Pam Ivey (00:00):

You’re listening to the flourish and grow to CEO podcast. This is episode 38: Are you engaged in marketing sabotaging practices.

Speaker 2 (00:26):

[inaudible]

Pam Ivey (00:27):

Are you a lady boss making 50 to a hundred thousand in your business? And you’re ready to break through that six figure barrier.

Jane Garee (00:34):

Have you done a great job of creating a nice life as the ultimate gig master, but know your inner CEO is calling you to greater Heights. You’re in the right place. If you want to create and implement solid fundamentals in your business without sacrificing fun.

Pam Ivey (00:49):

I’m Pam Ivey, I’m certified in small business management and I concentrate in the areas of training and certifying real estate assistance, coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs, and online business marketing growth and profit acceleration. And I take men and women business owners aged 40 plus two bucket list destinations around the world for a month at a time to work, explore, and live in community.

Jane Garee (01:15):

And I’m Jane Garee, known as the sales strategist for the non sales person. And I work with business owners who want to increase their conversion rate, shorten their sales cycle and have more impact and influence with the work they do all while having more fun with selling.

Pam Ivey (01:30):

Hi and welcome back everyone to the flourish and grow to CEO podcast. Today. We have a very interesting topic for you and it’s are you engaged in marketing malpracticeor marketing sabotaging practices? Wow. How sinister it sounds right. Well, maybe you can relate to this.

Are you moving on too quickly from your marketing tactics versus not moving on quickly enough? Are you focusing on tactics without a strategy? Do you feel pressure? Like you feel like you have to be everywhere and are you focusing on the latest and the greatest trends versus focusing on the basics? Of course, it’s a play on words, but we aim to keep things fun around here at first and grow.

But there are a few things you might be doing with your marketing that could be sabotaging your results. We know this because we see it time and time again. The first marketing sabotaging practices is rampant in the small business community and I’m guilty of this one, myself truth be told it’s focusing on tactics without a clear strategy. So Jane, maybe you can explain tactics versus strategy again, cause I know you do it so clearly.

Jane Garee (02:50):

So a strategy is the overall plan that you have with, with a clear, concise end result that you’re trying to get. So for example, my strategy is to lose a certain amount of weight by November of 2022, because we will be going to weight and saris. And I want to tango it. I want to look hot in, you know, a slinky dress.

So to me is to be able to hit the tango dance floor, looking and feeling great. That’s my strategy. Now you will notice in there, there was nothing about how I was going to do that or what I was going to do to make sure that I got that result.

So that, that there in lies, the conundrum that most people feel or think or experience, which is the strategy is what I’m going to do. Now. The strategy is the ultimate outcome that I am aiming for, which is to hit the dance floor, do the tango looking and feeling like a million bucks. The tactics are going to be how I’m going to make that happen. So a tactic, one of the tactics would be making sure my nutrition is clean. Another tactic would be making sure that I’m logging my nutrition.

So I’m not eating more than I think that I actually am. Another tactic would be hiring a personal trainer. Another tactic would be mixing up cardio and weight training. So tactics are the implementable steps that you actually do to get to your end result. The strategy is the overarching theme of what you want to accomplish.

Pam Ivey (04:17):

Perfect. So tactics are the thing, you, things you do like posting on social media or sending out a promotional email or buying a Facebook ad that’s tactics strategy. On the other hand is the plan to move you forward toward your vision or goals. So we’re all guilty of this.

I know we are, we need to bring in clients. So we immediately jump into doing something, anything to get the ball rolling, right? The trouble is we often jump from tactic to tactic. Does that sound familiar? So here’s your plan of attack to avoid wasting time and sabotaging your results. (marketing sabotaging practices)

First, you set your vision or your goals for your marketing efforts. Let’s say you want to create five leads to have sales conversations with in the next two to three weeks. So you create your strategy for achieving that goal. So here’s an example through greater visibility and education, I’ll make more people aware of my services and attract the right people to connect with me.

