Some female entrepreneurs are so shy about promoting themselves, they’re leaving money on the table, according to marketing consultant Mikaela Ian Pearman.

To help women put themselves out there more, Ms Pearman launches a three-day Instagram challenge next week, Show Up For You.

“The whole point of the challenge is to encourage female entrepreneurs to think harder about their marketing strategy and how they are showing up for themselves and their business,” she said. “I find a lot of entrepreneurs post on social media, or send e-mails, because they know they have to. But there is no real strategy behind it. They are just doing it because they need to do it.”

It’s her fourth year doing such a challenge. Her previous ones were called Crush Your Confidence.

“They have been all to help women boost and build their confidence,” she said. “This time I switched it up a little to focus more on challenging female entrepreneurs to step outside the box and promote their building and do it consistently for three days.”

Participants will get an e-mail with the challenge of the day and instructions. All the promotion will take place on Instagram, in some fashion.

“I am hoping that this challenge will be a way for them to stop and think about why they need to promote their business more and why they need to use marketing strategies,” she said. “At the end of the day, when you are promoting yourself and you are very clear about who you are, what you offer and who you serve, you will attract new clients and customers.”

She said a lot of women entrepreneurs struggle particularly with video marketing.

“So many women don’t have the confidence to actually press the record video,” Ms Pearman said. “They don’t know what to say or what people will think about it. Or they don’t want to put themselves out there because they are not perfect. No one is perfect when they start.”

In fact, she winces when she looks back at old videos she made while working as a journalist for the Bermuda Sun newspaper years ago.

“They are still on YouTube and they are awful,” she said.

But she doesn’t regret them for a minute.

“If I didn’t keep going I wouldn’t be at a place where I am now in video,” said Ms Pearman, who is also marketing and communication officer for Bermuda Skyport.

Her advice is to keep at it.

“You are not going to just wake up one day and be better,” she said. “You will get better when you are consistent.”

TMI Consulting came out of work she did last summer with local business coach Gaynete Jones, to figure out how to better build her brand.

“I realised that I have the skills and talents and abilities that a lot of people don’t have and that a lot of people would pay me to help them,” Ms Pearman said. “Initially, I got into helping people with video and social media stuff. Then three weeks ago I attended a conference in Atlanta called Impact Weekend. It was there that I realised that I could actually use my skills in marketing and media and communications to help female entrepreneurs to create strategies so that they can generate sales.”

She said a lot of women don’t realise they have to repeat their message over and over again to get it across.

“I put up something on my Instagram stories yesterday and 74 people saw that,” she said. “I have more than 2,000 followers. A tiny percentage of people see what you put out, so you have to keep saying things over and over and over again. It takes the average person seven times for something to resonate when they see it.

“You have to master what it is you are trying to say and repeat those points whether it is by video, an e-mail post to your e-mail list or doing a microtraining in your stories. That is when people will get the message and buy from you.”

Ms Pearman said it is also important to be very specific about your target audience.

“When you niche down like that you have better success because you are talking to your specific clients,” she said.

To register for the challenge go to www.mikaelaian.simplero.com/challenge . For more information see Ms Pearman on Instagram or Twitter under @themikaelaian