vanished overnight? 

Would anything still be standing? 

Because if your immediate thought is "oh, that would be a bit of a disaster actually", that’s useful. Uncomfortable, yes. But useful. And the answer to that is very much not "post harder".

The businesses I see doing marketing well aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest followings or the most (or the most polished) content. They're also not tied to their phones or obsessing about algorithm updates. 

They’ve just built something sturdier. Probably something with fewer moving parts, but each one actually doing a job. An ecosystem that doesn't collapse the moment an algorithm has one of its little moments or an account gets hacked.

Setting this up usually comes down to a few very unglamorous questions. 

• What do you actually own and control in your marketing?
• How are new people really finding you?
• What’s keeping them interested once they’ve found you, before they wander off and buy from someone else who emailed them at the right moment?
• And when they are ready — have you made it easy, or have you accidentally built a small administrative obstacle course?

If any of those made you do that subtle internal wince - that’s the bit worth looking at.

I'd love to hear - if you're brave enough to share - which question made you the most uncomfortable? Reply and tell me!

Photos of the week

1. Fire, wine, dog - perfect
2. Our boys and their endless sporting fixtures meant I spent a lot of this week driving, supporting from the sidelines and taking in the beautiful Spring scenes (while wearing my big coat still).

Spring into Marketing - FREE challenge

Quick reminder that Spring into Marketing kicks off on Tuesday — and if you haven't signed up yet, there's still time.

It's a free three-day challenge to help you get your marketing off the back burner and actually moving before summer arrives. 

Each morning you'll get a simple task with three options depending on how much time you've got. Each afternoon there's a free hour on Zoom where we get it done together — me on hand to help, and a room full of other small business owners doing exactly the same thing.

If your marketing has been meaning to happen since February, this is the nudge. Come and join us — it's free and you can sign up by clicking this link here.

Picky Bits

📚 My clever pal Anja built Book Chain - a book exchange site where you sign up, choose whether you want to send and receive fiction or non-fiction, and register a book you’re ready to pass on. 

The site matches you with someone else, you post your book with a note, and get a completely unknown one back. 

All free! Just pay postage.

📖 On the topic of books, I've just finished The Names by Florence Knapp. Have you read it? I gave it 4/5 on Goodreads. Liked it even though it was hard going in places. 

💻 Check out Admin Corner by Do Crew member Emma Shergold. It is now open to join and it is perfect for you if you're drowning in the admin side of your business, you feel disorganised behind the scenes, and you need a regular nudge to get things done.     

😊 Did I tell you I built a separate site for the Do Crew? I did! And I wrote us a ManifesDO.

😂 65 silly little jokes because why not

Hope you have a great week, and if you're in the UK that you'll enjoy the Bank Holiday! 

Also, go out and vote in your local elections on Thursday. Be a person who participates in things, and bring your dog! 

And listen, if you plan to vote for Reform, I support your right to be wrong, but please unsubscribe from my list here.

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from June

Power hours - next availability on 12 May, and then again in June

Hi 

CoNsiStEnCy. 

The word that follows small business owners around like Betsy follows me after I opened the snack cupboard 🐾 

You're not consistent enough on Instagram.
You need to be consistent with your content.
Consistent with your messaging.
Consistent with your posting schedule. 

Consistent, consistent, consistent 🫠 

And every time you hear it, you feel that familiar little stab of guilt, right? Because you're not consistent, are you? At least not by the standards the marketing world seems to expect.

But please, let me take you by the virtual shoulders, look deep in your eyes and tell you something real:

Those standards are not for you.

That advice around what consistency should look like is for brands with content teams, scheduling tools, and apparently absolutely nothing but consistency on their to-do-list. 

That advice is not for someone who is also the accountant, the sales team, the customer service department, and the person who remembered to put the bins out.

So what does consistency actually mean for a small business?

It means showing up regularly enough that people don't forget you exist.

That's it. There's no magic number. No universal posting frequency. No rule that says Tuesday is better than Thursday or that three times a week is the threshold between success and failure.

The most consistent thing you can do is find a rhythm that works for your actual life — and then protect it.

You may have heard me talk about 'minimum viable marketing' before? That is the game changer for businesses like ours: choosing what you can get done even in your busiest/worst periods, and committing to that. 

