July 7, 2020 • 59 mins
Emily is taking this special episode to recap the wisdom that was dropped during the virtual Being Boss Conference back in April. You’ll hear from Tara McMullin on why you should still promote your business in uncertain times, Autumn Witt Boyd on a very creative marketing idea, Vivian Kaye on the importance of displaying your passion in your business, and so many more.
Get full show notes for this episode here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Emily Thompson (00:02):
I'm Emily Thompson. And I'm Kathleen
Shannon. And this is being boss.
In this episode of being boss,join me as I fill your ear so
some big balls that wisdom fromthe wide range of creative
business owners who joined me onthe virtual stage of our being
balls conference in April,you'll hear from Tara McMillan
(00:24):
on why you still need to marketyour business, even when times
are weird. From auto went voidon a very creative marketing
idea, Vivian Kay on theimportance of displaying your
passion and your business, andso many more. As always, you'll
find all the tools, books andlinks we reference on the show
notes at WWW dot being boss dotclub.
Freshbooks (00:47):
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Emily Thompson (01:52):
Every fall we do a survey of our listeners to
find out more about you. We askyou things like how you identify
yourself? Do you call yourself abusiness owner or a creative or
an entrepreneur. We asked youhow much money you're making in
your business and how many hoursyou spend working each week. And
we ask you what you'restruggling with. And year after
(02:13):
year, we've seen so many thingschange. For so long, the
majority of you identifiedyourselves as entrepreneurs. But
this past year, the balancetipped and more of you called
yourselves small business ownersinstead. And we've seen your
revenue shift to especially asour listenership has grown. Once
upon a time, we had more fulltime business owners here, most
(02:36):
of which were making more than$50,000 a year as our reach has
expanded. And we've brought moreand more side hustlers into our
fold. That number is actuallydept with more of you making 25
to $50,000. But at the sametime, those of you who were
making $50,000, a year fiveyears ago, are making up a good
chunk of bosses who are making$100,000 a year and well beyond
(03:00):
with quite a few of you aremaking over a million. This
proves to us that the normalconstraints of demographics for
our boss crowd don't apply tous, which we love. Because let's
break all the rules. Instead ofnormal demographics. You're here
because of what you want, whichis to gain control of your work
(03:20):
and live life on your own termsas a creative who wants to make
money doing what you love. Andthat transcends normal markers
like revenue. Which brings me towhat it is that you struggle
with, because the struggles ofour kinds of creative businesses
transcends revenue to and alsodoesn't matter how long you've
been in business and how manypeople are on your team. It
(03:43):
doesn't matter how much moneyyou make, how long you've been
your own boss, or what youraudience size is. Our main
business struggles are allbasically the same. We're all
facing them just at differentphases of business. Things like
marketing yourself, pivotingyour offerings, gaining more
customers or clients and keepingup with technology, our
struggles, whether you're brandnew, or you've been here for
(04:05):
over a decade. Why? Becausebusiness is a series of never
ending cycles. When you solve aproblem one day and move on to
the next you better bet thatthat first problem will pop up
again someday, over and overagain. Basically forever. I know
this is true because I've beenmy own boss for almost 15 years
(04:26):
at this point. Sure the scenerydefinitely changes. But I'm
still confronted with many ofthe same issues that I faced in
year two year five year 10. Ittook me a long time to come to
terms with that repetitiveness,and once I accepted it as just
how business goes, the sooner Ifelt more ease in the flow of my
entrepreneurial journey. And weknow these cycles are true for
(04:50):
you too. We see the proof ofthat in our surveys, as we see
bosses of all experience levelsspeaking on the same issues in
their business. There's nomatter how much revenue they're
making. And year after year,your biggest struggles stay the
exact same as creativeentrepreneurs and business
owners, or whatever it is thatyou want to call yourselves.
(05:12):
Your biggest struggles are timemanagement and marketing. Sure,
there are others too. But thosetwo are always the top ones, I
guess the top two. So when itcame time for me to choose the
topic for the being bossconference, I decided to address
what you've told me you needaddressed time management, and
marketing, from which I createdthe theme of make time to shine.
(05:36):
to dive into this topic, I handselected some of my favorite
bosses, many of which I knewpretty well as I navigated my
first conference, and some newfriends that I hadn't yet had
the pleasure to chat with, tocreate an event of highly
curated content that would leaveour attendees with a deeper
understanding of how they cantake control of their time and
(05:56):
better market themselves. Andwhat it is that they offer. Our
speakers or boss experts, as Ilike to call them, were brought
in to take part in a series ofconversations that would share
their experience from manydifferent viewpoints, lending to
our attendees ability to broadentheir perspectives of how they
can be better marketers andbetter managers of their own
(06:19):
time. Today, I'm going to besharing with you some highlights
of this event, because of whatwent down in our three days
together blew my mind. I willset the stage a bit and remind
those of you who have beenaround at least since the
beginning of the year that thisevent was supposed to be held in
New Orleans, my very favoritecity and the unofficial home of
(06:40):
being boss. As we've hosted manyevents there for our bosses.
Over the years, I knew that Iwanted that to be the place
where we held our firstconference. But a month before
we went live COVID hit and Imade the obvious call to take
this event online, we did a fastpivot. And what came out of it
(07:00):
was a roaring success. We allhad admittedly set our bars
pretty low. But as we do, bossesshowed up our attendees and our
boss experts had a blast, it wasinsanely engaging. And the
countless raving testimonialsprove that I succeeded in the
intention that I set when I hadto make this an online event. I
(07:24):
wanted it to be the coolestevent on the internet ever. Just
that pre Loki it blew even thehighest expectations that I had
out of the water, which makes meeven more excited to share this
recap with you here today in aneffort to help you make time to
shine to. To get started, I'llstart where our three days
(07:46):
began. We did actually begin ourfirst day with a grounding
meditation exercise by Amycurette. ski, you can listen to
way back in Episode Number 77.
So before we dive into the meatof our real session, feel free
to take a second to close youreyes to really get yourself in
the mood for a lot of valuablecontent to be soaked into your
(08:06):
brain. I'll give you a sec.
All right, now let's begin. Inthis first session we brought in
Tara McMillan, host of whatworks podcast and founder of the
What Works network, a longtimefriend and three time being boss
(08:28):
guest. She's joined us forepisodes 2192 and 154. Tara
joined us for a deeply impactfulkeynote called meaningful
marketing in Strange Times,because we live in very strange
times. And sometimes even justthe idea of marketing makes most
of our skin crawl. And thoughTara was speaking, at this point
(08:50):
directly about marketing thetime of COVID this information
holds true no matter whatstrange times you may find
yourself in, or also literallyanytime because creators are
notorious with feeling weirdabout marketing themselves. And
as usual, Tara was here to dropsome mics. The
Tara McMullin (09:18):
number one question or you know, it's sort
of a series of top questionsthat I've been getting and that
I've been seeing in ourcommunity. And so I'm sure it's
the same in this community aswell. Is Is it okay to market my
business or sell my offers rightnow? And you know, sometimes
This question comes up is how doI market my business or sell my
(09:38):
offers right now or I've got alaunch coming up or I had a
launch scheduled like, should Igo forward with it? Should I put
it on hold? Should I do itdifferently? And then, you know,
other people with, you know,ongoing Facebook ads? What do I
do with my Facebook ads? ShouldI keep running them? Should I
change them? What do I do? Solike I said, I don't have a
(10:00):
simple answer to this question.
You know, I really believe thatthat no question in business or
maybe almost no question inbusiness has a singular answer.
