How to Winterize Your Business: Astrology and Sustainable Systems

In this post, we talked about the astrological cycles of visibility and how to tell if you're in a season of being seen or being behind the scenes. Did you discover that you’re in a darker season? (Me too.) Don’t worry! This post was made especially for you.

Recap. How do you know you’re in a “dark” season, or what I’ve nicknamed your Dark Moon Era? I go into great detail in this post, but the short answer is: your secondary progressed Moon phase. Use this calculator to determine what phase your progressed Moon is currently in.

I consider your Dark Moon Era to begin when your secondary progressed Moon moves into the last quarter phase. From there, it'll progress into the balsamic phase, then the new phase, and then the waxing crescent phase, where it slowly begins to reemerge with light. All of these lunar phases are more dark than light.

This entire sequence takes about fifteen years. Within that fifteen-year period, there will be shorter pockets of light and visibility, but the underlying theme is going inward and “winterizing”.

Why You Need to Winterize Your Business

When the progressed Moon is in a dark phase, it usually coincides with lower energy or a lower desire to use that energy on things that are outwardly observable. For example, you might be more interested in tending to home matters, family matters, or self-care matters instead of posting on Instagram every day.

Imagine what you do when a winter storm is coming. You might stock up on essentials, cook some soups, winterize the house, get your coziest sweaters out of the back of the closet, and make sure your snow shovels are within reach. It’s the same idea in business.

When winter seasons come (and they always come), you want to be prepared. How do you do that? You “winterize” your business. Below are my top strategies for “winterizing” your business, or creating sustainable systems and structures that’ll keep your business running, even when you’re cozied up on the couch.

Even if you're not in a Dark Moon Era, I highly recommend reading this post because these are just great tips for running a sustainable business—period. But if you are in a Dark Moon Era, consider this your survival guide.

Strategy 1: Create a Repeatable, Signature Offer

I’m the queen of changing my mind pivoting my business. (What can I say? I have Uranus conjunct my ascendant.) It’s been fun, but it’s not great for sustainability.

When I realized I was heading into my Dark Moon Era this January, I changed my ways. I spent my time building one main offer that acts as the foundation of my entire business. Now, everything else I do points back to that single offer.

Even though I have a very bright natal moon (it’s in the gibbous phase), and I have a higher capacity for seeing clients, that's not going to be the case as my progressed Moon gets darker and darker. So, I made sure my new offer doesn't need oodles and oodles of clients to run. I only need a handful of clients per month in order to make the income that I need to live comfortably.

I've also committed to repeating my signature offer over and over again instead of creating new stuff all the time. Can I create new stuff? Absolutely. But only after my signature offer is firmly in place and running like a well-oiled machine. Instead of creating new offers all the time, I’m using that energy and creativity to have fun marketing the signature offer I already have.  

Strategy 2: Build a SEO-Optimized Website

SEO stands for search engine optimization, and essentially, it’s how you rank on search engines. We love ranking on search engines because that equals clicks to our websites. I’d much rather spend my time figuring out how to optimize my website for search results than chase clients on social media.

When you’re optimizing your website for SEO, you want to think about being the best answer to your potential clients’ problems or questions. Everything you write for your website, from headlines to blog posts, becomes the best solution to their problem.

To prepare for my Dark Moon Era, I took (yet another) copywriting course and spent a lot of time rewriting my website for SEO. I researched keywords and the whole bit. And instead of trying to be cute or creative with my headlines, I prioritized clarity and directness.

Strategy 3: Develop Core Content

The next thing I'm focusing on during my Dark Moon Era is creating core content. Instead of creating for Instagram, I'm focusing on creating long-lasting, valuable content that has a much longer shelf life.

Personally, this means focusing my effort and energy on podcasting and creating an SEO-optimized blog post for each episode. Instead of creating content for social media, my plan is to use social media like a bulletin board to promote the core content I've created elsewhere.

Strategy 4: Become a Pinterest Princess

Think of Pinterest as another search engine. It's not social media. It’s where buyers are going to find solutions to their problems. These people are ready to purchase, unlike the social media audience that’s just ready to be entertained. It’s a lot easier to capture attention on Pinterest than on Instagram.

Now that you have your core content in place, Pinterest is easy! My plan is to turn each piece of core content into ten different pins that I can drip out at a regular interval. (Pins have a much longer shelf life—read: years—than social media posts.)

Strategy 5: Grow Your Newsletter

Having a newsletter allows you to make sales and keep in touch with your people without dancing on an Instagram reel. All of the times that I’ve gone off social (and there have been many), I've continued to stay in business. How? My newsletter.

Instead of focusing on growing your followers, focus on growing your subscribers. You can do this by creating freebies and opt-ins, like little upgrades, for as many pieces of your core content as possible. For example, maybe you write a blog post about your signature graphic design process and you create an opt-in to go with it that helps someone figure out their color palette.

Strategy 6: Design an Instagram 9-Grid

After all my talk about not wanting to spend my time on Instagram, I still want a presence there. But not just any presence. It’s going to have to be a strategic presence.

One of the most sustainable, Dark-Moon-Era-friendly Instagram strategies I’ve come across is the 9-grid. This is a collection of nine, static, strategic posts that turn your Instagram profile into a mini website or business card. It takes visitors on a journey from being a stranger to client.

Having a 9-grid frees you from having to post on the grid. No more spending hours creatin carousels and no more agonizing over what you’re going to post.

With a 9-grid, you have the choice to either not do the Instagram thing at all, or you might decide to spend that new-found time showing up in more algorithm-friendly places like stories or reels. Whatever you do, use Instagram as a doorway to get people off of Instagram and onto your website and newsletter.

Next Steps

I hope there’s a strategy (or six!) in there to support you during your own Dark Moon Era. And just know that I’m here if you need me. You don’t have to navigate the darkness alone.

If you want to create a marketing plan that's in alignment with your current level of visibility, come work with me in the Cosmic Marketing Plan.