Beating the feast or famine cycle in your business is key to growth and sustainability. What is the feast or famine cycle?

Author David Finkel explains that it is especially common in service-based business (but I've also seen it happen in product-based businesses). Picture this: You acquire a new job or client and your top focus shifts to completing that job.  In the meantime, your sales, marketing, bookkeeping, IT projects, and nurture content become neglected. Your sustainable workflow is seriously interrupted.

Can you relate?

This happened often to me, especially in the first 5 years of my business. I eventually learned how to find a balance and how to apply certain strategies to keep the workflow steady and consistent.

Related post: Should I Have a Blog? Reasons Why Blogs are Important

Because at the end of the day, we all want consistent income.

In this episode, I'm sharing with you the strategies I used to gain clarity, security, and stability to beat the feast or famine cycle in my business.

Little Gems of Wisdom

• [05:18] The security and consistent income keeps people hanging on to an employer and can make the leap to business ownership intimidating.
• [07:02] Tip #1: Create work that works for you by researching: competitors, your ideal audience, the market, and keywords.
• [08:45] Do competitor research by asking these questions: Who are your competitors? Who is your audience? What are they looking for? Where are they looking for it?
• [11:40] Market research includes using search engines including Google, YouTube, Pinterest, Creative Market…anything with a search bar!
• [13:30] Once you know where your customers are looking for answers, do keyword research and SEO optimization to help your content become more discoverable.
• [17:20] Tip #2: Keep up with your marketing. Good marketing should never stop—even when you're busy.
• [19:53] Marketing relies on consistency and it feeds algorithms across platforms.
• [21:22] Informative useful content is prioritized in search results. Good quality blogs are highly searchable content.
• [23:10] Create strategy and do your content work in batches especially during the slower seasons.
• [32:50] Tip #3: Develop a passive income stream with licensing, e-commerce, or online courses.

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Links mentioned

• SEO Crash Course
• FREE Pinterest Keyword Research Guide
• Brand Plus Brand is my course about licensing
• Places to sell and license your artwork: Creative Market, Society 6
• Escaping the Feast or Famine Cycle: How to Get Your Service Business Past this Recurring Plateau and on the Path to Truly Scale by David Finkel on inc.com

Related Episodes

Episode 4: Instagram Algorithm Got You Down?
Episode 36: An Overview of Email Marketing
Episode 13: A Chat with My Licensing Agent Julie Turkel
Episode 27: The Designer/Agent Relationship and How it Works with Julie Turkel
Episode 6: Secrets to Recurring Revenue as an Artist