This Is The Valuable Business Lesson I Learned By Destroying My Skin Barrier

22 Apr

It’s 2024. The year of the damaged skin barrier. I was buying into all the marketing claims, obsessively watching beauty vlogs and reviews, and trying all the products. AHAs, PHAs, retinol, exfoliating pads, hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, peptides - if Sali Hughes was raving about it, you best believe I was trying it.

Until one morning, I woke up to red raw, dry, stinging skin. I hastily googled “why is my skin like this?” and was met with article after article talking about damaged skin barriers. After reading about other people who’d done the exact same thing as me, I rushed over to The Ordinary’s website and purchased their Soothing & Barrier Support Serum (bright pink, looks like pepto bismol but works like magic).

A few months later, after healing my skin with the barrier serum and Clinique’s Moisture Surge Moisturiser, my skin was healthy again. I’d also re-introduced Caudalie’s Vinoperfect serum and my skin was glowing. Hallelujah.

But apparently, 2 and half months of glowing skin isn’t enough to convince me to stick to a routine. Oh no. Tempted by the “latest technology in skincare”, I went off plan (again).

I started swapping the reliable products for shiny new ones that had rave reviews from people who didn’t have the same skin type as me.

I quit the routine responsible for my healthy glow and used one thing one night, another thing the next night, and suddenly all that hard work to get me to the point where my skincare was working FOR me, felt like a waste.

And once again, I was back to square one, rebuilding my routine and feeling like I was starting from scratch again.

Guilty of a chaotic routine that doesn’t give you confidence? I made this for you.

The pattern that's quietly killing your content

This is the exact same pattern I see a lot of business owners follow, except we’ll swap out “skincare routine” for “content strategy”. You start with experimenting: sometimes it works, sometimes it damages your skin barrier. Which is ok, because you need to learn these lessons so you know what works for your business and what doesn’t.

Then, over time (normally a 3-6 month period), you begin to notice things that are actively working to grow your brand. You start to recognise the pieces that bring you leads, that build the relationships with your audience and ultimately notice your sales and enquiries steadily increasing.

And then a shiny new idea will land in your feed: a trend you have to try, a guru with the piece of advice that’ll change your life, a strategy all the successful people are using, or a $9 course with 150 hours of content that promises to make you a millionaire in 3 minutes.

Here’s where it gets messy

I get it. Consistency and steadiness feel boring so you stop following the plan that works for you and start chasing what works for them. Who doesn’t dream of being an overnight success and having a bank account so full of money you never have to ask yourself “can I afford this?” before tapping your card.

Naturally, your results start to slow down. Your content becomes messy and confusing, and overwhelming for the consumer. Instead of building genuine relationships with your target audience, you’re obsessing over trending audios and viral worthy hooks (that if you’re completely honest, don’t feel like you at all).

Before you know it, it’s 3 months later and you feel like you need to start over all again.

Let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with trying new things. In fact, that’s how you get to learn what works best for you and what to leave to other people. But when something’s already working for you and you quit that altogether in favour of the shiny new thing, that’s when you’ll face a problem.

Not quite sure where you’re going wrong with your content? Take The Confident Content Audit and you’ll know your biggest challenge within 10 minutes.

Every time you start over, you lose this

When you chop and change strategies every few weeks, or post randomly, you’re not giving the strategy a chance to work. Yet a consistent content strategy you commit to implementing for at least 3 months creates a compounding effect.

Every post acts as a brick in your content foundation. Every brick has its job which takes the pressure off the individual bricks. You’re not looking to create a single post that goes viral, gets results, and suddenly brings you all the sales. Instead, every single post is working to build the know, like, trust for you which, over time, brings steady, consistent revenue into your business.

If you’re feeling like you're back at square one every few weeks, not only is your content not going to be getting results for you, but it’ll also be draining you emotionally and energetically. There’s nothing worse than putting your all into something and feeling like you’re getting nowhere.

The smarter way to evolve your strategy

I’m not here to dissuade you from trying new things in your marketing. I want you to try new things to find what works for you and your business. But there’s a difference between testing new things within your existing strategy vs throwing out the entire strategy every time.

