Ep. 380 A demand rhythm for consistent leads in less time

If your pipeline swings between feast and famine, it’s rarely because you’re “bad at marketing” — it’s because you don’t have a demand rhythm. In this episode, Anna breaks down a simple weekly block that creates consistent demand without living on the content hamster wheel.

Timestamped key moments

[01:04] The four-hour workday workshop – A practical invite for building a commercially strong business in limited hours.
[02:31] The 3 pillars: design, demand, delivery – Why demand becomes non-negotiable when time is tight.
[03:44] What a demand rhythm is – A recurring weekly block that creates consistent desire and demand for your work.
[04:31] The three buckets – Visibility, authority and momentum mapped to how people move from awareness to decision.
[06:43] Momentum moves – The minimum viable actions that turn interest into decisions (follow-ups, invites, proposals).
[08:27] Authority amplifiers – Fast trust-builders that cut through noise (talks, workshops, case studies, credibility cues).
[10:14] Visibility vectors – A strategic tapestry of touchpoints, not daily noise or an automated funnel.
[12:23] Put it in your calendar – Protect demand time like a client session and choose the right block for your energy.
[13:56] Build for the season you’re in – Minimum viable rhythm in heavy life/delivery weeks; ramp up in growth seasons.
[15:02] Traps to avoid – Visibility without momentum, “I’ll do demand later”, and mistaking metrics for progress.

Key resources

• Join the Four-Hour Workday live workshop (includes replay): onestepoutside.com/fourhourday

• Outside the 9 to 5 (Anna’s book)

Demand rhythm

In this episode, we’re talking about building your demand rhythm.

It’s the simplest way to create consistent demand for your work without living on the constant content hamster wheel. Especially important if you’re building your business inside a four-hour workday.

Welcome to Reimagining Success, the podcast that helps you build a profitable business as an independent expert, one that works for you and your lifestyle. I’m your host, Anna Lundberg, former corporate insider turned business mentor, executive coach and mum of two. Whether you’re a solopreneur, a coach, speaker, consultant, I’m here to guide you in creating a business that gives you freedom, flexibility and the fulfilment you’re looking for. Ready to redefine success and build a business that you love? Let’s get started.

Okay, so one of the biggest reasons solopreneurs get stuck in that feast or famine rollercoaster is not marketing, it’s actually the absence of a rhythm.

But actually, before we start, a quick invite. I’m running a live workshop on Thursday 12th of February on the four-hour workday. So if you’re trying to run a commercially strong business inside limited time, that may be school hours or just client delivery or real life, then this is where we make that super practical. We’ll cover what to prioritise, what to stop doing, and what needs to be repeatable so that the business keeps moving even when you’re busy. You’ll get the live session and of course you’ll get the replay as well. Details are at onestepoutside.com forward slash four hour day. That’s onestepoutside.com forward slash four and it’s the number four hour day.

But back to today’s episode and here’s the problem I see.

So a lot of experienced solopreneurs aren’t struggling because they’re not good. And in fact, beginner solopreneurs too, right? They’re struggling because demand is inconsistent and it’s that age-old issue of having a great month and then suddenly nothing or vice versa, right? You can have no leads and then suddenly you’ve got 10 projects on the go or you have 10 amazing conversations and then they all fizzle out.

And the default response, and as ever, I have been there, my friend, is to panic post, add on lots of new tactics that you’re trying or just disappear. I mean, in the early days, it probably looks like leaning back and even panic applying to jobs, which doesn’t happen anymore, thank goodness. But certainly that’s the sort of underlying fear maybe. Oh gosh, do I need to get a proper job? To be honest, I don’t know if I could get a proper job. So that’s not even a safe option for me anymore.

And so inside my solopreneur operating system that I’ve talked about the last few months, demand is one of the three pillars, okay? So we’ve got design, demand and delivery. And again, if you’re working limited hours, and this becomes really non-negotiable, because you simply don’t have the spare time to kind of hope marketing works.

