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Episode 270 – What If Making Money Just Got to Be Easy
If you’ve ever looked at your to-do list, seen five different marketing channels on it, and still felt behind, this one’s for you. There’s a quiet belief a lot of us carry without realizing it: if I’m not doing everything, I haven’t earned the right to the results. So we stay busy. We post, we pitch, we guest, we network, we optimize for whatever the algorithm wants this week. And somewhere in the middle of all that motion, we stop asking the one question that actually matters: is any of this working?
In this episode, I walk through what it looks like to separate income producing activity from busy work, where my own leads actually come from, and why the answer might surprise you. This isn’t about doing less because you’re burned out. It’s about trusting that you may have already found what works, and giving yourself permission to let the rest go.
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Resources:
- Cash Flow Calculator (free): https://aimeecerka.com/cashflow
- Kylie Kelly’s Podcast Episode – Email Growth Without Instagram Ads
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/aimeecerka
- The Unstoppable Experience: https://aimeecerka.com/unstoppable
- Podcast Links: https://aimeecerka.com/podcastlinks
The Small Business Marketing Strategy That Starts With Doing Less, Not More
If your marketing to-do list has more items on it than hours in your week, you already know the feeling: reels, podcast guesting, lead magnet swaps, summit hosting, emails, networking events, all at once. And somewhere in the middle of doing all of it, a quieter question tends to get buried. Is any of this actually working?
For a lot of small business owners, busyness has quietly become a stand-in for a real small business marketing strategy. If you’re doing enough things, you get to feel like you’ve earned the results, whether or not the results are actually showing up. That’s not a strategy. It’s a self-worth story wearing a marketing plan’s clothes.
The Belief Hiding Inside the Busyness
Underneath the franticness is usually one belief: if I’m not working hard, I haven’t done enough. That belief makes it hard to relax into the one or two channels that actually work, because trusting something that’s already working can feel too simple to count. But hard work was never supposed to mean all-the-time work. It means showing up and working hard when you’re working, and then actually unplugging.
What a Real Small Business Marketing Strategy Requires
A strategy, as opposed to busywork, starts with one question: where are your leads actually coming from? Not where you’re spending the most time, where the leads are actually originating. That means looking at how many leads came in over the last 30 days, and what the real source was for each one.
Social media is a common blind spot here. It’s easy to spend the bulk of your marketing time there and assume it’s generating leads, simply because it’s visible and constant. But for a lot of businesses, social media performs better as a nurture tool, the thing that helps people know, like, and trust you, than as a direct lead source. That doesn’t mean drop it. It means get honest about what job it’s actually doing in your funnel.
Finding Your Core One or Two Channels
Most businesses have a small handful of channels that are actually doing the heavy lifting, often built on verbal or long-form connection: podcast guesting, YouTube, collaborations, SEO content. Referrals matter too, but they can’t be controlled directly, so they’re rarely enough on their own.
The instinct when a new platform launches is to feel pressure to be there, because that’s where the new eyeballs supposedly are. But not every channel is a fit for your business or your energy, and it’s worth trusting that instinct when a platform is a clear no for you.
Once you know your core channels, something shifts: you get permission to let the rest go. Not because you’re lowering the bar, but because you’ve made the distinction between income producing activity and busy work that exists to keep you from sitting with discomfort.
Key Takeaways
- Busyness often functions as reassurance, not strategy
- The belief “it has to be hard to count” is worth questioning directly
- Look at your actual lead source data over the last 30 days, not your gut feeling about what’s working
- Social media can be a strong nurture tool even when it isn’t your primary lead source
- Diversify across a couple of core channels, not every channel available
- Trust is part of the strategy: once you know what works, you’re allowed to let the rest go
A Simple Way to See Your Own Patterns
If this is landing for you, lead source clarity is only one of 16 patterns that show up in the Cash Flow Calculator, a free assessment tool built from 14 years of client work. It takes about four to five minutes, no numbers required, and shows you the highest-leverage pattern to focus on first in your own business.
Below is the full transcript of the episode, where I walk through this in more depth.
If you’re doing all the things — Instagram, you’re posting reels, you’re on Substack, podcast guesting, lead magnet swaps, summit hosting, maybe you’re hosting your own events, you’re sending emails, local networking events — all of it, right? Like all at once. You’re doing all the things.
Can I ask you something? What’s actually working? Do you know? Is it actually working or does it just feel like it’s working because you’re busy? This is the thing that we kind of gotta call out, right? We can use busyness as reassurance. If I’m doing all the things, I get to say I’m doing something.
