When it comes to marketing be prepared to be in it for the long haul.

There’s a lot of talk of quick wins and just focusing on short-term gains but in truth, it takes a lot of small steps to get you to your bigger final goal.

Building a brand takes time, finding your tone of voice takes time, finding the right audience and catching their attention and keeping it takes time. Sorry, but it really does.

If said you'll have an opportunity to present to 180+ of your main target audience, for an hour at a webinar that's then available on-demand post-event; you'd bite my arm off.

Late last year, I did just this but with the length of my to do list and propensity to move onto the next thing, I didn't quite appreciate the scale of what I'd achieved:

It took me 6 months of taking small little, at times seemingly inconsequential steps to get to my end goal.
I raised my visibility across the sector by speaking, by presenting, by releasing my own podcast, by writing and being active on social media and by networking too.
I practiced speaking elsewhere – I did quite a few lives on Instagram so that I got used to the sound of my own voice (this took a while) and being able to speak on camera. I also did a lot of interviews for my podcast which again helped to build my confidence.
I connected with key people at the target organisation and then started actual conversations through direct messages which began on social media and then moved onto virtual meetings.
It wasn’t just about me – I listened to what they wanted to achieve and how I could be helpful and support their key initiatives. That’s so important.

I kept going even at the start when I had a no from them - I didn't take it to heart. I had to take a sec to brush up my bruised ego off the floor then continue with what it is that I wanted to do and focus on my long-term goal.

Saying all of the above out loud made me realised what I achieved. in my head it was just another thing ticked off from my ever increasingly long to-do list for work and for home.

But actually, it was a major milestone.