I see this bad advice everywhere, please don't follow it 😅

In the November 2025 edition:

• Does ✨consistency✨ really matter that much? Yes, but not in the way everyone says it does

• Invest in your business skills education in 2026 🤓

• Treats for Thanksgiving! And happy Small Business Saturday—let’s celebrate all year long!

Thank YOU for reading Catbird Care Package! It’s such a joy to have this space to speak directly to other solo small business owners and share my thoughts and resources. As we all pause to consider what we’re grateful for this week, I’m thinking about my wonderful clients, CCP readers, and all the people in my community who fiercely support me and other small business owners. Your encouragement is seen and so appreciated!

SOMETHING USEFUL

Being “consistent” is about way more than posting

If you’ve ever searched for business advice online, I’ll bet you’ve been told that you should be focusing on consistency. That being consistent is the key to success!

And sure, I can agree with that. It’s the next part of the advice that I’m not a fan of: that being consistent means posting on social media every single day, or sending your marketing emails every week without ever skipping one, or some other version of being “always on” with your digital presence.

It’s not that these things are bad. But there’s so much more to consistency than content marketing. If you want to be more consistent in your business in a way that will have a real impact on your customers, your profits, and your well-being, stop worrying about posting and start thinking about consistency in a whole new way.

Keep reading to see where consistency matters most in your business.

What it really looks like to be consistent

If you enjoy posting or emailing and your business benefits from it, then go ahead and do those things regularly. However, these are the areas where being consistent has a concrete, make-or-break effect on the success of your business:

Whether your work reflects your stated values. One of the best things about being a solo business owner is leading with our values and making decisions based on what feels right to us. But once we’ve committed to those values, our customers expect us to honor them. If you position your business as eco-friendly, or community-focused, or inclusive to all, your actions need to consistently match those commitments.

The quality of your work and customer service. Whether we’re crafting necklaces or drafting contracts, our customers expect us to put the same level of care and quality into every single instance of our work. Providing that level of consistency requires solid systems in every aspect of your business, from finances to time management to customer communication.

The depth of your integrity. Integrity isn’t just doing what we say we’ll do or living our values. It’s continuing to do those things even when it’s difficult. It’s refusing to source inferior materials, even if it means you have to raise your prices. It’s spending the necessary time perfecting your client’s logo, even when you’re slammed with other projects. That’s what a consistent commitment to the integrity of your work looks like.

Consistency = Trust and reliability

Consistency about building trust with your customers and audience so they believe that you are who you say you are, your work is as good as you make it look, and that you can actually deliver the results you claim to be able to deliver.

It’s the work you put in to create and uphold your professional reputation. Posting sporadically on Instagram does not make you inconsistent. Breaking promises or delivering poor results to your customers does.

Here’s an example: There’s a business services provider I follow who posts hot takes and often gets reposted by some big meme accounts. They’ve achieved a sort of “Instagram fame”, and I admit I’ve wondered if the increased visibility translated into increased profits. Should I be trying harder to go viral, or posting more??

So I was surprised to hear that one of my clients had actually worked with this person a few months ago, and she thought it was going well until she received some bizarre emails from them and then they ghosted when she tried to clarify the situation. She never did figure out what happened. All the while, the hot takes kept coming on IG.

This person was clearly great at posting consistently, but failed to deliver on the work they’d promised to a real-life client. What a great reminder that going viral online is pointless if you don’t make the effort to keep your professional reputation intact within your community.

Reputation consistency before social media consistency

I talk with people all the time who feel bad that they’re not posting more, or putting more time into content creation, or changing their email marketing cadence, or some other version of so-called “inconsistency.”

But what they ARE doing is hitting their project deadlines, fulfilling their obligations to customers and partners, and taking the time to make sure their products or services are high-quality.

This is the work that really matters, the work that will keep customers coming back for more, encourage them to tell their friends about you, and get them to leave you a fantastic review or testimonial.

No one really notices when you “miss” a post or an email, but they definitely know whether they can count on you to follow through on your commitments.

So next time you see the ubiquitous advice that consistency is the key to success (and it makes you feel bad for not posting more) remember where consistency matters most. It’s not in your posts, it’s in your reputation.

SOMETHING NEAT

One of my goals for 2026 is to invest in my education and learn new skills that I can apply in my own business and with my clients. Since my formal education and corporate business experience have given me a solid foundation of knowledge, I prefer to do targeted, a la carte skills training so I can focus on things that are new to me.

Enter Coursera, an incredible resource for professional training and education with one-off classes from top universities and companies, plus certification courses and even full degree programs (whoa). A year’s subscription to Coursera Plus is $160 off through December 1st, so now’s a good time to make an investment into learning something new next year. (This isn’t an ad or affiliate link, I’m just excited to nerd out!)

Here are a few courses & certificates I’m looking at:

• Design Thinking for Innovation—my brain tends to skew more analytical than creative, and design thinking is a great way to use an analytical approach to come up with creative solutions.

• Intuit Academy Bookkeeping Professional Certificate—I’ve been wanting to brush up on my bookkeeping knowledge related to product-based business models. This comprehensive course will help me do that and more.

• Modern and Contemporary Art and Design—OK, technically not business-related, but I took an art history class back (wayyy back) in undergrad and I loved it. Could be fun to pick back up where I left off!

A LITTLE TREAT

It’s time for Thanksgiving (in America, anyway) which means Small Business Saturday is here! Have fun shopping small this weekend and all year long!

+My contribution to the big meal is homemade cranberry sauce, Alton Brown’s gingersnap pumpkin pie, and probably an apple crisp for good measure. No such thing as too many desserts 🥧

+Need a family activity for the holiday? Try Austin Kleon’s printable gratitude zines, full of quick activities to help you give thanks. There’s even a version for little kids.

+One of my favorite annual treats is NPR’s Books We Love, a huge collection of NPR staffers’ favorite releases from the year. It’s out now and I’m seeing a ton of titles to add to my TBR (I already read and would recommend this one). Shop with your neighborhood bookseller or on Bookshop.org, where you can choose a local bookstore to support with your purchase!

WORK WITH ME

This newsletter is for everyone, but a one-on-one consulting engagement is tailored to you and your business. Here’s how I can support you:

• Strategic Action Planning—For solo business owners with a lot to do, and never enough time. We’ll refine, prioritize, and organize your goals, and I’ll create a road map for you to get them done. (My most popular service.)

• Resilience Jumpstart—Turn analysis paralysis into decisive action with affordable 1:1 support to get you moving in the right direction fast.

• Operations Analysis—Is your business built on a strong foundation? An operations deep dive will tell you exactly what to do to make your business work better from the inside out.

• General Consulting—Get expert support with business challenges like workload sustainability, financial fundamentals, pricing, client communication, and more.

When you’re ready, schedule a free 30 minute intro call with me.

Thanks for reading—see you next month. If you have a business owner friend who would find this newsletter useful, please share it with them!