Pam Ivey (05:23):

Now it’s the time to decide on your tactics to work the strategy. So in order to gain the visibility, I desire and educate my audience, I’m going to use the following activities to achieve my goals. I’ll post on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram five times each this week. And I’m going to post with information about why coaching is important for small business.

The types of things that people can achieve with a coach say how to choose a coach, how to prepare for a coaching session, the best results, and why I’m the perfect choice for you. I’ll also send out an email to my list twice this week, emails, tactics.

So in the first message, I’ll talk about the types of clients that I work with and I’ll share some results that they’ve gotten along with some testimonials in the second message. I’ll make an open invitation to have a no obligation conversation with me to see if it’s right, the right fit.

Pam Ivey (06:25):

And here’s the third tactic I’ll purchase a Facebook ad and capita at $10 per day, leading prospects to my 10 steps to getting ultimate results with a business coach lead magnet. And I’ll add those people to a new automated welcome sequence using the same subjects I outlined for my Facebook posts and I’ll deliver them every second day.

So can you see how this structured framework will keep you much more focused? And it really drives you towards your goal of getting five leads for discovery calls. It really saves you from jumping from here to there a smattering of this and that that’ll most likely result in dunk crickets. And nobody wants to hear crickets.

Jane Garee (07:12):

I think that was, I think that was really great. And that is what happens. It’s so simple in theory, and we just allow it to get complicated because for a lot of reasons, number one, I think we’re all secretly of the one thing that we need to make sure that our business does what we, what we wanted to do.

So jumping from tactic to tactic, to tactic, and it is very much like the weight loss example where I’ll go over here and do keto for today, but not missing my carbs. So tomorrow I’ll just make sure I count the calories, but now I don’t know what I’m doing.

And so the third day I’ll just, I’ll just drink protein shakes all day. You know, so it’s kind of in our rush to make the results happen. We start jumping all around doing different tactics, but the big problem is when those tactics don’t align with each other and they don’t work to support each other, then they work independently.

And when a tactic works independently, it actually doesn’t work because it doesn’t support the overall strategy. So we’ve talked about this before, where the vision comes first, the strategy should support the vision and then the tactics support the strategy.

Pam Ivey (08:17):

Perfect. So this second marketing sabotaging practices, it leaves you a frustrated and just plain tired. And that’s the notion that you have to be absolutely everywhere. You’re posting on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube.

And because you heard from a friend that it’s working for them, you jump into tick-tock too, without even knowing who’s on there and how to work the platform and about, yeah, that sounds familiar too. Well, stop the madness.

Ain’t nobody got time for that. There’s simply spreading yourself too thin. You’re doing yourself a great disservice and you’re going crazy in the process. I know cause I’ve been there unless you’ve got a huge team working on all of this stuff for you, that’s all you’re going to be doing. Forget about working with clients and making money. You simply won’t have time.

So pick one to the very, very top three and that’s really pushing it.

Pam Ivey (09:18):

And then you just, you totally dominate those platforms. So really learn how to, how the platform works. So you can get the most out of it. You post on a regular consistent basis, engage with your audience and remember, have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with each platform, along with a strategy of how you’re going to get there.

So there we go with a vision and strategy again. And when we’re working with social media, quit thinking about, you know, this is a really good business tactic for me, social media is like going to a party. You’re going to see friends and make new friends.

That’s what social was originally created for. So that’s how you want to be using it is to build relationships so that people really get to know like, and trust you. That’s when people want to do business with you, right?

Jane Garee (10:14):

Yeah. I think that building the relationships really can’t be overlooked. And if you think about back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth, otherwise there was when you and I started the workforce, there was, there was no, there was, there was literally no internet.

Imagine that. So social media wasn’t even a term or a concept or anything. And what did you have a business? You had a phone and you had snail mail and that was basically it.

So building relationships just was such a natural extension of what you did when you were in business, because it was very clear. There was no other way to do that. And really why would you want another way to do that? Relationships are, are really the driving force behind kind of being on the planet, in my opinion, but then at the age of e-commerce and digital media.

