Hey there! It’s Friday in the summer, and work may be taking a backseat to a longer weekend. It may also be leading to a slower pipeline.

— Ann Gynn

🟩 ATTRACT → 🟧 CONVERT → ⬜ RETAIN → ⬛ AMPLIFY

My leads have gone quiet since Memorial Day. Calls aren't getting returned, and proposals are just sitting there. I can't tell if everyone's on vacation or if I've actually lost momentum. Should I be worried? 

Worry? No. Work on marketing? Yes.

Summer can be a lot like December, only hotter. More people take time off from work, and if multiple stakeholders are involved in hiring you, finding a time when everyone’s available becomes much harder. Plus, many companies give employees Friday afternoons off between Memorial Day and Labor Day, so even less work gets done.

I find my work takes a dip in the summer and an upturn about a week or two before Labor Day.

But before you accept that’s the way things are, look back at your records. Have you seen a similar decline in business during the summer in the past couple of years? Or is this a new pattern? That helps in understanding, but your response will be the same: Dive even more into marketing.

While you continue executing, also use the time to set up systems and processes that you’ve been putting off.

If you’ve never documented your marketing strategy, do that first. Here’s a seven-step strategy to help you do that. (Want some help? I’m hosting a webinar on July 14 to walk through the steps.)

Got your strategy written? It’s time to put it on the calendar. Here’s a monthly marketing calendar template (and a how-to-use-it explainer on the second worksheet). Just make a copy and start working. You can modify it to fit your business and expand it into a quarterly or even annual calendar.

If you have a strategy and a calendar, my recommendation is to take some time to assess your metrics. What’s working? What isn’t? What topics and calls to action resonate better than others? Listen to what your customers are telling you and respond by updating your strategy and calendar.

Use this slower stretch while you have it. Fall will be busy enough without playing catch-up. 

Got a question you’d like me to answer in a future edition of The Hotline? Call or text Marketing By One Hotline: +1.440.661.3984.

This week: What's one thing on your marketing to-do list you never seem to have time for? Do that.

I learned to ask ChatGPT and Claude to help me craft better prompts (how meta is that?!). As the chat got longer, the AI would forget what it had shared earlier and even suggested I start a new one. So I did — but before opening it, I asked AI in the existing chat to write a handoff prompt so we could pick up where we left off.

I've also started doing this proactively. Before I pause a project that will resume next week, I ask AI for a prompt I can copy and paste when I'm ready to start again.

Have any AI tricks of your own? Hit reply, call, or text the Marketing By One Hotline: +1.440.661.3984.

Join me on July 14 for an exclusive MBO subscriber workshop. In 60 minutes, we’ll walk through the seven steps to create a marketing strategy you’ll actually use. Register today! Can’t attend live? That’s OK. Recording will be sent to all who sign up.

🧲 Opposites attract: Behavioral science often rewards doing the opposite of what seems intuitive. Nancy Harhut reveals eight techniques that produce surprising results in this Content Marketing Institute article. (One of my recent faves!)

🤝 Get together: LinkedIn’s rolling out collaborative posts. You can invite other LinkedIn members to co-create in-stream posts, extending your reach to their audiences.

✍️ Own it: I’m back writing the articles featuring this year’s Content Marketing World presenters. I always enjoy getting so many expert opinions in one piece. Here’s the first one about why owned content still matters.

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Got a question you’d like me to answer in The Hotline? Email me or DM me on LinkedIn. Even better: Text or leave a message on the Marketing By One Hotline: +1.440.661.3984.