Testing one thing at a time gets you solid data you can learn from. Testing all the things in one go gives you nothing - how are you supposed to know what works?

If something isn’t working in your current strategy, look at all the different variables that could be causing the problem. Then choose ONE of those things to tweak for the next 30 days (minimum, ideally you’d do 90 days). At the end of your testing period, record the data and see what you find.

Not enough people collect this valuable data. And yes, I know how boring analytics can feel for people but it’s an absolute goldmine of information that can dictate your content strategy for the next 90 day period.

I'm not immune to this either

As someone who gets bored incredibly easily, and who likes to try new things all the time, I fully understand how boring it can be to stick to a content strategy consistently. An ADHD brain, Sagittarius restlessness and being susceptible to “shiny object syndrome” meant I used to be allergic to the word “consistent”.

But that was until I realised just how important that consistency habit is for growth. Watching the people around me commit to a strategy, implement it consistently and actually get the results I wanted in my business was enough to convince me to give the ‘ole “be consistent” a go.

Does that mean keep things the same all the time? No, absolutely not. But it does mean testing things with purpose and not just throwing out the routine that works for me because someone else started talking about what worked for them.

Here’s how you’ll break the inconsistency habit

I might have struggled with sticking to a plan in the past but I’m an absolute pro at building a content strategy you can’t wait to implement. That’s not me bragging, that’s straight from my client’s mouth after The Robin Intensive: “My thoughts from it were, I can't wait to get going because I've got a plan!”.

After posting sporadically for her business, Jade built her consistency habit that resulted in more clicks to her website and gaining 2-3 followers per day, all within 2 weeks of putting her bespoke content strategy into practice.

Breaking the inconsistency habit and never struggling with “I don’t know what to post!” again are the exact things I help my clients with. From chasing the shiny new strategy, tips that aren’t specific to you and following the latest trend advice, to trusting the simple, steady strategy that’s built around you, your business goals and your capacity to create.

If your content strategy currently feels like my skincare routine circa 2024 (overcomplicated and doing more damage than good), that's exactly what The Robin Intensive is built to fix.

I’ll build you a bespoke 90 day content strategy that makes showing up consistently easy peasy lemon squeezy. Click the button below for all the details and let’s build you a plan that actually works for you.

Learn more about The Robin Intensive here

Questions answered in this blog post:

Why does my content strategy keep failing?

Most content strategies fail not because they were wrong but because they were abandoned before they had a chance to work. Switching strategies every few weeks or chasing the latest trend, guru advice or shiny new approach, resets your progress every time. A consistent strategy committed to for a minimum of 90 days creates a compounding effect that random or reactive posting can't replicate.

How do I know if my content strategy is actually working?

Give it at least 90 days before you make any significant changes. During that time, track one metric that's connected to your actual business goals - e.g. website clicks, DMs, enquiries - rather than vanity metrics like likes and follower count. If something isn't working, identify the specific variable that might be causing the issue and test one change at a time. Testing everything at once tells you nothing.

How do I stop being distracted by new marketing trends and advice?

The key distinction is between testing something new within your existing strategy versus abandoning the whole strategy in favour of it. New things are worth trying, that's how you find what works for you specifically. But introduce them one at a time, measure the impact and only let them replace something that genuinely isn't working. If a trend doesn't feel like you, it probably isn't for you. And forcing it into your strategy will show.

Why is consistency so hard to maintain on social media?

Because consistency built around the wrong strategy, one that's too ambitious, too complicated or not aligned with your actual capacity, will always collapse. The solution isn't more discipline. It's a simpler strategy that's genuinely built around your real life, your real schedule and what you actually enjoy creating. When the strategy feels exciting rather than overwhelming, showing up consistently stops feeling like a chore.

I'm Rebecca, not Robin or Rose (long story, worth reading). I built Robin Rose Creative to help business owners stop guessing what to post and start showing up with confidence. I’m a firm believer that you don't need to go viral to make sales (and I've been proving it since 2017). Come and say “hi” on Instagram 👋🏼