But I do have some ideas of whatI'm doing to shift up my
marketing and sales right nowhere in the weirds. And I also
have some some ideas of how wecan kind of reframe what we
(10:23):
think of when we think ofmarketing and selling, that
won't just get us through thistime and the after times, but I
really think can guide ourmarketing and sales for the long
term. And that, dare I say,should guide our marketing and
sales for the long term. Sothat's what we're going to talk
(10:44):
through today, I have six ideasfor you. I'm going to go dive
deep into each one of them. Butbefore I get into that, I want
to talk about how we perceivemarketing and selling sort of as
a as a whole. I have thought alot over the last few weeks
(11:04):
about how we've sort of ralliedto support bricks and mortar
businesses that are being hit sohard right now. And I've been
thinking about the fact thatbricks and mortar businesses
never question whether theyshould be selling or not. Right?
bricks and mortar businesses,pre Hanks Wilson, they put the
(11:28):
hours on their door, they unlockthe door every single day, they
welcome customers in, they selltheir products, those businesses
are selling and marketing everysingle day. And yet, when we
think about online business,whether you're running a service
(11:49):
based business or a digitalproduct, space business, you
know, and even if you're sellingphysical goods online, a lot of
us have gotten the message thatwe're supposed to do everything
but marketing and selling mostof the time, right? You know,
how many social media posts Do Ineed to send out before I put
one out that says I havesomething for sale? How many
(12:11):
emails Do I need to send beforeit's okay for me to mention the
product that I have for sale?
You know, how do I how do I getin touch with someone who I
think would be a great client,but without, you know, selling
or really marketing what I'mdoing, we have a we have this
idea that marketing and sales issomething that happens every so
(12:32):
often, as opposed to somethingthat happens as a default mode.
And I think this is anopportunity to
shift our default mode, I thinkthis is an opportunity to look
at marketing and selling assomething that can happen all
(12:52):
the time. It doesn't have tolook like you know, cramming
your products or services downpeople's necks, or throats not
next throat, the phrasesthroats. But it can look like
I'm getting comfortable with thefact that you have something for
sale, it can look like gettingcomfortable with the fact that
(13:12):
people want to buy, it can looklike getting comfortable talking
about the fact that you do infact, have a business. And not
just a pretty Instagram accountor a pretty Facebook page or
pretty Pinterest page. So a bigpart of what I'm going to talk
about today is actually gettinginto a state of mind, where
(13:35):
marketing and selling is yourdefault mode. Because and you
know, this is directly relatedto what I'm what I just said is
I actually believe we should beselling more right now, not
less. And what I mean by that isnot that we should be selling
more, but that we should be moredirect, we should be more
(13:57):
upfront, we should be morewilling to talk about the fact
that we have products orservices for sale than we
normally are. And here's why inan up economy in an economy
that's chugging along, wherepeople feel really comfortable,
where people are excited about,you know, going shopping or
(14:21):
shopping online. It is it ispossible to wait for people to
come to you, right. And ifyou've started your business
anywhere in the last, let's say,eight to nine years, you have
started your business in aneconomy where people are from
moderately to very excited aboutspending their money where they
(14:44):
feel moderately to verycomfortable with the way the
economy is not across the board,but many people that's the kind
of economy that you started yourbusiness in. And so a lot of the
advice that's come down the lineabout marketing and selling has
been from the perspective ofthat energised up comfortable
type of economy. And so that'swhy we get this advice where,
(15:07):
you know, we really, we got tobe careful about how much we
sell, we got to be careful abouthow much we talk about our
products and services, thepeople will come to us. In a
down economy, it doesn't meanthat our businesses have to
contract, it doesn't mean thatwe're going to take a hit. But
what it does mean is that weneed to connect our customers to
(15:32):
our products more explicitly, weneed to connect our potential
clients to our services moredirectly. We need to be willing
to go out and find the businessas opposed to sort of sitting
back and waiting for it to come.
Now you might, you might feellike, well, it's here, I haven't
been sitting back and waitingfor it to come, I get out there
(15:53):
and I hustle every day, I wantyou to take a look at the
tactics, the strategies, thetechniques that you've used
over, however long you've beenin business. And I want you to
take a look at those tacticsfrom the point of view of Have
you been putting yourself outthere in terms of your products
and services saying this is whatI have to offer? Or have you
(16:15):
just been putting yourself outthere because that's what I see
a lot. Right. And I'm speakingfrom, I'm not I am speaking from
the vantage point of watchinghundreds of small business
owners 1000s, really, on aregular basis. And I see them
putting themselves out there,right, I see them posting to
social media, I see them sendingemails, I see them doing coffee
(16:36):
chats and connecting withpeople. But I see it as more of
an exercise in just sort ofgeneral connection, general
awareness. And there's nothingwrong with that. But I do
believe at this point, we needto start shifting our
perspective and get more directget more explicit about what
we're doing. We need to bewilling to say, I have a
(16:57):
business and I have goods andproducts for sale. Here's what
they are.
Emily Thompson (17:08):
If you could have seen the chat flying
through that session, and youjust got a snippet of her hour
long keynote and q&a, it was thething to be impressed with. So
many lightbulb moments and someserious revelations were
flashing and how we as businessowners have a responsibility
that affects the economy. Andour willingness to show up even
(17:29):
when things are weird isdirectly tied to the health of
the economy, obviously on apersonal level, but on a global
level to now, Tara did go on tosharing her six principles of
sales and marketing in a crisis.
Along with more amazing insightsand of hearing the rest of that
session or any of the other onesI'm sharing here is appealing to
you, you can watch every sessionof the conference now and the
(17:49):
being boss clubhouse. I'll sharemore about that at the end, or
you can find the link in theshow notes. But for now, we're
moving on. So if we're talkingtime management and marketing,
and that was a marketing topic,then at let's level it out with
a focus on time. Our first panelof the event was called creating
time, where I was joined bythree of our boss experts Becky
(18:11):
Simpson, and artists and artdirector. She's joined us
previously for Episode 78 and162 Kelly, knight owner of
modern mystic a retail shop inAtlanta, Georgia, who joined us
for episode number 197. And aboss that I connected with
almost a year ago that I was soexcited to bring into the being
boss universe, Erica core day, adiversity Equity and Inclusion
(18:33):
coach and entrepreneur. Westarted the session with asking
everyone to assign a word totheir definition of time, which
is what I want to share with youhere. Because this is an
important first step to managingyour time. And I think you'll
see just what I mean when youhear all of these answers from
our boss experts as well as ourattendees.
(19:00):
So I know for everyone rightnow, time has become sort of
this very nebulous thing. But Ido believe I hardcore believe
that creative business ownershave had more experience in
breaking the mold of time tocreate careers and businesses on
their own terms than anyone elseout there right now. That
(19:23):
doesn't mean that we don't havea lot of work to do, or some
like rules that we still need tobreak. But I do think that we
have had more practice in sortof arranging our time. I keep
thinking of this as like, whatwe sort of have to do next is
bring order from chaos, likeeverything is chaotic at the
moment, but so was your idea forbuilding a business once upon a
(19:45):
time. And what you had to do wasstart bringing order to this
chaos. And that's kind of whatwe get to know it is what we get
to do now. Get to sort of putour lives and work back
together. And I think about thisoftentimes in the concept of
time. So before I get going inmy questions, I do want to ask
(20:05):
everyone over in the chat, whatis one word that you would use
to describe your currentrelationship with time? And then
I'll also pose that to ourpanelists. How do you guys are
what's one word that you woulduse to describe time, Becky,
(20:27):
you're like, chomping at thebit. What is it? I just
Becky Simpson (20:30):
but you want to hear it now? Yeah, I can't I
just last, first of all, lasttalk, I was like, all up in the
chat. And now I'm like, holdingmyself back in case it messes
with the audio and like, so muchI want to say the time it was a
few years ago, um, time, I just,I guess the word that came to
mind for me is choice. Because Iused to really, like, I mean, I
(20:54):
still am guilty of this, butit's more of a conscious thing
now is like, I'm so busy. Butthe reality is, everything I do
is a choice. And so I can getinto this more later. But it's
easy. Like I do work full time.