It means I’m enough, I’ve done it, I’ve done it all, and really underneath it, it’s acquired a belief. Slow down, pick the thing, and again, we’re gonna talk about what to pick, right? It isn’t about earning it. It’s not that it has to be hard or it’s never ending for it to count.
What if it just got to be easy? What if you already knew what works and you’re just allowed to do that? And that was it. We don’t have to continue to do all the things. I’ll tell you exactly where my leads come from, and it might not be what you guess, but because of this process, I don’t have to be frantic anymore trying to be everywhere at once.
This Is Money Simplified
This is Money Simplified, the podcast where I help female entrepreneurs go from stress and struggle to unstoppable with money. Money is more than just budgeting and P&Ls, and we’re gonna take you through all of it. Here, we blend proven financial strategy with mindset work and energetic alignment, so you can create unstoppable finances, build an unstoppable business, and truly enjoy your unstoppable life.
It’s time to take my wisdom and my expertise to help you simplify money and go beyond the numbers. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here.
Is Your Lead Generation Actually Working?
All right. Welcome back. We are talking today about leads. And we all need leads in our business, right? So this is a question I have for you. Is what you’re doing to generate leads working? Have you actually looked at it, or does it just feel like it’s working because you’re in action? You’re creating activity. You’re busy, right?
So when we’re sitting here in this mindset of “I’ve gotta get this to work, and we’re gonna go do all the things,” and it’s so very frantic — we’re gonna go post on social media, guest on a podcast, pitch this, do that. We’re not really doing reels anymore, it’s more the talking head reels. Maybe you’ve got YouTube. Maybe you’re trying SEO, or AI optimization, whatever the acronym is this week — we’re optimizing so all the AI bots can find us. But it’s like a franticness. I’ve gotta do all of this, okay? And it makes total sense, because if you’re doing all the things, you can say that you’re busy, you’re doing all the things.
The Self-Worth Story Running Your Marketing Plan
And if you’re doing all the things, that means that you’ve done enough to earn the revenue, to earn the clients. That’s not a strategy. It’s not a marketing plan. It’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. This is a worth, self-worth story that’s running the marketing plan and we don’t even realize it.
Because the belief underneath all of that is it’s gotta be hard.
All right, so if this is kinda like, “Oh, this is landing. I hadn’t thought about it this way. I’m realizing that I’m doing this,” your lead source clarity — I gotta have a better phrase for that — is only one of the 16 patterns that we look at inside a free tool I built called the Cashflow Calculator. It goes through and evaluates which one of these patterns needs to shift to unlock your cashflow.
Maybe it’s lead source clarity, maybe it’s something else. But we’re gonna take a look at this so that you can know which one of these things needs to move first for you to be able to unlock that cashflow, recurring cashflow like you’re looking for. All right, https://aimeecerka.com/cashflow. That link is also in the show notes for you.
Now back to the episode.
If I’m Not Working Hard, I Haven’t Done Enough
If I’m not working hard, I haven’t done enough — that relaxing into the one or two things that work, and you’re probably good at them, too. It’s like it’ll be okay, because there’s trust in there, right? If we’re doing all the things, again, we’re staying frantically busy.
We don’t have to sit back and trust that the thing we’re doing that we actually see is working is gonna work. We also have the societal conditioning in there — we’ve gotta work hard for things. We all do work hard. But it doesn’t have to be this burn yourself at the stake, burnout, 80-hour weeks. It doesn’t even really have to be 40-hour weeks. Hard work doesn’t mean all the time work. It means we show up and we work hard when we’re working. And then I hope you’re unplugging, and you’re still being a human outside of the business. You’re a human being. Go be.
What If It Got to Be Easy?
So what if it did get to be easy? What if it got to be simple? I think easy is the right word, because especially when you find the things that work for you, it is kind of easy. There are moments where I’m pushing, exercising a muscle — it’s not always easy. But I also know you gotta know what works. So if you’re doing all the things, which ones are actually generating leads? Where are your leads coming from? Your website? Podcast guesting, summit guesting? Networking events? Referrals — which are great, but you can’t control referrals, so I’d have at least another one. Most of us have a couple different channels, and that’s good — diversification, not relying on just one thing.