For some people that's a weekly newsletter. For others it's a monthly email and a flurry of social posts when inspiration strikes. For others it's showing up every day for three weeks and then going quiet for a bit. That's fine too, as long as it's roughly working.

And then what to do when I fall off the wagon?

You will. We all do. The secret isn't not falling — it's not turning a missed week into a missed month because you feel too guilty to pick things back up.

Just come back. You don't need a big announcement or a grovelling apology or an "I've been so busy!" explanation that nobody asked for (unless you want to share).

Mainly just show up. Your people will be pleased to see you.

Spring is a good time to reset a rhythm that's gone a bit wobbly over winter. The energy is there, the days are longer, we all feel a bit smilier I think. Use it.

And if having a bit of community around you helps you stay consistent — people who are doing the same thing, cheering each other on, and keeping each other moving — pop your name down here. It might be just the thing for you. 👀

What does consistency look like for you right now — and what would you like it to look like? Hit reply and tell me.

Photos of the week

1. Spring sunshine
2. Love where we live
3. Really love where we live (resisted these but aren't they gorgeous?)
4. Played padel, discovered a marketing example. They could've said something safe but forgettable like 'please recycle used balls here'. Instead, they went for a specific high-impact stat that brought to life a real reason to care and take action.

Picky Bits

📩 How to increase your email open rate

🎨 How (and why) to connect your Canva and LinkedIn 

📸 Insta is rolling out a new feature that's basically a Snapchat/BeReal hybrid

☕ Learned something fascinating about flat white economics this week  (another reason to support our independent cafes!)

Spring into Marketing - FREE challenge

Quick reminder that Spring into Marketing kicks off on Tuesday 5 May — and if you haven't signed up yet, there's still time.

It's a free three-day challenge to help you get your marketing off the back burner and actually moving before summer arrives. 

Each morning you'll get a simple task with three options depending on how much time you've got. Each afternoon there's a free hour on Zoom where we get it done together — me on hand to help, and a room full of other small business owners doing exactly the same thing.

If your marketing has been meaning to happen since February, this is the nudge. Come and join us — it's free and you can sign up by clicking this link here.

Thank you so much to each person who replied to last week's email. It has been a fascinating exercise and I'll write more about it soon.

Hope you have a great week!

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from June

Power hours - next availability on 6 and 12 May, and then again in June

Hi 

May is nearly here, summer is coming, and if your marketing is still sitting on that same to-do list it's been on since February — you're absolutely not alone. Let's sort it together.

On Tuesday 5, Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7 May I'm running Spring into Marketing — a 3-day challenge for small business owners who are ready to get their marketing off the back burner and actually out into the world.

It's free and you're invited.

Here's how it works.

📩 Each morning you'll get an email from me with a simple, practical marketing task. You'll have three options depending on how much time you've got that day — from five minutes to an hour. You pick what works for you.

🎬 Then at 1pm each day there's a free Action Hour on Zoom where you can come and do the task with a room full of other small business owners in exactly the same boat. I'll be there to answer questions, help you get unstuck, and make the whole thing feel considerably less lonely than doing it on your own.

It's three days, the tasks are simple, and you'll leave each session having actually done something.

So if you've been meaning to sort your marketing since January, and you're fed up of getting to Friday and once again carrying over your marketing tasks to next week's to-do list, this is your moment.

Just click this button and you're in!

See you on the 5th.

Karen x

P.S. If you've been thinking about joining the Do Crew, this is a brilliant way to get a feel for what it's like before doors open in May. But that's a conversation for another day. For now — just come and get some marketing done.

Hi 

Apparently, your entire brand fits inside three brain cells.

That's it. According to Professor Mark Ritson (a marketing genius, possibly the sweariest one out there), when your ideal buyer thinks of you, that's all the space you get.

Humbling, isn't it?

We pour so much time and energy into our marketing — the words, the fonts, the strategy — and meanwhile, our audience has filed us neatly under three words and moved on with their day.

But here's why I find this liberating rather than deflating: if you know what those three words are, you have your north star. 

Every piece of content, every offer, every email (hi!) either reinforces those three brain cells or it doesn't.

So I want to know mine.

Here's the deal: you reply and tell me the three words you associate with me and Goodness Marketing, right now, without overthinking it? Just hit reply.

And if you like, I'll return the favour: a you tell me mine, I'll tell you yours vibe. 