Jane Garee (11:09):

And, and so now what happened is we all got used to sitting behind a keyboard, tap, tap, tapping away and calling that connecting. And it’s not that you can’t connect on social media or you can’t connect virtually. You absolutely can. And it is, it’s a benefit.

And I think it’s really kind of a, uh, a privilege to be able to work in the world in which we live now with that kind of access to people all over the globe. It’s really pretty cool. But one of the downsides that has come with social media and the online business world is that people start thinking in terms of strategy of how can I promote, how can I sell?

How can I make people aware of what it is that I do and what I have to offer. And it’s relationships have taken a second seat or a back seat to, Hey, how do I make sure that people know what my business is? So rather than, Hey, how do I make sure I know what my business is? I’d rather everybody ask the question, Hey, how do I connect with other people? So I can find out more about who they are and we can support each other.

Pam Ivey (12:10):

Oh, that was so well said, but it’s so true. You know, naturally over time when you build a relationship, people are going to be interested in what you do and what you have to offer. So don’t rush it really build those relationships. And I know I’ve been guilty too, because you know, you get to that point where you’re just thinking, I got to do something.

So you start pushing and then you see people unfriending you or unfollowing you. That’s why, cause you’re not making any efforts to really build relationships so you can pop into somebody’s DM or PM and just send them a message about a really cool post that you enjoyed.

However, you would start, you know, a conversation at a party, just go for it, make friends. I mean, that’s a really nice way to look at it too. Right. Just be a really nice person and make some new friends. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:02):

Hey lady, boss. Do you think like a CEO, when your business starts taking off, you’re ready to scale up at this point, you’ve got to stop thinking of yourself as a solopreneur and start thinking of yourself as the CEO of your company. If you remain in the mindset of a one-person operation, then you won’t be able to grow. You’ll never have the time, energy or expertise to do everything by yourself and your business. Won’t be the success that it has the potential to be.

So are you thinking like a CEO take our free assessment to find out you can find it@flourish.biz forward slash think that’s F L O U R I S H dot B I Z Ford slash T H I N K. Once again. That’s flourished.biz for slash think. All right, lady boss. Let’s get back to the show.

Pam Ivey (14:02):

Awesome. So the final marketing sabotaging practices that we’re going to look at is focusing on the latest and the greatest trends versus focusing on the basics. And honestly, this is where you can really drive yourself around the bend because there’s a new trend or, you know, a new tactic jumping on board all the time right now while Jane and I are recording this, there’s somebody in the industry.

Well, I’ll say his name, Danny ne he’s very well respected, has a very large following. And he’s talking about hybrid courses at the moment hybrid hybrid online courses. So everybody’s jumping on that bandwagon right now. I think we really have to get back to basics.

And Jane, you touched on it so beautifully before we had internet. What did we do? We picked up the phone. We visited somebody’s office. Those are the basics for sales.

Pam Ivey (14:59):

Well, we need to get back to the basics in marketing. So some of the other trends that I’ve been seeing lately are sales funnels, quizzes. Oh my God. Challenges.

Every time you open your email, there’s another challenge or another giveaway and whatever else is the next big million dollar generating idea, don’t get me wrong. They can all be really great tactics, but are they right for you and your business?

That’s something we really have to think about before we jump on that bandwagon. And as I said, Jane and I are definitely guilty of this too. When, when we first partnered, we spent a fortune on a couple of training programs because they were touted as kind of the be all. And we thought we could really work them.

Well, one was membership sites and the other was on live experience. Experiential launches. Do we have a membership site? Nope. Although one’s coming. I mean, do mark my words, ones discovery, right? And have we done a live launch yet?

Pam Ivey (16:08):

And you know, that two is coming, but we jumped on the trend bandwagon before working on our vision and strategy. So as Jane has, she loves this and I totally agree with her. We invested out of order. So we need to get back to the basics, right?

In previous articles, we’ve talked about the AIDAS marketing method and that’s attracting new people to our world, maintaining their interest in what we have to say and do, create a desire for what you have to offer spur prospects, to take action and buy from you. And then once they bought, we maintain their happiness with your product or service.