And I have all these otherprojects. So it is easy, or in
the past has been to be like,well, these people who get to do
(21:15):
this full time, they have somuch time to do all these things
I wish I could do. And but thereality is I'm choosing, I'm
choosing to spend my timecooking dinner or hanging with
my husband or working my fulltime job like these are all
things I get to do. And I'mchoosing to do so. We don't have
to be busy. We're making achoice to spend time where we
(21:36):
spend it.
Emily Thompson (21:40):
I love that choice. I haven't seen a lot of
choice over here. I've seen alot of inconsistent shattered.
Oh, Mary Beth blacked out whathave you been doing?
Becky Simpson (21:50):
Can I like rewind, especially after the
last talk? I understand rightnow. And I don't have kids COVID
life. I don't mean that to soundtone deaf like it. There
actually are not a lot of placeswith the things right now. So I
guess that's more of agenerality
Emily Thompson (22:07):
is your word.
It's my world.
Becky Simpson (22:10):
It's my world.
Acknowledging that things arecrazy right now. And there are a
lot of things that we didn'tchoose. So
Emily Thompson (22:16):
yeah. Right, there's still some choice. Okay,
I like it perfect. You
Kelley Knight (22:22):
can about you, I was thinking of the word ample,
which is a luxury. And I havereally almost probably never
felt that way before. But we'rein a brick and mortar business
scenario. And so since we'repaused right now, it really does
open up for me a lot of time.
And then also sort of likepsychic space. And our business,
(22:44):
we're open at 1030 11am to 9pmon almost every day, except for
Sunday, 363 days a year. And sothere's always someone working,
there's always like an employeethat has a need, or you have to
have this sort of likeheightened awareness that we're
always operating. And just justshutting that down has given me
(23:06):
so much just sort of space torelax. I've never had that
experience before. But granted,also I am childless, we don't
have any kids in the house. Andso my time really does feel like
it's my own currently. And I'mkind of working through a little
bit of guilt, like milking that,like it's kind of it's
(23:26):
enjoyable.
Emily Thompson (23:29):
I think it's an important mindset shift. I mean,
because you're a brick andmortar store is shut right now,
like closed down. And also, thisis one of those scenarios, guys.
We're like a business is closed.
And granted, you still havewebsite and stuff, but a huge
part of Kelly's revenue streamis non operational at the
moment. So you could just aseasily say wasted Hmm, you know,
but like, that's not the choicethat you've made it you have not
(23:53):
said wasted. You said What wasyour word? I'm sorry, your full
time field. So I think it'simportant. I like that. Thank
you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm Erica,what about you?
Erica Courdae (24:08):
It's funny, I'm like watching the chat. So if
you see me like squirrel I do.
There's a part of me that yes,choices there. Because there is
that actionable place of this iswhat I am choosing to do or what
I'm not choosing, choosing todo. Part of it. Um, it feels
like for me, it's kind of goingto be the word now. Because
(24:29):
there are points when it's thekid. So this is what I have to
do now, a six and an eight yearold that are both going on 37
and 40. So having to figure thatout and you know, with business,
my default is always to go thereso I can very easily just get
absorbed in it. So I have toalso create boundaries to say I
(24:49):
am choosing now to go in mealprep or I'm choosing now to go
sit and do nothing. Whatever itis that I am being called to do
now is kind of what it has to bebecause the way that you're
feeling is an ebb and a flow. Sotrying to honor that, and not
getting stuck in the shoulds.
(25:11):
And I have to and I ought to,and well, why am I not? what is
now called for?
Emily Thompson (25:19):
That's powerful practice and mindfulness, for
sure. Probably more so than youever do. Like, are you always
thinking about time now? Or isthat just a recent thing?
Erica Courdae (25:30):
No, because I think before it was, Oh, of
course, I'm going to get up inthe morning and take the kids
and I can go work out, ofcourse, I'm going to come back
and I can work and they're notgoing to be here and I can do
whatever I need to do before Ihave to get them. Of course, I'm
gonna go into the studio, and Ihave clients, but I have a
podcast interview, and I knowthat I can do these things, that
(25:51):
surety isn't there in the sameways that it was. So being able
to say, Okay, I'm not going tolet that derail me. And what do
I still need to do to find a wayto be grounded in a time where
you're like, what the hamsandwich is happening to me
right now. To figure it out, andthat's part of trying to figure
it out. And that doesn't meanthat it always feels good there
(26:12):
at times, it now is like, Whatthe fuck, however, it passes.
So,
Emily Thompson (26:19):
right. So all we can do is now
the most important lesson thatyou can learn when it comes to
taking a draw of your time is totake control of your mindset
around time, whether you'redoing that through focusing on
now, like Erica, or recognizingyour choice, like Becky, or
(26:42):
simply choosing the positiveaspect of your situation like
Kelly, you create time bymanaging your mindset around it,
and then setting your prioritiesand doing the work. Speaking of
time, I'm a big fan of notwasting it, of all the resources
you have at your disposal. Timeis the one that you can't make
more of, it's finite. So whenyou're wasting it, you're
(27:05):
wasting the most precious thingof all, which is why I mindfully
use tools and systems in mybusiness that save me time or,
in a sense, give me back mytime. For example, I could spend
way too much time and back andforth email chains, with my
clients trying to find the besttime to have a meeting. Or I can
take back that time by justsending them a link. Instead of
(27:28):
spending even five minutes in asequel email, or maybe 15
minutes. If we're both busyfolks, I can send the link in
about a second and instead usethat time to do literally
anything else. What tool do Iuse to save this time for
myself? acuity scheduling, Iwouldn't call it a time machine.
But if it works with my calendarto schedule meetings and saves
(27:50):
me a boatload of time too. Icould see how one might think
that it is acuity scheduling,the scheduling assistant that
works 24 seven behind the scenesto fill your calendar so that
you don't have to, for a limitedtime only get 45 days of acuity
scheduling absolutely free. nocredit card required by going to
acuity scheduling, calm slashbeing boss. Okay, let's flip
(28:16):
back over to marketing for aminute. And this next clip I
want to share with you a peekinto our creative marketing
strategies panel, which wasmaybe my favorite session of the
event. I could actually probablysay that about all of them. In
this session, I was joined againby Kelly Knight, the owner of
modern mystic and Tara McMillanwho gave that keynote as well as
(28:38):
automotive void, a lawyer forentrepreneurs who has joined us
previously on episode number 73.
These days, if you attend to anysort of marketing talk,
especially when a bunch ofonline business owners are
around, you're going to spendthe entire time hearing about
social media, what's working onInstagram, the most use of
Pinterest, how to make Facebookwork for you. Boring. Why?
(28:58):
Because business is not justsocial media. For years, I felt
the business marketing space hasbeen so inundated with ever
changing info about what'sworking right now on social
media, that you forget thatthere were 1000s of years of
business that was done beforethe internet. So when I call
(29:19):
this creative marketingstrategies, it was a little
tongue in cheek because what Ireally meant was marketing
strategies that aren't socialmedia, or as Tara McMillan
snidely called them regularmarketing strategies. And I
challenged the boss experts toshare the tactics they use to
market in their highlysuccessful businesses that have
(29:40):
absolutely nothing to do withsocial media. Feel free to enter
a gasp here. So to get us in,one of our community members
went straight in with afollowing question for a boss
experts. Can you give us somereal life examples of creative
marketing that you've done? Offsocial media and response,
(30:00):
autumn takes the lead. Yeah, so
Autumn Witt Boyd (30:11):
one thing I wanted to talk about that came
up earlier was cold pitching.
And I don't necessarily like dototally cold pitching. But what
I have been very intentionalabout and this was something
like I'm Oji being boss. So Idon't know what episode this
was, but very long time ago,Emily and Kathleen talked about
having like a hot shit 100 orhot shit 200 List of like dreamy
dream clients, so people youwould love to work with. So I
(30:32):
created one like years and yearsago. And every maybe once a
quarter or so once or twice ayear, at least I sit down and I
look at it. And I try and seewho am I one or two people away
from. So as my network hasexpanded, I now am really
intentional about trying toconnect with those people and
asking for connections. So Ihave found, like Kathleen said,
(30:56):
sending out a totally cold pitchrarely ends up anywhere good.
