I had a meeting with a potential client on the calendar for this morning. So I did what I always do before a first client meeting: showered, swapped the workout pants for a real sweater, and put on actual makeup. First impressions matter. Repeat clients get the real me—sweatshirt, likely unshowered, definitely no makeup. But new prospects? They get the polished version.
Ready for my meeting, I sat back down at my desk and immediately got a notification: meeting rescheduled to next week.
A month ago, I would have sighed, immediately changed back into my sweats, and moved on to other client work. Maybe scrolled LinkedIn for ten minutes and convinced myself that counted as marketing. But today I did something different. I’ve recently started creating Instagram reels for my new “goodworkbyamy” channel, so I decided to make the most of my lipsticked face and do some filming. Content I can actually use. A little batch, banked for later. Then I wrote a LinkedIn post and the words you’re reading now. All in the time I would otherwise have been on zoom.
It felt like a win. A small one, but a real one.
Here’s the thing about marketing as a freelancer: for many of us, it gets treated as the thing we do after the “real” work is done. After the deadline. After the proposal. After the invoices. Which means it almost never actually gets done—or it gets done in a panic, when the pipeline is thin and the stakes feel high.
What I’m working on is making my marketing a regular habit instead of an afterthought. Showing up for it the same way I show up for a client meeting, and using unexpected bouts of downtime more productively.
Progress isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just: the meeting fell through, and instead of giving up on the day, you made something anyway.
In Good Work!, I talk about the difference between working in your business and working on your business. Client work is the in-your-business stuff that gets you paid. Marketing, content, outreach—that’s the on-your-business work, and it’s just as important, even when it doesn’t feel urgent. Today I had an unexpected hour and I used it. That’s progress.