I'm asking you because the people on this list are exactly the kind of curious, switched-on business owners who find this stuff genuinely interesting. And because you know me better than most  — you've been reading these emails, you know my vibe. Your three words will mean something.

It takes about 4 seconds. Literally just hit reply and type 3 words. You don't even need a full sentence.

And if you fancy running this experiment with your own audience, please do. Here's a line you can pinch:

"My marketing mentor Karen suggested I ask: what three words would you use to describe me and my business? Just hit reply — I'd love to know."

Go on then. What are my three words? 

Photos of the week

1. Spring ducklings
2. Spring blooms
3. Reached the age where I need collagen face cream. Can someone tell the people who package these creams that their target demographic are unlikely to be able to read teeny tiny white font on a peach background? We need to take pictures on our phone and then zoom in to be able to read it...
4. My midlife camera roll: various plants that need to be Google Lensed.

Picky Bits

✏️ Sell stationery? I'm running a free 45-minute webinar tomorrow night (Monday 20 April) at 7:30pm to help you get your National Stationery Week marketing sorted. You'll leave with a simple, focused plan you can actually use - built during the session, not added to the to-do list for later. Register here (for live attendance and/or a recording).

🤖 Brilliant Do Crew-er Samantha Tulloch is hosting a free in-person (London E9) workshop for creatives and solopreneurs on Thursday about practical, ethical ways to use AI in your creative work. Check it out. 

🌞 99 positive morning affirmations for every day

If you're new to these emails, a big warm welcome to you. And if you've been here a while, thanks - I appreciate you! 

Now reply and tell me those 3 words please. Although of course you're free to refuse!

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from June

Power hours - next availability from 5 May

Hi 

You know that feeling when your newsletter is due and your mind is completely, stubbornly, unhelpfully blank?

Not a flicker of inspiration. Not even a half-baked idea you could ask AI to help with.

Just... nothing.

Easter has a lot to answer for, honestly. A week of switching off/entertaining kids/eating all the treats and my brain has apparently decided it's now on permanent holiday. 

(Betsy, at least, is fully refreshed and ready to go. She never has this problem.)

Here's the thing though. I've been writing these Sunday letters for many years. And I can tell you with complete confidence that "I have nothing to say" is almost never actually true.

What's true is that we're looking in the wrong places.

So here's where I always start when I'm stuck.

Look at what's already happened this week.

Usually the small things, not the big, blog-worthy stuff. The client conversation that made you think. The thing you read that annoyed you. The question someone asked that you've answered a hundred times but never actually written down.

That's your email right there.

Use the observation → insight → takeaway structure.

Start with something real — something you noticed or experienced. Connect it to your audience's world. Then give them something useful to do with it. It doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler the better. (This email is a perfect example, actually.)

Lower the bar. Like, dramatically.

Most email paralysis comes from the pressure we put on ourselves to be interesting, original, and insightful every single week. But your readers aren't sitting there with a scorecard. They just want to hear from you. A short, honest, useful email will always be better than the brilliant one that never gets sent.

So if you're staring at a blank screen this week — pick one small thing that happened. Tell me about it. Tell your list about it.

It's enough.

And if you'd love a bit of company and accountability on the days when "enough" feels really hard to find, that's exactly what the Do Crew is for. More on that soon. 👀

Reply and tell me: what's one tiny thing that happened this week that you haven't written about yet?

Photos of the week

1. Lambs

2. Easter bunny pancake

3. Spring scenes

4. Eccentric dog

Picky Bits

🧠 Register your interest here if you are considering a private ADHD assessment (and want your money to support the NHS). 

✏️ Sell stationery? I'm running a free 45-minute webinar on Monday 20 April at 7:30pm to help you get your National Stationery Week marketing sorted. You'll leave with a simple, focused plan you can actually use - built during the session, not added to the to-do list for later. Register here (for live attendance and/or a recording).

❤️ How to be a sensitive person in the world right now.

🐼 Flirting pandas.

If you're new to these emails, a big warm welcome to you. And if you've been here a while, thanks - I appreciate you! 

Reply and tell me what's going on for you with your marketing at the moment. I love getting your emails!

Karen

PS. Work with me!

1:1 marketing support (coaching + strategy) - available from May

Power hours - next availability from 5 May