Marketing, actually, and I come from a marketing background as a bit of a little sidebar, is notorious for involving a lot of wasted money, because it’s kind of throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. And unfortunately, that may work for a massive company like where I used to work that has lots of budget, and you’re happy with kind of just seeding out the message and then hoping the right people get it and knowing that the numbers are big enough. It certainly works if you’ve got hundreds of thousands of followers. It doesn’t work if you’ve got a smaller following like my type of expert business, smaller number of hours working, and of course, smaller budget, smaller team, etc, etc.

Okay. So that’s why it’s so important. We can’t just kind of hope. We need to be doing those things that look, we can never guarantee that a particular action gets the result. But what we can do is take the actions that are more likely to give us the result we want.

So what is this demand rhythm? Well, it’s a term I’ve coined to describe a recurring weekly block of focus time that creates consistent desire, very nice, and demand for your work. So it’s simple, strategic sales, authority and visibility activity. So you can think of this kind of the engine room of your solopreneur business. It’s not being reactive, it’s not kind of scattershot spaghetti again, but really intentional demand building activity in rhythm with your actual life.

So if you only have four good hours a day, you know, you cannot afford to spend them all on delivery. You can’t afford to spend them all on admin. You can’t afford to spend them all on tweaking a LinkedIn post or your website for the 15th time. And you definitely can’t then act surprised when the pipeline dries up because let’s face it, that’s inevitable if that’s what you’re doing.

So look, what does this include, this demand rhythm? Well, there are three buckets. And this is, I suppose, loosely anchored in the traditional marketing funnel. But essentially, if we just break it down to everyday language, someone needs to find out that you exist. They need to start to believe that you can actually help them solve their problem, that you have something that they want, and then they need to actually make a decision.

Okay, I talk in my book Outside the 9 to 5 about inspiring content, which is sort of the high level: this is my mission, this is maybe a glimpse into my lifestyle, this is what’s possible, maybe in my case for the four-hour workday and flexibility and freedom around kids and health and travel and so on, right? So that’s sort of the top of the funnel traditionally.

Middle of the funnel is really trust building, it’s when people start considering your work. I used to call this instruct, and I’m a bit reluctant to call it that because it’s not just about teaching, it’s really about interacting — engaging, having conversations, helping them to get to know you better. So it might be joining a workshop that you’re speaking at, listening to a long podcast, hello there, listening to my podcast, and that’s really building that trust and authority.

And then sort of bottom of the funnel is the bit that I find most people are missing, because it’s the bit that feels harder and it’s the maybe lack of skills, lack of confidence we have there, is actually doing the things that are going to turn that general interest into decisions.

So actually, I’m going to turn the phone upside down. I’m going to start with the momentum, because really, I’d say if you have a really limited amount of time — and let’s say my first morning block, I’ve got a week full of delivery, or I’m not super energetic this week, I’ve got a sick child at home, whatever — I cannot just spend all day doing stuff. So this is the bare minimum of what you need to do.

This is what I call momentum moves that are activities that will again, turn that interest into decisions. So bare minimum, you need to be doing follow ups, right? People you’ve had conversation with, people maybe have ghosted you, they said yes, but then they disappeared. Don’t let them do that.

And it might be warm outreach invites, asking for referrals, reactivating past clients, obviously replying. I always say if someone is asking to give you their money, then please say yes. If someone is booking a call, asking about a programme, saying, hey, I want to work with you, obviously you want to have really quick turnaround. Of course, still within reasonable hours, don’t kill yourself. Of course, that’s not the point, but replying to messages, emails, turning that initial engagement into conversation.

And then, of course, booking calls, following up after calls, sending proposals, chasing proposals, and in fact, even also chasing invoices potentially, right?

So momentum is often the missing link. A lot of us are visible. And this is where the whole LinkedIn thing is so ridiculous that we might have thousands of followers, lots of impressions, and maybe we don’t even have those impressions. And that’s not translating into sales, because there is no follow up rhythm.

So if I’m posting and people are voting in my poll, and they’re saying, Oh, my gosh, it’s exactly the experience I’m having. And this resonates so much. And so obviously, the next step is to then connect with them. It’s not hey, buy my thing, but it’s start the conversation, it’s follow up and so on. And that’s the bit that maybe feels a bit icky. But without that, we’re just kind of posting and ourselves ghosting. And that used to be okay, a decade or so ago when I started, it’s not enough now. That’s where we need the sales rhythm. And again, those bare minimum momentum moves that you need to have in your demand rhythm.