But sending out a slightly warmpitch or asking a friend for an
introduction or saying, youknow, I'll be in their city, is
there a way we can all gettogether so it feels more
natural. I mean, I sent Emily acold email, I don't know if you
remember this, I do. But I wasjust a podcast listener. And she
(31:16):
was moving to Chattanooga andhad mentioned it on the podcast.
That's where I live. And so Ijust sent her an email saying,
hey, like, I don't want to be acrazy person. But if you need
anything, let me know, like, I'mhappy to be helpful. And we had
coffee, and then it kind of, youknow, turn into a client
relationship. So I've done thata lot, because my business is
low volume, high touchrelationships. And so I don't
(31:40):
need a million clients, I need,you know, 100 really great ones.
So you know, I've built thatvery intentionally. So my
favorite creative thing thatI've done, though, was I put
together we call it our milliondollar dinner, and I invited, I
was in San Diego already. And Iwas one person away from a lot
of the people I wanted to workwith, who also live in San
(32:03):
Diego. And so I really, likekind of leaned on some of my
friends and clients to invitethese people I was really
wanting to get to meet and wethrew a beautiful dinner. And
that's how I landed AmyPorterfield as a client, like
she was friends with some of myclients. And I sat myself across
from the table from her and, andeven that was kind of though I
(32:24):
didn't land or that night likeit was several months later,
that was the beginning of arelationship. So that's what I
said, when I've kind of I'llcold pitch our relationship more
than trying to cold pitch aclient,
Emily Thompson (32:36):
if that makes sense. And it will say to
autumn, like we've gotten toknow each other over the years,
and she is a master at nurturingthese in person relationships
and not just not just peopleshe's meeting online, but she's
very active in her localcommunity. And
Autumn Witt Boyd (32:55):
going out for brunch, that's what we did,
right? She's
Emily Thompson (32:58):
always brunch and cocktails and dinner. She
lives a fab life. I'm doing allthese fun things. And, and
again, it's not even so muchnurturing people who will
directly turn into clients, butthose people will rep you to
anyone and everyone they meetwho needs you. So it's also
(33:18):
really setting yourself up for avery powerful word of mouth
marketing engine that I think isjust as powerful, if not
actually more so than justnurturing those relationships so
that those convert,
Autumn Witt Boyd (33:32):
hey, I want to hear what Kelly has to say no,
Emily Thompson (33:34):
right.
Kelley Knight (33:36):
So we're a consumer facing business. And a
lot of our marketing is tiedaround building community and
education. Because sometimes theproducts that we sell like a
ritual kid or, or even crystals,people aren't really sure how to
engage with them. So I think oneof the most successful creative
ideas that we've beenimplementing is our Sunday
school classes. So every Sundayat 11 o'clock before the market
(33:59):
opens, we open our doors, webring in an expert on some sort
of topic for a free class to ourpublic. And they teach for an
hour and then we record that andthen we push it out as a
podcast. So we get distributionfor our sort of our online
remote community. And then wealso build real life
interactions with our in person.
Customers who become super fansthrough this engagement. And
(34:22):
then what we've learned is, weusually sell about $1,000 or
more of product when we firstopened on a Sunday. So instead
of start opening at noon with$0, we're usually starting
anywhere between 1000 or 11 $100in sales, which across you know,
50 to 52 weeks a year. That's anextra maybe $50,000 of revenue
(34:43):
every year through thiscommunity engagement,
opportunity that creates a lotof relationship building
goodwill, but then also convertsto actual dollars. So I would
say that's probably one of thebest ideas that we've Had and
you know, I'm I post the podcastwhich is loosely like I record
(35:03):
an introduction and then we gointo the live class. But it
feels like some of our customersthat can't experience in person
really feel like they are partof our community and it feels
hyperlocal and customized. Andthey're listening in on this
sort of experience. So I thinkthat's been a really great tool,
or just one activation. I'vedone that we've now we've done
(35:27):
it for over a year, and it'sreally been working.
Emily Thompson (35:31):
Yeah, and this is just a great example of a
product business that's usinginformation marketing. Yeah,
like, plain and simple. So Ioftentimes I hear product makers
are like, I don't know what Ican't do or don't can't do a
blog, what am I just going toshow myself in the studio? And
like, yes, you can absolutely dothat. I think that's great.
There's so many ways for you tosupport your community, and or
your customers, because thoseare not always the same thing,
(35:54):
through providing valuablecontent that supports the sort
of lifestyle that your brand isthere to cultivate. So I love
that you do that. I think that'sa great way for you to bridge
the gap between online andoffline.
Kelley Knight (36:08):
Yeah, definitely.
And then there was someone justasked him, I'm sorry, I can't
stop looking at the commentswith the app, how it is that I
promote the in store classes.
And I would say, it really isanother marketing tactic. That's
super old school for us. But wehave human beings in our store
who talked to other people. Andthat's how we get the message
out. And, and we spend a lot oftime cultivating and hiring and
(36:33):
educating our staff so thatthey're super knowledgeable. And
it's part of the training wherethey mentioned, if you're a
local that when they're checkingout, they'll say, because we
have a lot of tourists in ourbuilding, too. It's a
destination. So it's part of thetraining at closing to ask them,
are you local? Or are youvisiting and if they're local,
then we tell them about theSunday school class. And if
(36:54):
they're visiting, we tell themabout the podcast. And so either
way, we're continuing therelationship with the with the
customers.
Emily Thompson (37:02):
Yeah. Tara?
Tara McMullin (37:05):
Well, it's funny, because Kathleen, just posted
marketing tactic have a goodproduct service or offering and
I was totally going to say, youknow, I have come up with all
sorts of creative marketingstrategies over the last decade,
and most of them have been like,magic, but it's so true. But you
(37:26):
know, what it works every timeis when I develop some sort of
new product, some sort of, oreven just like a campaign around
something that even alreadyexists. Selling what I actually
offer has always grown myaudience. And I think it's
something that we forget,because again, like this agenda
(37:50):
of bro marketing is like buildyour audience, build your
audience, build your audience,and I am all for building
audiences. And also, the fastestway I found to build an audience
is to market a product and sella product. Because people, you
know, people understandimmediately, oh, this is what
she does. This is why I shouldfollow her. This is what she has
(38:13):
to offer what they have tooffer. Whereas when I'm just
kind of talking obliquely aboutrandom things tangentially
related to what I do, or what Isell, while while an individual
thing can be a hit, or likepeople can be into it, it just
doesn't have that samelegitimate urgency and that kind
(38:36):
of a cute that sort ofencapsulation of what I offer a
value that just sellingsomething does. And so I'm not
saying the actual sales processis what builds my audience. But
the the I do have what Iwhatever I'm putting out around
(38:57):
a product or service that isclear and direct, and just very
tangible. That's what builds myaudience and markets, my
business to a new group ofpeople.
Autumn Witt Boyd (39:11):
I kind of build on that. Yeah, what we
looked at, so we use a CRM, acustomer client, relationship
management software. And so I doa lot of tracking, I enjoy the
data. Even though like Tara,it's not always good data. But
we always ask our new clients oranyone who contacts us, where
did you hear about us? Or wheredid you find us? And I, you
(39:33):
know, I had been doing thepodcast for two years, and I do
all this social media and blah,blah, blah. And I looked at that
data about a year ago and it waslike 98% referrals or some like
bananas number and I was like,Oh, great, like I'm and it's not
that all that other energy iswasted, because that's
supporting the referrals. Butwhen I saw that, I looked at
everything I was like, well, wereally need to focus more on
(39:54):
referrals then. So we built ainto our customer service
process like it is now Askingfor referrals is part of our
like the end as we wrap upprojects that's now kind of
systematized.
