You're not lazy. You're not unmotivated. You're probably doing a lot — maybe more than you should be.

You're posting on Instagram when you can. You've been meaning to get back to your Facebook page. You started a LinkedIn presence earlier this year. You have a newsletter you send out... occasionally. You've thought about doing a webinar. You have a blog with three posts from 2022 that you keep meaning to add to. You're trying to maintain your referral relationships, follow up with past inquiries, and stay on top of trends in college admissions — while also, you know, actually doing the work with your current clients.

Here's what I want to say about all of that: doing ten marketing things at 50% capacity is not a marketing strategy. It's a recipe for burnout and slow growth (if any).

Some of my most stuck clients aren't doing nothing. They're doing everything — just none of it consistently enough or well enough to actually build momentum. And the solution isn't to try harder. It's to do less, on purpose.

Why Spreading Thin Doesn't Work

When you're showing up inconsistently across multiple platforms and channels, a few things happen.

• Nothing gets a fair chance. Marketing takes time to compound. A social media account with sporadic posting never gains real traction. A newsletter sent once a quarter doesn't build the kind of relationship that converts. An email list you haven't touched in six months is essentially starting from zero every time you send something. None of these things have a chance to work if they don't get consistent, sustained attention.
• You don't get good at anything. Every marketing channel has its own learning curve. Instagram rewards people who understand how the platform works — how the algorithm distributes content, what kinds of hooks perform, what posting frequency builds reach. You learn those things by doing them consistently over time. If you're dabbling in four platforms, you never develop real proficiency in any of them.
• Consistency becomes impossible. Consistency is the single most important ingredient in effective marketing. It's what builds trust. It's what keeps you top of mind. It's what creates the compounding effect where one post leads to a follower, who eventually becomes a client. Consistency is incredibly hard to maintain when you're trying to show up in six places at once. It becomes a lot more manageable when you're focused on one or two.
• Everything feels like a chore. When marketing feels overwhelming, you're less likely to do it — and more likely to do it badly when you do. Narrowing your focus doesn't just make your marketing more effective. It makes it more sustainable, which means you'll actually stick with it.

The IEC Paradox: Brilliant at Many Things, Spread Thin Because of It

Here's something I've noticed about the IECs I work with: they are, without exception, intellectually curious, driven, and genuinely good at learning new things. You have to be to do this work well — the admissions landscape is constantly changing, the skill set is broad, and staying on top of it requires real dedication.

But that same quality — the love of learning, the willingness to try new things — can work against you in marketing. Because there are always new platforms, new tactics, new tools, new experts telling you about the thing you absolutely need to be doing right now. And if you're naturally inclined to dive in and try things, you end up with a very long list of marketing activities you're doing halfway.

The discipline that marketing requires isn't doing more. It's choosing less and committing to it.

How to Figure Out What to Focus On

If you're currently spread thin and want to narrow your focus, here's how I'd think through it.

• Ask yourself where your ideal clients are actually spending time. For most IECs, the parents you want to reach are on Instagram. That's where I recommend starting for almost everyone. It has the right demographic, the right algorithm for organic reach right now, and the most surface area for building both authority and personal connection. If you're going to pick one platform, make it Instagram.
• Ask yourself what you're most likely to actually do consistently. The best marketing channel is the one you'll actually show up on. If you genuinely hate being on camera and the thought of making Reels fills you with dread, it's worth working through that resistance — but it's also worth acknowledging that consistency requires some level of sustainability. Start where you can show up.
• Ask yourself what's worked even a little. Is there a channel or type of content where you've gotten even a small response? Someone who reached out after a post, a spike in website traffic after a particular newsletter, a webinar that generated a few conversations? That's signal. Follow it.
• Pick one to three things and commit to a 30-day sprint. I work with my clients on this regularly. Instead of trying to build everything at once, we pick the one to three marketing activities that are most likely to move the needle right now — usually Instagram, an email newsletter, and one community or referral relationship to deepen — and we commit to doing those things consistently for 30 days. Not perfectly. Consistently. At the end of 30 days, we assess, adjust, and go again.

What This Actually Looks Like in Practice

I have a group of clients right now who made a collective commitment: post on Instagram every single day for 30 days. That's it. That's the focus. Not Instagram plus a newsletter plus a new webinar plus a complete website overhaul. Just Instagram, every day, for 30 days.

They're holding each other accountable. They're learning things — what hooks work, what topics their audience responds to, how to batch content so it doesn't take over their week. And they're getting results. Followers are growing. Families are reaching out. A few have already converted to clients.

That's what focus does. It takes something that felt vague and overwhelming and makes it concrete and actionable. And when you're doing one thing well instead of ten things poorly, you actually start to see the results that make you want to keep going.

A Note on the Long Game

Narrowing your focus doesn't mean you'll only ever do one or two marketing things forever. It means you master something, build momentum, and then expand from a place of strength rather than chaos.

Once your Instagram is working — once you have a content rhythm, a growing audience, and a clear sense of what resonates — you can layer in a newsletter. Once the newsletter is running consistently and you're seeing it open and convert, you can think about a webinar. You build the marketing ecosystem piece by piece, and each piece supports the others.

That's a very different experience from trying to build the whole ecosystem at once and feeling like nothing is working.

You Don't Have to Build Your IEC Business Alone

You're an expert in college admissions. But building a profitable IEC practice requires marketing strategy, sales systems, and structure — and that's a completely different skill set.

If you're serious about growing your business and getting clients consistently, the fastest path forward is following a proven system instead of guessing your way through it. You don't need another certification. You need better systems. And you can build this faster than you think.

Growth Generator is my six-month group coaching program built specifically for IECs. Inside, you'll get:

• A self-paced course with 70+ lessons, resources, and templates
• Weekly group coaching calls with me, mastermind-style
• Daily access to me and my team so nothing slows your momentum between calls
• A guaranteed return on your investment — if you don't see ROI in our six months together, I'll keep working with you until you do

If any part of this resonated, the next step is simple: watch a free video overview of how Growth Generator works and see if it's the right fit for where you are right now.

Watch the free video overview here.