Overcoming Marketing Fears: A mindset guide for women entrepreneurs in 2025
Tools and affirmations for women entrepreneurs to counter common limiting beliefs around marketing.
We use the beginning of the year as an opportunity for reflection and setting goals for the things we want to change or improve in the year ahead. Whether you’re prone to set more lofty resolutions or to deep dive into strategic planning, it’s a chance to take a fresh look at how to be more intentional.
As women entrepreneurs, we’re actively creating and innovating – putting things out into the world that didn’t exist before. Our day-to-day activities — particularly our marketing activities — are meant to elevate our work but can trigger limiting beliefs and fears designed to keep us playing safe. It’s natural, but to keep ourselves moving and expanding, we need to acknowledge it (some say, befriend it), normalize it, and take small steps forward.
We compiled a few of the most common limiting beliefs and fears we hear from women entrepreneurs and business owners. If you ever find yourself thinking one of these, know that it’s completely normal – and we’re here to provide tools to shift your mindset so you can keep moving forward!
“I know I should be more proactive, but marketing feels uncomfortable”
First, the word “marketing” alone often feels uncomfortable for many of us. It carries a negative association with sales, making it feel inauthentic. If it triggers you, let’s start by switching the language you use. Instead of “marketing your business,” let’s switch the frame to communicating and promoting the services you provide.
Second, when we’re in a place that feels uncomfortable, one important way to move through it is to ground into the core beliefs and values of your work. It’s from this place we can shift out of an egoic mindset and into an understanding that our work is bigger than us (or the conversations in our heads).
Tools for shifting marketing discomfort
Ground in your core beliefs
Capturing your “why” and core beliefs or values is a key part of the brand development process because it’s central to your unique value proposition. As business owners, these beliefs and values are often the foundation behind why we launch our practices and how we do our work. Also, when we lead with values and core beliefs – whether it’s in our emails, newsletters, blogs, social, etc. – we connect more powerfully and authentically with our audience.
So, when you’re feeling stuck, try:
Listing five core beliefs or values you have around your work
And then brainstorming content ideas or stories that align under each of these beliefs
You don’t need to know how it’ll take space, or the channels you’ll use, but moving into this space can help us get unstuck and back into idea generation.
Affirmation to shift marketing discomfort
“My work reaches [your audience] where and when they need to hear it.”
“I don’t want to get lost in the noise. I could do marketing, but I won’t make a difference or a dent.”
There are a lot of “shoulds” that come with entrepreneurship. We’re told that if we want to be successful, we need to do X, Y, and Z. But if X and Z are new and uncomfortable for you, you’re likely resisting it – and perhaps feeling bad about resisting it.
Social media is often one of those things we’re told we “need” to do. It can be a great tool for building awareness among new audiences – especially if you’re playing the algorithm game by posting consistently – but the world of opportunities to promote your work is bigger than social media.
Instead, one of the most important first steps is to get clear on your audience, and where they spend their time. Once you’ve done this research, you can be more narrowly focused on the strategies and channels we use to reach them, saving you precious time and resources.
Tools for managing marketing overwhelm
Reconnect with your audience — and where they’re spending their time
Take the opportunity to connect with your audience to better understand their needs and pain points, which may have evolved or shifted over time. This process can help you generate powerful insights and gain clarity around:
How you talk about your work
The products and services you offer
The channels you use for marketing
Whether you launch new products or offerings to fill a need
Once you know where people are spending their time, you can be hyper-focused on the activities and channels you use to reach your desired audiences.
Not sure where to start? Check out our guide to conducting audience research.
Affirmation to manage marketing overwhelm
“I give myself permission to take small steps, knowing that each one moves me forward.”
“I’m doing all of this stuff, and I’m not seeing an impact.”
This is a great time to reflect on all of the things we do to promote our work. I would challenge you to look back at the previous year and not see what you haven’t done, but to really celebrate and honor all that you have done.
We’re constantly trying new things, improving strategies, meeting and engaging new people – it’s exciting and it’s a lot of work. And we don’t often take the time we need to reflect and celebrate what we’ve done to push ourselves.
One of the biggest challenges most organizations – of all sizes – run up against is trying new things (rightfully so) but without clarity around how it aligns with your goals and the audiences you serve. I call this the “shiny red ball syndrome”. Different marketing tactics serve different needs and goals.
Tools for create better alignment between activities and goals
Marketing funnel reflection
Doing strategic marketing planning is one of the best ways to holistically plan and ensure your activities align with our goal for the year.
But if you’re looking for a quick reflection, check in with yourself by doing this simple exercise. Group your marketing activities into the following buckets:
Building brand awareness
Generating interest
Building consideration
Generating traffic to your website
Engaging with qualified leads
Where we can sometimes get off track is if our activities all align under, say, brand awareness. If we’re not doing anything to move people further down the funnel, we may be missing opportunities to engage them in becoming clients.