Tara McMullin (40:07):
Yeah. And to bounce off of that, I often hear
people say, Well, I really needto work on my marketing game, I
really need to work on mymarketing game, all of my
marketing is where are all of mybusiness comes from word of
mouth and referrals. It's like,wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, you have the HolyGrail marketing. And yes, it's
nice to have other channels. Andyes, word of mouth. And referral
(40:32):
can be slightly less predictablethan, say, a Facebook ad that
you know, is converting at acertain rate. But like, if you
have word of mouth andreferrals, you have a marketing
strategy, and you shouldoptimize the shit out of that.
Kelley Knight (40:47):
I would agree with that, too. It's the same
thing with the retail situationranks I'm saying we are
basically when I say it'sorganic growth, that means
fucking word of mouth, peoplelike us, and then they bring
their friends. And when theycome to visit Atlanta, they make
a big deal out of their way tosee us. And then they bring
their mom and she comes intotown because where their
favorite place where their bestfriend where they're expert,
(41:09):
where they're educator. And sothat's really why we haven't
done pretty much any paidmarketing, and we're going into
your four. Because that's howwe've been growing, it takes a
while for people to know aboutyou, and then people just start
snowball. So from a, you know,cost like a customer service
perspective, like payingattention to customer service
(41:30):
and the experience that they'rehaving with you. And the getting
those referrals even in a retailenvironment or a product
business. It's it's all thesame.
Emily Thompson (41:44):
So the secret isn't about cracking the
Instagram code or being great atFacebook, it's about delivering
a product or service that peoplecan't help talking about because
it is so fantastic. As TaraMcMillan called it, it's the
holy grail of business. That'snot a monumental discovery. But
it might sound fresh if you'vehad your head in the algorithms
(42:04):
for too long. The rest of thesession went on to share other
quote unquote, creative tacticsthat really dove into a common
theme. Just be a human who hassomething of value to sell, and
know the people you're sellingit to, but mostly bring that
being a human back into yourplans for marketing your
(42:26):
business. We know that a lot ofbosses here want to create, sell
and market what they know, bethat in the form of an ebook, an
online course or a membershipsite. And this isn't just for
coaches and educators. But asyou just heard from modern
mistake can really be great forproduct businesses too. But as a
(42:47):
coach myself, I know that whatoften holds bosses back from
writing and launching that ebookonline course or membership site
isn't because of a lack ofcontent or direction, but from
some serious frosty feelingsabout your ability to figure out
the tech. Well, our friends atpodia are here to help you do
that in a low impact way thatpushes frauding feelings to the
(43:09):
curb, and brings your expertiseand content to the forefront.
podia is a place where you cancreate courses, digital
downloads, and memberships allin one place. It's a hassle free
way for creators to earn aliving from their passion, get
14 days free with no credit cardrequired by going to podia.com
slash bosses. Okay, it's timefor me to start wrapping up this
(43:35):
little recap, and choosing onemore clip from our three days
together was a really hard job.
But before I do that, let meremind you that if you want to
hear the rest of these sessions,or any of the 19th sessions from
our three day conference, youcan access each of them now in
the being balls clubhouse, whichis the second tier of the being
boss community. In this space,you get all of the perks of the
community including the memberstable Monday meetups, which is
(43:57):
a weekly check in zoom callavailable to all of our bosses,
plus extra clubhouse onlycontent like monthly clubhouse
conversations, which are livecalls featuring a special guest
and all of the conferencevideos, you can learn more and
sign up at being boss club slashcommunity. And I do also have a
bit of news. This conference wassuch a smashing hit that I have
(44:22):
decided to do something we'vebeen sitting on on our dream
list for a very long time. Infact, I can totally just thank
COVID for the push to doing anonline conference because we've
been talking about doing themfor years and just never found
the right moment. Well, we didit and we loved it and our
attendees loved it. Seriouslythe feedback that we got from
(44:44):
our attendees sent us over themoon. They loved how highly
interactive it was, howconversational it felt, and how
engaged they were able to bethey live jazzed and so did we.
And so we're doing it again onOctober 8, ninth and 10th. So go
ahead and put In your calendar,and if you'd like to be among
the first to know when ourvirtual Tickets are available,
(45:04):
you can go to being boss club tosign up for our email list.
Unknown (45:10):
Now,
Emily Thompson (45:10):
let's get back to the good stuff. In this next
session, a session that tookplace on day two of the
conference, I was joined byKathleen Sr. Tara St. Is co
founder bring creative whoyou've heard from here on the
bean boss podcast three timesbefore on episodes 56 109 and
175. Along with Becky Simpson,who you heard from an earlier
clip, Lynn market Dan, who's thechief marketing officer of
(45:34):
podia, and a being boss vacationalum, as well as Vivian Kay, a
business coach and founder ofKinky Curly yackey, you'll
actually be getting a fullintroduction to Vivian in our
next podcast episode as she wasour live podcast guest at the
conference. We got together fora panel discussion around your
number one marketing asset. Andspoiler alert, your number one
(45:56):
marketing asset is you. Myintention for this session was
to bring in this particular mixof boss experts in very
different industries, but with adeep understanding of harnessing
the power of your ownpersonality to build a powerful
brand. Why? Because in our manysessions leading up to this, we
uncovered again and again thattoo many automations and funnels
(46:18):
algorithms, they're not servingour businesses, if anything, too
much of them makes ourbusinesses stop working. So how
do we bring that ever importanthuman element back into our
businesses, to hype up our ownvaluable work to connect with
our customers to make the impactthat we want to make? Well,
here's something for you toconsider. No one will ever be
(46:39):
more passionate about your work,then you show them that you are
about your work. This standstrue whether you're doing your
own marketing, or you've hiredout someone to do your marketing
for you. Your story, yourpersonality, your passion, is
the fuel that propels yourbusiness forward. You set the
pace and everyone else from yourteam to your customers will
(47:01):
follow your lead. The questionof passion came up in our
marketing panel and this is theclip that I want to play for
you. And attendee asked isadding your passion into your
brand positioning a way topersonalize your business or
does passion belong somewhereelse? Vivian takes the will here
sharing the role that herpassion and ultimately our
(47:22):
purpose has played in buildingboth her product and her
coaching business.
Unknown (47:32):
Think it's a way to personalize Yeah, only because I
know for me personally I couldlike even with kinky, curly Yak.
Yeah, I really don't care abouthair. It's so what my product is
his hair extensions, I don'treally care about that. But I
care about the I'm passionateabout giving people confidence.
So same thing when it comes tomy coaching ecommerce clients. I
(47:55):
really don't care about thetechnic, the technical stuff
about the SEO and all thatstuff. What I care about is
giving my my my clients theconfidence to make the great
decisions for their ownbusiness. Because that's really
what a lot of people arelacking. It's not that you can
go and learn technical stuffanywhere. But you need someone
who's been through all thatstuff, to give you the
(48:19):
confidence to make decisions foryour own business. So I think
that Yeah, the passion becausethat's what I'm passionate about
is giving people confidence. SoI think that Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Like
Becky Simpson (48:32):
it's the passion intersects with, like your
perfect audience. Like you. Imight be Miss interpreting this
a little bit too. But like, Ithink there's, you know, if
it's, we don't have to shareeverything, either that we do or
that we're into, and if itdoesn't serve us, okay, like
(48:53):
rewind, I used to, like, shareeverything on Instagram ish.
Like, I just felt like I took Isaw what everyone was doing. And
I was like, I'm gonna be thatmaybe that would be that. And of
course, that's the recipe forjust like not, it's not really
serving anyone or myself. And soI now can be passionate about
things, but I don't have toshare them. Because that's not
(49:14):
going to serve the people in myworld. But if it's like Vivian's
saying then of course, that'slike the best is then to share
our passions, then it makes usnot just this like lukewarm.
