Why is marketing so hard in 2026 (and what to do about it)

Small Business

Jun 2

I almost didn’t post the video.

I had tried to post it when I was taxiing to take off to Paris for a friends wedding but the shitty signal on the tarmac means the video errored out. The whole weekend I was too busy eating croissants, drinking champagne and enjoying the magic of Paris to think about my content.

It wasn’t until I was back on the plane to head home that I looked at my account. I noticed the error on the video and watched it one more time. it wasn’t my favorite and maybe leaned a bit more inflammatory than I’d like. I almost didn’t repost it, but I did.

By the time I landed 8 hours later, the video had hundreds of thousands of views, already putting it in the running for my top 10 videos of all time. Within a couple days, it had hit over a million and ultimately topped out at 5.2M. Even multiple years later, I would still occasionally get comments on that video.

This might sound like a breakthrough moment. I was running a coaching business (which I shut down in 2025) and TikTok was my primary platform for finding new clients. So 5.2M people should be the dream for a business owner trying to find more potential clients.

But here’s what actually happened. Thousands of comments, hundreds of inquiries, hours spent going back and forth in DMs with prospective clients. The actual revenue generated (not in terms of Creator Rewards for views, that’s different, I’m referring to clients who purchased something directly from my business)?

$300.

I can’t tell you how many times I’d heard “views don’t automatically mean revenue” but this was a very painful wakeup call and the moment where that lesson fully set in for me. And it’s changed the way I think about marketing my second business completely.

This is an incredibly painful lesson to learn but it’s only part of what makes marketing feel hard in 2026. As I'm building my second business and watching this current wave of AI tools and "do more, faster" messaging, I’m noticing more and more distractions and pressure that are making it harder for hard-working, dedicated coaches, creatives and consultants to grow the way they want. Unfortunately for service-based business owners, I think this is directing a lot of people toward burnout if they aren't careful.

So I wanted to spend today getting into why marketing has always been hard, what's making it harder in 2026, and what's worth your focus if you want to come out the other side of this year with a thriving business.

Prefer to watch? Here's the video!

How to market your business in 2026

The problem usually isn't needing more visibility

When service-based business owners aren't getting the clients or revenue they want, the instinct is almost always the same: I need more visibility. More leads. More marketing.

So they pick a tactic. Usually three at once (something for social, maybe some networking, maybe ads) and try to run all of them in parallel hoping something sticks.

But here's what's going on in most of these situations. It's not just that they need to get in front of more people. It's that the business itself isn't clear on its ideal customer. The path from "just found you" to "paid you" isn't mapped out. And they aren't sure what a potential client needs to hear to go from interested to signing on.

A lot of businesses aren't ready for the level of visibility they're chasing. Not because the owner isn't excited to serve more clients, but because the fundamentals aren't set up to convert what comes in.

If you had a bakery but were working with an Easy Bake Oven, and someone placed an order for 1,000 cupcakes, you couldn't fulfill it. The order isn't the problem. Being set up to handle what comes in is. The same logic applies here. If a visitor hits your website and can't immediately tell whether your business is for them, you have work to do. If they can't find where to book a call, you have work to do. If you're getting on discovery calls and not closing at solid rates (at least 50%), that's a signal something upstream isn't working.

This was me with the viral video. I’d convinced myself that if I just got in front of more people, I’d close more business. But when it actually happened, I hadn’t done the groundwork to convert them and as a result, the biggest visibility moment of my career slipped by without converting to real dollars.

There's a subtler reason this matters too. When your fundamentals aren't locked in, creating content feels harder than it should. Subconsciously, you already know the leads might not convert, so the motivation to keep showing up isn't there. Getting the foundations right isn't just about conversion rates. It makes the marketing itself easier to sustain. (I can tell you personally, after that viral video not only didn’t convert but brought in a ton of the wrong type of attention to my page, it made sitting down to film feel 5x harder than it had before.)

On top of that, marketing takes time and patience. That has always been true and has always been hard to sit with. It's like working out at the gym when you're not yet seeing results, or waiting for a cake to rise. You can't rush it. The patience that marketing requires is something most business owners underestimate, especially in the early stages of building an audience.

Why 2026 is making all of this harder

The things that made marketing hard before haven't gone away. In fact, the opposite - marketing itself hasn’t changed. There’s just more of the same problems that have existed for a while.

The pressure to do more has gotten louder. More platforms, more automation, more people who have figured out the somewhat pyramid scheme of selling other business owners on how to grow their social media presence or how to make more money. All of these voices are competing for space in an already overwhelmed brain, and rather than filtering down to ten things to consider, you're now filtering thousands.

That pressure makes it harder to be patient while you wait for marketing to work. Because alongside "give it time," there are more people than ever selling overnight results or supposed shortcuts. When you're in the thick of running your business and not yet seeing traction, it's hard not to be pulled toward them.

The visibility-doesn't-equal-revenue lesson is also easier to forget right now. There are more tools selling the ability to automate your entire sales process. More people explaining how they make passive income without ever getting on sales calls. More success stories that lead with the follower count and the views, without showing the conversion infrastructure that made it all work.

