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PAUSE.

Envision yourself near a waterfall, far away from your desk or extra bedroom turned into a home office.

There are no children banging on your door right now. Instead, you can hear a voice whispering to you through the gentle breeze as wind chimes greet you in the distance…

“You are not alone.” 

Ok, maybe you are. I don’t really know your work situation. Maybe you’re a founder/entrepreneur/marketer doing anything and everything to single-handedly grow your brand.

Or mayyybe you’re a 1-(wo)man marketing band running everything from PR to internal comms for a > $100 million a year business.

Here’s what I do know, though.

You shouldn’t be alone.

Too often, you feel isolated on an island with no help. Overwhelmed with tasks that are outside of their purview, struggling to ship the work you are actually supposed to do, and using the latest tools to mask the areas where you don’t have the ability (ChatGPT please write me a plan to fix my career).

Here’s the good news: there is another way.

Modern marketers have cracked the code of getting highly talented and reasonably affordable help to build the brands we’re tasked with growing. Here’s how:

1 Strategy: Build Task Forces

David’s onto something.

The idea of always hiring full-time help is long gone when it comes to digital content creators and marketers. You can’t afford it and they don’t want it.

Instead, you can now build an entire marketing department around yourself, your budget, and your skills as a leader.

Once you’ve identified what your zone of genius is, you can build a team that fills your gaps and compliments your strengths. Think of it less like a marketing team and more like how hollywood hires writers and actors for specific projects.

1 Example: NO BORING DESIGN

No Boring Design isn’t exactly what I was describing in the first section, but it is another example of how you can append your team in non-traditional ways. Services like No Boring, Design Joy, or Design Pickle are ways you can add design talent without hiring a full-time asset.

1 Idea: Practical Steps to Execute

I had coffee this week with an entrepreneur who is going through this exact journey at the moment. Here’s the advice I gave her that I think will help you:

1. Map Your Zone of Genius: Are you a writer? Ideas person? Designer? What do you do that nobody else should do on your team?

2. What are your pillar content concepts? Write down at least 3.

3. How do you capture those concepts on an ongoing, episodic basis? Choose a method: Podcast, Video series, Webinar, Long-form article, etc.

4. Block time on your calendar to create “The thing” e.g. whatever method you chose in step 4.

5. Create a Google form that you upload “The thing” to once complete that will automatically send the asset to the rest of your team who complete the non-Zone of Genius tasks.

6. Publish.

7. Rinse and Repeat.

You are critical to your company, and nobody can replace the work you do.

But that doesn’t mean you need to do everything.

Use these steps to set yourself up for success and to create some freedom so you can focus on what you do best. LMK how it goes!

Any ideas you have that I missed when thinking of building a super team? LMK!