The social media is one that comes to mind, because a lot of times people are spending a lot of time on social media to generate leads, but when we look at the data, they’re not getting leads from social media. Now, with the caveat — it can be a great nurture tool. So even if you’re not getting leads from social media, it might be part of your strategy in the next part of the funnel, so they can know, like, and trust you. So it’s not “don’t do social media.” It’s where are your leads coming from? How many leads came in in the last 30 days? What’s the source? What lead magnet did they grab? How did they find you?
Where Aimee’s Leads Actually Come From
So for my example here, I know when people hear me speak — and this is typically verbally speaking for the initial connection for them to truly become a lead. They normally need to hear me verbally speak, whether that’s podcast, YouTube, guest speaking. I really don’t have a ton that come from social media. I did the mini viral thing once, not really much. So I do see that more of a nurture tool. We talked about visibility last episode — it’s a muscle, and I’m stretching that muscle right now. I’m rebuilding that visibility muscle. But it’s not necessarily my main lead source.
Most of my leads, I do a lot of collaborations. I’ve got the podcast, I’ve got YouTube, do a lot of SEO — so collaborations, and SEO related content with the podcast, website SEO, blog, all of those things. Those are my bread and butter. But I’m stretching the muscle here with the reel and the talking head stuff. But if I don’t post on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram Stories, I’m not really beating myself up about it, because it’s not the main thing.
If you’re doing collaborations, it’s fun and almost required to set up UTM codes so you know where your people are coming from. Substack came out, and I put pressure on myself at first, because that’s the new platform and we can all be discovered right now. And it was like, this is a no for me. I know it’s a no for me. Like your body knows — I can feel it in my shoulder. It’s like a knot. It’s like, no. I just know that’s a no.
Permission to Let the Rest Go
So once you know what’s working — one of my coaches and friends, Kylie Kelly, she has a great visibility structure. She just did a podcast episode recently on this, I’ll link to it, to help you decide on your two channels if you’re going to do this without social media, or maybe social media is one of your channels. She breaks it down short-term and long-term.
But when you’ve got your core things, you’ve got permission to let the rest go. It’s like, oh my goodness, I can mark everything that has to be done this week off my to-do list and feel good about it. Sure, we can come up with more things, but do you? Sit with that. Let it land. What if you have done enough? Could you trust in that?
Because when we make the clarification between the income producing activity that we need to do and the busy work that we want to do to not feel uncomfortable, there’s a peace in that. You can just settle into it. You can enjoy it.
The Cash Flow Calculator: 16 Patterns to Unlock Your Cashflow
All right, so today was just one pattern that we go through inside my cash flow calculator. It’s a free tool that I built, an assessment style calculator. You don’t need any of your numbers. It’s gonna take four, maybe five minutes. There are 16 different patterns that I’ve uncovered over 14 years from working with clients — if you shift these 16 things, and I know 16 sounds like a lot, but you don’t need to do all of them.
The cash flow calculator is gonna show you exactly what to focus on first — what’s the highest needle moving lever in your business. Maybe that was the lead source clarity, and if so, you’ve got this. You’re doing great. Let me know where most of your leads are coming from — I can’t wait to hear it, @AimeeCerka on Instagram. But maybe it’s something else, and if it’s something else, let’s get that pattern shifted, so that you can move forward. Because when you figure this out, the people that are out there waiting on you to do what you’re called to do to change their lives — that’s the ripple effect.
So cash flow calculator, https://aimeecerka.com/cashflow, and that link is in the show notes for you. That’s it for now. Remember, you’ve got this, and I’ve got you. We’ll see you next time.
Thank You for Listening
Thank you so much for listening to Money Simplified. My favorite place to hang out is on Instagram. You can find me @AimeeCerka to catch all the behind the scenes in my stories. Send me a message to share your biggest takeaway, or just to say hi. I love hearing from podcast listeners. When you’re ready to take action on your mindset, your money, or the systems behind it all, I’m here for you.
Whether you’re snagging a free resource, exploring a mini course, diving into the fundamentals with Money Mastery Academy, getting in-depth support inside the Unstoppable Experience, or scheduling a complimentary bookkeeping consult to finally get hands-on help with your books, your next step is waiting for you.
If this one resonated, here’s where else to go from here.
- 269: Money Is Avoiding You Because You’re Hiding
- 76: Increasing Revenue As A Business Owner
- 122: Needle Movers and Joyful Hustle: Finding Strategic Focus in Your Business
- 157: Getting Your Business Summer Ready!
- 79: Being Efficient With Your Money