Service-based business owners had a natural buffer from some of this before. When your business requires you to be on the call with the client, or in the chair at your hair salon, you knew exactly how much time you had left for marketing. You were realistic about your bandwidth. But in 2026, with everything AI and automation promises to unlock, it's harder to resist the idea that maybe you could do it all. Some of the things we used to filter out are now just as tempting for us as for anyone.

The broader democratization of business tools has made it feel like any tactic is available at any stage. Technically you could run ads in your first year of business. But if zero out of a thousand people who hit your landing page convert, that's not a visibility problem. It's a readiness problem. The systems that marketing needs to work don't get built by throwing more volume at the top of the funnel before those systems exist.

What to focus on to grow your business in 2026

If you're struggling with low visibility, not sure if your business is set up to handle more, and overwhelmed trying to figure out what to do next, we recommend focusing on a maximum of one to two platforms for the next 90 days, chosen because they fit your personality long term (not because they’re trendy).

Making a decision and committing to it is harder than it sounds, but it's the only way that you’ll get enough reps in to see marketing results. It is hard to decide on something and risk being wrong. But not making a decision is also a decision, and it tends to cost more. If you try to do three things at once, do none of them well, see no results on any of them, burn yourself out, and spend money on help to support each one. You are far worse off than if you had taken the risk of committing to one platform and giving it a real chance.

I'm living this right now in building Exhale. I feel the pull to be on TikTok. It worked well for me in my last business. But I committed to direct networking and YouTube as my two marketing platforms, and I'm doing my best to say no to other distractions and give these approaches long enough to work. I'm sitting with the fear that I might have picked wrong. And I'm sticking with it anyway, because I know that half-effort spread across five channels gets me nowhere faster.

Choosing your platform based on your actual situation (not on what's trending or what a guru recommends) matters just as much as committing. If you need revenue coming in the door now, be honest: most marketing tactics won't deliver that fast enough. Marketing is a long game. What drives immediate revenue is a sales approach: direct networking, cold outreach, finding ways to expand work with existing clients. Marketing builds the pipeline. Sales fills it now.

And when you are picking your long-term marketing approach, pick something you can sustain. The thing that fits your personality, your schedule, and the kind of content or connection you can show up for consistently. Not the thing that sounds most exciting in a strategy session. That's what gets done.

The other thing to focus on is dialing in your systems. With the clients you have now, discuss what information they needed to make the purchase. Test new sales copy. Refine your testimonial and referral process. Start tracking key analytics. While you’re not overwhelmed with inquiries, make sure your ready for when the marketing does start working. (If you need guidance on how to do this, let’s chat!)

A reminder to coaches, creatives, consultants and service providers in 2026

Marketing has always been hard. The environment in 2026 is making the hard parts harder. Not because marketing itself has fundamentally changed, but because the job of deciding on a path and sticking with it has gotten harder with more noise, more distraction, and more people telling us the golden fairy tale version of what business growth looks like.

If you're building a service business this year, the basics still apply: get your foundations right before chasing visibility, commit to one or two channels long enough to see results, and use direct sales tactics when you need revenue now rather than waiting on content marketing to pay off. The business owners who come out of this year in good shape will be the ones who resisted the noise long enough to build something solid.

Frequently asked questions

Why is marketing so hard for service-based business owners?

Marketing is hard for service-based business owners because it requires patience before it produces results, and most businesses aren't starting from a fully optimized foundation. Two problems tend to compound each other: the business may not be ready to convert the visibility it's chasing (unclear ideal client, weak website, low close rates on sales calls), and marketing is slow to show results even when everything is set up correctly. In 2026, both challenges are harder to sit with because of constant noise around shortcuts, AI-driven growth tactics, and success stories that skip over the difficult middle.

How do I know if my business is ready for more visibility?

Your business is ready for more visibility when a visitor to your website can immediately tell if you're the right fit for them, find out how to work with you, and take a clear next step, without having to work for it. A practical signal: if you're getting on discovery calls but not closing at least 50% of them, the issue is likely upstream of visibility. More leads won't fix a conversion problem. Audit your website, your intake process, and your sales conversation before putting significant effort into growing your reach.

How do I choose the right marketing platform for my service business?

Choose your marketing platform based on two things: what you need right now, and what you can sustain long enough to see results. If you need immediate revenue, direct outreach and networking will deliver faster than content marketing. For long-term growth, pick the platform that fits how you communicate and that you can show up for consistently, not the platform that's currently trending or that someone else swears by. Consistency over time matters more than which platform you choose.

Should service-based business owners be on multiple social media platforms?

Most service-based businesses are better off committing fully to one or two platforms than spreading thin across several. The risk of multi-platform marketing isn't just time. It's that you do none of them well enough to see results, burn out, and conclude that marketing doesn't work when what didn't work was the divided effort. Pick the platform that fits your audience and your communication style, commit to it for at least 90 days, and give it a real chance before adding anything else.

How long does it take for content marketing to start working?

Content marketing typically takes six to twelve months of consistent effort before producing reliable results for service-based businesses. The timeline depends on how consistently you're publishing, how well your content speaks to your specific audience, and whether your conversion infrastructure is ready to capture the interest you generate. This is why patience is one of the hardest parts of marketing: you're investing time and effort well before you see the return. Committing to a realistic timeline upfront, rather than evaluating results after a few weeks, makes consistency much easier to hold.