And we motivate them to purchase from us again, or refer us to others. But I like the way the process is explained by someone I follow, although it’s certainly not her process, but it’s much easier to remember attract, engage, nurture, invite, and delight.

Pam Ivey (17:11):

So it’s all the same ingredients, but I just find that so easy kind of rolls off the tongue, attract, engage, nurture, invite delight. So many small business owners focus on the nurture step in the process. And they don’t think a lot about the attract step, honestly.

So nurturing is definitely important, but we’ve got to be continually attracting new clients to our community to do this. We don’t jump onto the next fancy schmancy latest trends. We get back to the basics. Good old fashioned, teach a class for one of your colleagues who has a similar audience that you’d like to attract, build a community and a Facebook group and serve them and engage with them and build relationships.

Ask for referrals, reconnect with past clients and speak at local and virtual events. These are all excellent ways to attract new people into your community. Sometimes we’re looking for a magic bullet. That’ll make all our marketing dreams come true. And unfortunately, dear listener, they don’t exist when you hear someone becoming an overnight success with some awesome new method.

Remember that they’ve probably tried a thousand different things before getting lucky, and it took them probably 10 years to become that overnight success. So Jane, have you anything to add about, we talked about definitely the basics,

Jane Garee (18:49):

Well, the fundamentals, which are the basics, when those aren’t in place, it’s kind of like having a team of horses where you have one, one horse that’s sort of favored and pampered and out over here, you know, the team has to be pulling together.

Otherwise you’re not, you’re not going to be able to move forward and without the fundamentals and the basics in place, which again, simple in theory, but can be very challenging to execute us included. Um, it’s, it’s it, it makes your business just, it can be a lot more of a struggle than it really needs to be.

So watch the foundations, watch the basics, really understand the difference between a strategy and a tactic and, you know, poverty had a great quote one time. And I’m going to share that with the disclaimer that nothing in life is kind of as simple as boiled down to one quote, in my opinion, but I love this.

Jane Garee (19:45):

I love this quote, which is, is he was trying to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up. And his father said, pick a chair and sit in it. And I remind myself of that a lot of times, because as business owners and entrepreneurs, most of us have the 10, most of us tend to have creative minds, which means they can be busy and restless and always on the hunt for the new thing and the next best thing and the shiny object.

And if you’re not wired like that, then from people who are more analytical, then it’s going to be, well, what’s going to get me to the results fastest. And sometimes pinging a chair and sitting, it’s not sexy. It’s boring. There’s nothing glamorous about it. And it’s sure not exciting. Pick a chair and sit in it. But oftentimes that is actually the thing that will get you the results that you want as quickly as possible.

Pam Ivey (20:32):

And that’s the sexy part, right? Ooh, I really like that. Pick a chair and sit in it. Yep. Totally going to keep that in mind. Well, I hope that helped people know that they, one don’t have to be everywhere and they don’t have to be purchasing a million dollar programs.

Cause they’re, you know, a lot of them are so expensive out there. So don’t invest out of order, know where you are, have a strategy. So really think about where you want to be really great. Timeframe is three months, six months a year out, and then work backwards and figure out what pieces you need to put in place and where you have to be.

And you know what you have to do to get there. And I think that will make things feel so as has changed, said, you know, not as much as a struggle and certainly a lot less overwhelming. So that wraps up another episode of flourish and grow to CEO about marketing sabotaging practices. We hope you have a wonderful week. Bye everybody. We’ll see you next time.

Speaker 4 (21:41):

Well, that’s a wrap everyone. Thanks for joining us this week on the flourish and grow to CEO podcast. Be sure to visit our website at [inaudible] dot biz. That’s F L O U R I S h.biz, where you can subscribe to the shows in iTunes, Stitcher, or via RSS. So you’ll never miss an episode. You can also find our show notes and resources there too.

And while you’re at it, if you found value in this show, we’d love for you to leave a rating on iTunes. Or if you’d simply tell a friend about the show that would sure help us out to now get out there and flourish.