They person applies toeverything. It's like we can
then specialize and focus andreach the perfect people and
(49:37):
drive a deeper connection. Yeah,I
Emily Thompson (49:39):
think you're being spot on there with sort of
curating which passions you'resharing because I think that all
the creatives here are highlymulti passionate, like, so many
Maltese. So many possibilities,right? And I think that if you
are sharing all of them in oneplace, it can be very confusing.
And Ooh, can we make an Cakeanalogy here. It's like if you
(50:02):
have all the ingredients foryour cake, and you put them all
into your cake, like, no one'sgonna want to eat that cake. But
if you choose the rightingredients that support the
kind of cake that you're tryingto bake, then it's going to be
amazing. So yeah, I think that'sa wonderful little additional
tidbit on that,
Unknown (50:21):
for sure. Can I just jump in and also say I think
passion is different fordifferent people. So if passion
is showing up in your personalbrand, that we all sort of think
that I'm supposed to be soinspiring and purpose filled
and, and encouraging. And likethat's showing passion, because
you hear that word, and youthink that's what other people's
passions are. But for somepeople, your passion is being
(50:44):
logical and even keeled. Andyou're not Captain Kirk, your
Spock, and your passion showingup with a little eyebrow, right?
You're not even a cake. You'relike a, you're savory. I don't
know, you're a pork chop, yourlittle red berry on some pork
chop, right. And so I just wantto acknowledge people out there
(51:04):
who do not have not everyonepersonal brand, even with their
passions showing up and wearingtheir passion on their sleeve,
is that, you know, maybe you'renot super woowoo, maybe you're
not super intuitive. Maybeyou're not kind of more of those
really inspiring things. You'remore even keeled and reassuring.
Or maybe you're funny, you know.
So there's just different waysthat people show up in their
(51:25):
personal brand.
Emily Thompson (51:34):
We flesh out that question with a few more
food puns that I won't make youlisten to. But I think that you
get the point. And I'm actuallygoing to pair this with another
clip from this session. See, Itold you that it was hard to
choose just one where ourpanelists address a question
from a jewelry maker. Hey, MaryBeth, about sharing your
personality or being authenticwith a strategy. Because without
(51:57):
a strategy, you're not on a pathto get out of your efforts, what
you most desire. You'll hearBecky kick off this answer,
which is then wrapped up byVivian.
Becky Simpson (52:12):
To me, strategy is more about being mindful than
having like a full on strategy.
It's like Len was saying likeserving them in a way that's
relevant. I also feel like ingeneral, a way to be authentic.
Like we want to be authentic. Wewant to be our most like the
most us but we're a fish inwater. So we're like, What am
(52:33):
Who am I? I feel like just doingbeing kind of paying attention
to things like how do you textyour friends? Like, Are you
someone who uses exclamationmarks all the time in real life
to your friends than you that'show you can like type your
captions, but I kind of a littledrier humor or you know, it's
like, talk to I tried it I tryto do this is talk to say my
(52:57):
followers, like I'm texting afriend use talk the way I would
talk and you use the themes andthe conversation and all that
stuff that I would use. Sothat's like one like little
snippet of a way to look at thatcorner of it.
Emily Thompson (53:16):
This actually reminds me of been watching some
Netflix with the kid where we'rewatching heroes, which is very
exciting. You guys remember thatone from like, mid 2000s.
Anyway, um, there's a commercialI'm seeing over and over again
is Rachael rays, new dog foodcalled nutrish. Again, almost
basically just recite the wholething for you. But like opening
(53:38):
up, she's like, Hi, friends. Andshe's just like jolly little
Rachael Ray. And she's like, Ilove good eaters. Anyway, it's
Rachael Ray shows up talkingabout dog food, and you're ready
to buy it, because she's justtalking to you, like, you know,
you're just they're having dogfood dinner with her or
whatever. Um, sometimes I liketo look at sort of very personal
(53:59):
brands like that, and see howthey're showing up for something
as big and official as like anational ad campaign, because
usually, we can pare that downto how it is that we're doing it
in the same way if you'd like toexcellent. We know Rachael Ray
is probably texting with so manyexclamation points. And when
she's showing up for these ads,like she's all exclamation
(54:20):
points. I think it can be supersimilar to how it is that how it
is that those people areshowing, we can look both ways
both look at how you're talkingto your friends, but also sort
of look at how those biggerpeople are bigger are also
bringing their personalitiesinto their brand as well because
(54:40):
they're doing it you just haveto pay attention. Vivian, do you
have any thoughts on personalbrand for product people,
Unknown (54:49):
specifically? Um, it's all I think it's all about the
story, especially if you're ifyou're, you know, if you're a
jewelry maker, there's got to bea story as to why you started
making jewelry. And that's whatpeople that's what resonates
with people, people don'tnecessarily buy the jewelry,
they're buying the person behindthe jewelry and the story and
the lifestyle and the emotionsthat that is tied to the
(55:13):
product. So when you tell thestory, and you tell it in your
own voice, because like Lensaid, you just by being you,
you're gonna attract your owntribe. So whether they like they
don't like you, then they canpiss off and go by, you know,
jewelry from someone else, butthe people who, who love you and
love your story, and everythingabout you resonates with them,
(55:34):
they will be your bit. And thoseare actually the best, because
they will be your biggest fans,they will go and tell everybody
in their mother about you. So Ithink telling a story is super
important when you're selling aproduct, especially when you're
selling a personal product, ifyou're just selling I don't
(55:54):
know, like if you're justselling light bulbs for the sake
of selling light bulbs, thenyeah, you're not really gonna,
you're not gonna really havemuch success. But if you're
selling something, because youwant it to solve a problem, you
you know, you're you're solvingpeople's pain points, then it's
the perfect opportunity to tellthe story why. And that's what
will stick with people, they maynot be ready to buy your product
right now. But they're going toremember Yeah, you know, I
(56:18):
remember that girl that told methe stories. She said she her
grandmother used to make allthat resonates with me because I
miss my Grandma, I'm going to gobuy her jewelry. That's that's
really what it is. That's whatit's about.
Emily Thompson (56:35):
In order to connect with your customers, you
have to show them who you are,if I may say so. You have to
allow yourself to shine. Yeah, Itaste that cheese. And with
that, it's time for me toofficially wrap this up. But
first, I need to share somegratitude to all of our bosses
who shared these three days withus from your kitchen tables,
(56:57):
your couches, your beds from allover the world. Thank you for
navigating the switch to anonline conference with me. I
know it wasn't New Orleans. ButI think we can all agree this
was a blast. Thank you forcoming and hanging out with me
for showing up for the kind ofengagement and connection I
never thought was possible in avirtual setting. Even though I
knew you wouldn't disappoint,you still managed to blow me and
(57:19):
all the boss experts away withyour presence. And your follow
through has continued to impressme from Kundalini Yoga
challenges to follow up bookclubs. I'm so glad to know that
even remotely this conferencewas just the beginning of so
many relationships, and so muchdevelopment of your business and
your lives. And to all the bossexperts and to my team. Thank
(57:40):
you for showing up ready todeliver and deliver you did, we
made something seriously awesometogether. And to leave you
listeners with a littlesomething. I want to share a
couple of key takeaways fromdays of chats with some of the
most badass people I know and anentire community of creative
business owners. First, focus oncreating something of real value
(58:02):
more than figuring out any kindof tactic. Next, once you've got
that amazing offering, don't beafraid to sell yourself ever.
Also, our work has a farreaching impact. And when the
world has thrown a wrench ineverything, get back to the
basics. And finally, don't letthe trappings of online business
(58:25):
Jade you just be human. Thanksfor listening. And hey, if you
want more resources, we'retalking worksheets, free
trainings in person meetups andvacations and more. Go to our
website at www dot beam boss dotclub. Do the work the boss
I'm Emily Thompson. And I'm Kathleen
Shannon. And this is being boss.
