I’ll bet most of you reading this work pretty hard at marketing yourself. It may seem like you are always going, going, going. But I find that for many self-employed professionals and creatives, there’s a point where you stop — a sticking place that seems to trip you up, or you never seem to be able to get past.

The Follow-Up Freeze

For my client Sally, it was following up with prospective clients. Sally always seemed to have an overflowing pipeline of possible clients and referral sources. She had plenty of people to connect with about her business, to see if they’d like to explore becoming clients or discuss whether they would consider referring their contacts to her. But she never seemed to be able to reach out to those folks.

Often Sally’s excuse was that she didn’t have the time to write emails or place calls. She was busy serving her current clients… and doing even more marketing to fill her pipeline. Other times Sally set aside time for follow-up activities, but when it came down to writing a note or sending a text, she started to feel as if she would be bugging people. After all, they knew about her. If they needed her, they would get in touch, right?

Fear of Asking

Fritz, one of my students, had a different stopping place. He was very methodical about his follow-up and frequently landed several sales conversations with prospective clients each month. But Fritz choked when it was time to ask for the business. He just couldn’t seem to say to a potential client, “Are you ready to get started?” or “Should I draw up a contract?” He was so afraid they would say no, he never gave them a chance to say yes.

Instead, Fritz often hung up the phone or walked out of the room without knowing whether the prospective client wanted to do business with him or not. Sometimes these folks would get back to him on their own and eventually become clients, but he lost many projects to competitors just because he didn’t finalize the deal when he had the chance.

Common Stopping Places

What do you notice about your own marketing? Is there a place where you often stop? Consider these possible stopping places I’ve noticed in my clients:

• Sending another email when the first one got no response
• Having to walk up to a stranger at an event and say hello
• Making contact with a lead someone has given you
• Publishing a blog or social media post you’ve written
• When someone challenges your background or qualifications
• Introducing yourself in front of a group of people
• Talking about your business capabilities — in a conversation, in an email, or on your website

If you discover you have a stopping place like this, what can you do? First, recognize the power of simply noticing. Much of the time, we try to kid ourselves about blocks like these, pretending we are just too busy for these activities, or that tactics like sending follow-up emails or attending networking events really don’t matter. Once you become aware you are actively avoiding certain activities, it’s much harder to ignore the significance of what you are doing.

Moving Past Your Stopping Place

Armed with your new awareness of how you may be getting in your own way, here are six ways to start working through your stopping places.

1. Create outside accountability with a friend, group of colleagues, or a business coach. When you make a commitment to someone else that you will take certain steps, you’re much more likely to take them.
2. Talk to other self-employed pros to normalize your experience. It can be tremendously helpful just to hear someone say “that scares me, too,” or even better, “I used to get nervous about that until I…”
3. Practice working through your stopping place with a partner. Rehearse what to say when you meet people, describe your business, respond to a challenging questions, or place a marketing call.
4. Explore safe environments for learning new skills. Groups like Toastmasters or Speaking Circles can help you learn to talk about your business more confidently. Classes on networking, selling, and powerful communication provide structures and a supportive audience for raising your comfort level.
5. Let go of having to do it all perfectly. Much of our resistance to doing unfamiliar things can be because we fear we won’t do them well enough. But getting better requires actual practice. Try to find the “good enough” place, where perhaps your email or blog post won’t be perfect, but it will do for now. Know you will get better as you go along.
6. Ask for help from people you already know. Emails and calls become easier when a mutual friend makes an introduction. Positive feedback about your writing or your qualifications will increase your confidence.

Take a few quiet moments to think about what may be holding you back in your marketing. Once you can identify the place where you stop, you may have found the key to really get started.

This post was first published in 2016 and has been updated for 2026.