The second set of activities is the authority amplifiers, right? The things that build trust fast. Now, this isn’t just something you can do in like a five minute block, but it’s things like pitching yourself to guests on a podcast, to run a free workshop, a webinar for a community, a membership, online or offline, in fact, a kind of collaboration, running your own workshop or talk, even sharing case studies.

So rather than just posting random stuff on LinkedIn, really sharing a before and after story, of course, with their permission or anonymised, client set of results, outcomes they’ve got from working with you.

And also behind the scenes credibility content: showing I shared recently I was on a BBC radio interview. Maybe nobody listened to the interview, but just sharing the fact that I’ve been on the BBC and a photo of me talking at this workshop and another organisation obviously promoting my activities — all that stuff is behind the scenes kind of credibility content on how I work and look that I’m out there doing stuff.

And in a noisy market, authority really does a lot of heavy lifting. And that’s, of course, where we can stand out. I’m not going to let this get into the whole AI conversation today. But if we’re just getting compared to other commodified experts who are writing general stuff, anyone can sound pretty good these days. So how are you going to turn the dial and really turn up that authority, the trust?

And for me, a lot of it now is in person, or of course you can do things like — and that comes back to the momentum moves — but send voice notes, maybe, or a little video, anything that really shows that it’s you and not just some automated rubbish that’s getting pumped out.

So that’s authority. So momentum moves, authority amplifiers.

And then finally, the visibility vector. So as I said, I’ve gone backwards. I’ve gone from bottom of the funnel, middle of the funnel to top of the funnel. And this is how you are seen with the right people.

And I’ve called this kind of a tapestry of touch points before, because it is no longer a linear funnel. It’s not like someone sees you and they go step two, step three, step four. That’s why all these automated funnels aren’t working so well anymore.

But it’s, oh, I’ve seen her here, and then, oh, I’ve seen her there, and all this resonated, and I’m liking that, and I’m commenting there, and it’s sort of filling in the gaps, I suppose.

I think Daniel Priestley says people need to have seen you seven hours, for example, so that’s quite a bit, you know, reading posts, seeing short videos, reading newsletters, articles, etc., etc.

So visibility, ultimately, is getting in front of new people, because otherwise, it doesn’t matter how much I’m converting existing people on my list, I’m just speaking to the same people again and again, and that will run out eventually.

So again, there’s a strategic posting rhythm. It’s not just daily noise. And I’m really challenging myself to post less but better. And a newsletter — I have my weekly newsletter, an email that goes out to my community.

I have, again, pitching on guest podcast, that’s both authority building and visibility, because you’re getting in front of other people’s audiences. Commenting on LinkedIn, I cannot overestimate how important that is way more important than posting yourself. Not AI comments and not just, you know, oh, good point, but really strategically finding people where you can add value and popping up in people’s feeds. And again, networking, physical events showing up where your clients actually are.

So visibility, and this is important, is not the end goal, right? We don’t want to get caught up in the LinkedIn metric being the goal. That is just a means to an end. It’s about conversation. So we’re not trying to win the algorithm, we’re trying to get to the decision makers.

If you’re working in B2B, that’s different, of course, to getting in front of the people with the budgets, the stakeholders there, versus if you’re trying to get in front of individuals.

Okay, so visibility vectors, authority amplifiers, momentum moves, and these are your kind of demand blocks, your rhythm that you can have.

And let’s talk about how to have that, how to implement that in your calendar.

So the first step is, in fact, to put it in your calendar. Schedule a dedicated block each week, protect it like it was a client session, right?

So if you have a call with me, you’re going to show up. If you have a personal trainer session, if you have even a training you sign up to whatever it is, you’re going to treat that as a sacred block and you need to do the same with your own time.

Okay, so it might be Monday morning to really set that pipeline tone for the week. It might be a Friday lunchtime, you’re kind of closing loops and see the next. It could be both, right?

And then that’s sort of a generic, okay, one block a week, two blocks a week, fine, those are just examples. But you need to be choosing your focus based on your goals and energy.