In this episode of being boss,join me as I fill your ear so
some big balls that wisdom fromthe wide range of creative
business owners who joined me onthe virtual stage of our being
balls conference in April,you'll hear from Tara McMillan
(00:24):
on why you still need to marketyour business, even when times
are weird. From auto went voidon a very creative marketing
idea, Vivian Kay on theimportance of displaying your
passion and your business, andso many more. As always, you'll
find all the tools, books andlinks we reference on the show
notes at WWW dot being boss dotclub.
Freshbooks (00:47):
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Emily Thompson (01:52):
Every fall we do a survey of our listeners to
find out more about you. We askyou things like how you identify
yourself? Do you call yourself abusiness owner or a creative or
an entrepreneur. We asked youhow much money you're making in
your business and how many hoursyou spend working each week. And
we ask you what you'restruggling with. And year after
(02:13):
year, we've seen so many thingschange. For so long, the
majority of you identifiedyourselves as entrepreneurs. But
this past year, the balancetipped and more of you called
yourselves small business ownersinstead. And we've seen your
revenue shift to especially asour listenership has grown. Once
upon a time, we had more fulltime business owners here, most
(02:36):
of which were making more than$50,000 a year as our reach has
expanded. And we've brought moreand more side hustlers into our
fold. That number is actuallydept with more of you making 25
to $50,000. But at the sametime, those of you who were
making $50,000, a year fiveyears ago, are making up a good
chunk of bosses who are making$100,000 a year and well beyond
(03:00):
with quite a few of you aremaking over a million. This
proves to us that the normalconstraints of demographics for
our boss crowd don't apply tous, which we love. Because let's
break all the rules. Instead ofnormal demographics. You're here
because of what you want, whichis to gain control of your work
(03:20):
and live life on your own termsas a creative who wants to make
money doing what you love. Andthat transcends normal markers
like revenue. Which brings me towhat it is that you struggle
with, because the struggles ofour kinds of creative businesses
transcends revenue to and alsodoesn't matter how long you've
been in business and how manypeople are on your team. It
(03:43):
doesn't matter how much moneyyou make, how long you've been
your own boss, or what youraudience size is. Our main
business struggles are allbasically the same. We're all
facing them just at differentphases of business. Things like
marketing yourself, pivotingyour offerings, gaining more
customers or clients and keepingup with technology, our
struggles, whether you're brandnew, or you've been here for
(04:05):
over a decade. Why? Becausebusiness is a series of never
ending cycles. When you solve aproblem one day and move on to
the next you better bet thatthat first problem will pop up
again someday, over and overagain. Basically forever. I know
this is true because I've beenmy own boss for almost 15 years
(04:26):
at this point. Sure the scenerydefinitely changes. But I'm
still confronted with many ofthe same issues that I faced in
year two year five year 10. Ittook me a long time to come to
terms with that repetitiveness,and once I accepted it as just
how business goes, the sooner Ifelt more ease in the flow of my
entrepreneurial journey. And weknow these cycles are true for
(04:50):
you too. We see the proof ofthat in our surveys, as we see
bosses of all experience levelsspeaking on the same issues in
their business. There's nomatter how much revenue they're
making. And year after year,your biggest struggles stay the
exact same as creativeentrepreneurs and business
owners, or whatever it is thatyou want to call yourselves.
(05:12):
Your biggest struggles are timemanagement and marketing. Sure,
there are others too. But thosetwo are always the top ones, I
guess the top two. So when itcame time for me to choose the
topic for the being bossconference, I decided to address
what you've told me you needaddressed time management, and
marketing, from which I createdthe theme of make time to shine.
(05:36):
to dive into this topic, I handselected some of my favorite
bosses, many of which I knewpretty well as I navigated my
first conference, and some newfriends that I hadn't yet had
the pleasure to chat with, tocreate an event of highly
curated content that would leaveour attendees with a deeper
understanding of how they cantake control of their time and
(05:56):
better market themselves. Andwhat it is that they offer. Our
speakers or boss experts, as Ilike to call them, were brought
in to take part in a series ofconversations that would share
their experience from manydifferent viewpoints, lending to
our attendees ability to broadentheir perspectives of how they
can be better marketers andbetter managers of their own
(06:19):
time. Today, I'm going to besharing with you some highlights
of this event, because of whatwent down in our three days
together blew my mind. I willset the stage a bit and remind
those of you who have beenaround at least since the
beginning of the year that thisevent was supposed to be held in
New Orleans, my very favoritecity and the unofficial home of
(06:40):
being boss. As we've hosted manyevents there for our bosses.
Over the years, I knew that Iwanted that to be the place
where we held our firstconference. But a month before
we went live COVID hit and Imade the obvious call to take
this event online, we did a fastpivot. And what came out of it
(07:00):
was a roaring success. We allhad admittedly set our bars
pretty low. But as we do, bossesshowed up our attendees and our
boss experts had a blast, it wasinsanely engaging. And the
countless raving testimonialsprove that I succeeded in the
intention that I set when I hadto make this an online event. I
(07:24):
wanted it to be the coolestevent on the internet ever. Just
that pre Loki it blew even thehighest expectations that I had
out of the water, which makes meeven more excited to share this
recap with you here today in aneffort to help you make time to
shine to. To get started, I'llstart where our three days
(07:46):
began. We did actually begin ourfirst day with a grounding
meditation exercise by Amycurette. ski, you can listen to
way back in Episode Number 77.
So before we dive into the meatof our real session, feel free
to take a second to close youreyes to really get yourself in
the mood for a lot of valuablecontent to be soaked into your
(08:06):
brain. I'll give you a sec.
All right, now let's begin. Inthis first session we brought in
Tara McMillan, host of whatworks podcast and founder of the
What Works network, a longtimefriend and three time being boss
(08:28):
guest. She's joined us forepisodes 2192 and 154. Tara
joined us for a deeply impactfulkeynote called meaningful
marketing in Strange Times,because we live in very strange
times. And sometimes even justthe idea of marketing makes most
of our skin crawl. And thoughTara was speaking, at this point
(08:50):
directly about marketing thetime of COVID this information
holds true no matter whatstrange times you may find
yourself in, or also literallyanytime because creators are
notorious with feeling weirdabout marketing themselves. And
as usual, Tara was here to dropsome mics. The
Tara McMullin (09:18):
number one question or you know, it's sort
of a series of top questionsthat I've been getting and that
I've been seeing in ourcommunity. And so I'm sure it's
the same in this community aswell. Is Is it okay to market my
business or sell my offers rightnow? And you know, sometimes
This question comes up is how doI market my business or sell my
(09:38):
offers right now or I've got alaunch coming up or I had a
launch scheduled like, should Igo forward with it? Should I put
it on hold? Should I do itdifferently? And then, you know,
other people with, you know,ongoing Facebook ads? What do I
do with my Facebook ads? ShouldI keep running them? Should I
change them? What do I do? Solike I said, I don't have a
(10:00):
simple answer to this question.
You know, I really believe thatthat no question in business or
maybe almost no question inbusiness has a singular answer.
But I do have some ideas of whatI'm doing to shift up my
marketing and sales right nowhere in the weirds. And I also
have some some ideas of how wecan kind of reframe what we
(10:23):
think of when we think ofmarketing and selling, that
won't just get us through thistime and the after times, but I
really think can guide ourmarketing and sales for the long
term. And that, dare I say,should guide our marketing and
sales for the long term. Sothat's what we're going to talk
(10:44):
through today, I have six ideasfor you. I'm going to go dive
deep into each one of them. Butbefore I get into that, I want
to talk about how we perceivemarketing and selling sort of as
a as a whole. I have thought alot over the last few weeks
(11:04):
about how we've sort of ralliedto support bricks and mortar
businesses that are being hit sohard right now. And I've been
thinking about the fact thatbricks and mortar businesses
never question whether theyshould be selling or not. Right?
bricks and mortar businesses,pre Hanks Wilson, they put the
(11:28):
hours on their door, they unlockthe door every single day, they
welcome customers in, they selltheir products, those businesses
are selling and marketing everysingle day. And yet, when we
think about online business,whether you're running a service
(11:49):
based business or a digitalproduct, space business, you
know, and even if you're sellingphysical goods online, a lot of
us have gotten the message thatwe're supposed to do everything
but marketing and selling mostof the time, right? You know,
how many social media posts Do Ineed to send out before I put
one out that says I havesomething for sale? How many
(12:11):
emails Do I need to send beforeit's okay for me to mention the
product that I have for sale?