So if I need clients, I was going to say desperately, but I urgently need clients in the next 30 days, you know, what should I be focusing on? What are my most direct moves? Then it’s not about, oh, I might pitch a TED talk or a book — that’s not going to bring in the clients the next 30 days probably.

And I didn’t mention that I think in the momentum moves, it’s more about reaching out to people who already know you. So again, following up with people, reaching out to your network, that’s what’s going to get you the immediate sales, both for B2B and to B2C.

If I’m rather building longer term demand, then what is the highest leverage authority play, right? That’s where we can look more at the authority, the positioning, and it’s not necessarily immediately bringing money.

And importantly, because we’re talking about real life constraints here. If I’m really low energy, what’s the minimum viable version of this that still counts?

Okay.

And then finally, of course, do this through the lens of the season you’re in. So if you’re in a growth season, you might do that rhythm twice or three times a week. You might even do it daily. In fact, I’d encourage you to do it daily if you can, if you have enough things to follow up with.

And if you don’t, then you can pitch the podcast, you can — and I will take this as homework myself — you can pitch bigger conferences, you can look out for TED talks that you want to put, you can work on your book, whatever it is, right.

So if you’re in a growth season, then you can really ramp this up. If you’re in a heavy delivery or life season — illness, family, bereavement, or just really busy with work — you can keep it alive with a minimum viable rhythm, okay.

So minimum viable might be that you do half an hour once that week, right? And you do follow-ups, of course, mop up anyone who, again, wants to give you their money. You send five invitations or connections, maybe 10 minutes of intentional comments, you know, that’s it. But it keeps the engine warm. What you don’t want to do is do zero.

And again, full permission to do zero if you really are having a hellish week, but we can’t afford to have that happen every week, right?

Okay.

So, I suppose a few common traps to avoid here.

You know, I’ll do demand when I have time because I’m so busy with client delivery that I’ll do demand later. But no, because actually having the demand is what will give you more time later. If I have more people who want to work with me, that’s when I can set firmer boundaries. I can choose who I’m working with. I can charge more and so on, right?

The trap of I need to post more. No, you need a rhythm that includes follow-up and invitation. So if you are posting more, but no one’s coming to you, then that inbound isn’t working and you need to be interacting with people and having that follow-up.

Or, you know, I’m consistent, but nothing is converting. Well, again, visibility without momentum is just a bit of entertainment or worse, wasting your time.

So then it’s really thinking about, again, how you can get them moving with your authority, with the conversations, with the momentum, rather than just more visibility. If you’re not converting, then having more leads isn’t going to solve your problem.

Okay.

So in conclusion, if you want a business that survives school holidays, low energy weeks and real life, then having this weekly, possibly even daily demand rhythm is one of the foundations, because it makes demand less emotional. I don’t feel like sending that email today, you know, it’s more operational, it’s more a habit.

So if you can block it in your calendar, have some accountability, and make sure you’re ticking off those, even as I said, minimum viable moves every week.

And sometimes when you have a high energy, low client delivery week, you might ramp it up and do lots more daily, more hours, you know, that you can’t do too much, basically, then that’s fine too.

If you want to help building your own four hour day version of this, your priorities, your weekly pattern and the repeatable moves that keep that demand stable-ish — I’m going to caveat because it’s never going to be a perfect curve — then reminded that I’ve got the four hour workday workshop coming up on Thursday the 12th of February. You’ll get the live and you’ll get the replay as well to watch at your leisure. Details at onestepoutside.com forward slash four hour day and that’s number four hour day.

So I hope you found this interesting. I feel like I spoke very quickly and packed a lot of value in there so do listen again and do join the workshop if you can because we’ll talk about this in much more detail. So I hope to see you there.

Quick reminder before you go: if this episode hit home then I think you’ll love my live workshop on Thursday the 12th February, the four hour work day. It’s 90 minutes, super practical and we’ll turn this theoretical idea into an actual plan: what to prioritise, what to stop doing and what needs to be repeatable so your business keeps moving even when time is tight. Of course you’ll get the replay as well. Details are at onestepoutside.com/4hourday.