You know, how do I how do I getin touch with someone who I
think would be a great client,but without, you know, selling
or really marketing what I'mdoing, we have a we have this
idea that marketing and sales issomething that happens every so
(12:32):
often, as opposed to somethingthat happens as a default mode.
And I think this is anopportunity to
shift our default mode, I thinkthis is an opportunity to look
at marketing and selling assomething that can happen all
(12:52):
the time. It doesn't have tolook like you know, cramming
your products or services downpeople's necks, or throats not
next throat, the phrasesthroats. But it can look like
I'm getting comfortable with thefact that you have something for
sale, it can look like gettingcomfortable with the fact that
(13:12):
people want to buy, it can looklike getting comfortable talking
about the fact that you do infact, have a business. And not
just a pretty Instagram accountor a pretty Facebook page or
pretty Pinterest page. So a bigpart of what I'm going to talk
about today is actually gettinginto a state of mind, where
(13:35):
marketing and selling is yourdefault mode. Because and you
know, this is directly relatedto what I'm what I just said is
I actually believe we should beselling more right now, not
less. And what I mean by that isnot that we should be selling
more, but that we should be moredirect, we should be more
(13:57):
upfront, we should be morewilling to talk about the fact
that we have products orservices for sale than we
normally are. And here's why inan up economy in an economy
that's chugging along, wherepeople feel really comfortable,
where people are excited about,you know, going shopping or
(14:21):
shopping online. It is it ispossible to wait for people to
come to you, right. And ifyou've started your business
anywhere in the last, let's say,eight to nine years, you have
started your business in aneconomy where people are from
moderately to very excited aboutspending their money where they
(14:44):
feel moderately to verycomfortable with the way the
economy is not across the board,but many people that's the kind
of economy that you started yourbusiness in. And so a lot of the
advice that's come down the lineabout marketing and selling has
been from the perspective ofthat energised up comfortable
type of economy. And so that'swhy we get this advice where,
(15:07):
you know, we really, we got tobe careful about how much we
sell, we got to be careful abouthow much we talk about our
products and services, thepeople will come to us. In a
down economy, it doesn't meanthat our businesses have to
contract, it doesn't mean thatwe're going to take a hit. But
what it does mean is that weneed to connect our customers to
(15:32):
our products more explicitly, weneed to connect our potential
clients to our services moredirectly. We need to be willing
to go out and find the businessas opposed to sort of sitting
back and waiting for it to come.
Now you might, you might feellike, well, it's here, I haven't
been sitting back and waitingfor it to come, I get out there
(15:53):
and I hustle every day, I wantyou to take a look at the
tactics, the strategies, thetechniques that you've used
over, however long you've beenin business. And I want you to
take a look at those tacticsfrom the point of view of Have
you been putting yourself outthere in terms of your products
and services saying this is whatI have to offer? Or have you
(16:15):
just been putting yourself outthere because that's what I see
a lot. Right. And I'm speakingfrom, I'm not I am speaking from
the vantage point of watchinghundreds of small business
owners 1000s, really, on aregular basis. And I see them
putting themselves out there,right, I see them posting to
social media, I see them sendingemails, I see them doing coffee
(16:36):
chats and connecting withpeople. But I see it as more of
an exercise in just sort ofgeneral connection, general
awareness. And there's nothingwrong with that. But I do
believe at this point, we needto start shifting our
perspective and get more directget more explicit about what
we're doing. We need to bewilling to say, I have a
(16:57):
business and I have goods andproducts for sale. Here's what
they are.
Emily Thompson (17:08):
If you could have seen the chat flying
through that session, and youjust got a snippet of her hour
long keynote and q&a, it was thething to be impressed with. So
many lightbulb moments and someserious revelations were
flashing and how we as businessowners have a responsibility
that affects the economy. Andour willingness to show up even
(17:29):
when things are weird isdirectly tied to the health of
the economy, obviously on apersonal level, but on a global
level to now, Tara did go on tosharing her six principles of
sales and marketing in a crisis.
Along with more amazing insightsand of hearing the rest of that
session or any of the other onesI'm sharing here is appealing to
you, you can watch every sessionof the conference now and the
(17:49):
being boss clubhouse. I'll sharemore about that at the end, or
you can find the link in theshow notes. But for now, we're
moving on. So if we're talkingtime management and marketing,
and that was a marketing topic,then at let's level it out with
a focus on time. Our first panelof the event was called creating
time, where I was joined bythree of our boss experts Becky
(18:11):
Simpson, and artists and artdirector. She's joined us
previously for Episode 78 and162 Kelly, knight owner of
modern mystic a retail shop inAtlanta, Georgia, who joined us
for episode number 197. And aboss that I connected with
almost a year ago that I was soexcited to bring into the being
boss universe, Erica core day, adiversity Equity and Inclusion
(18:33):
coach and entrepreneur. Westarted the session with asking
everyone to assign a word totheir definition of time, which
is what I want to share with youhere. Because this is an
important first step to managingyour time. And I think you'll
see just what I mean when youhear all of these answers from
our boss experts as well as ourattendees.
(19:00):
So I know for everyone rightnow, time has become sort of
this very nebulous thing. But Ido believe I hardcore believe
that creative business ownershave had more experience in
breaking the mold of time tocreate careers and businesses on
their own terms than anyone elseout there right now. That
(19:23):
doesn't mean that we don't havea lot of work to do, or some
like rules that we still need tobreak. But I do think that we
have had more practice in sortof arranging our time. I keep
thinking of this as like, whatwe sort of have to do next is
bring order from chaos, likeeverything is chaotic at the
moment, but so was your idea forbuilding a business once upon a
(19:45):
time. And what you had to do wasstart bringing order to this
chaos. And that's kind of whatwe get to know it is what we get
to do now. Get to sort of putour lives and work back
together. And I think about thisoftentimes in the concept of
time. So before I get going inmy questions, I do want to ask
(20:05):
everyone over in the chat, whatis one word that you would use
to describe your currentrelationship with time? And then
I'll also pose that to ourpanelists. How do you guys are
what's one word that you woulduse to describe time, Becky,
(20:27):
you're like, chomping at thebit. What is it? I just
Becky Simpson (20:30):
but you want to hear it now? Yeah, I can't I
just last, first of all, lasttalk, I was like, all up in the
chat. And now I'm like, holdingmyself back in case it messes
with the audio and like, so muchI want to say the time it was a
few years ago, um, time, I just,I guess the word that came to
mind for me is choice. Because Iused to really, like, I mean, I
(20:54):
still am guilty of this, butit's more of a conscious thing
now is like, I'm so busy. Butthe reality is, everything I do
is a choice. And so I can getinto this more later. But it's
easy. Like I do work full time.
And I have all these otherprojects. So it is easy, or in
the past has been to be like,well, these people who get to do
(21:15):
this full time, they have somuch time to do all these things
I wish I could do. And but thereality is I'm choosing, I'm
choosing to spend my timecooking dinner or hanging with
my husband or working my fulltime job like these are all
things I get to do. And I'mchoosing to do so. We don't have
to be busy. We're making achoice to spend time where we
(21:36):
spend it.
Emily Thompson (21:40):
I love that choice. I haven't seen a lot of
choice over here. I've seen alot of inconsistent shattered.
Oh, Mary Beth blacked out whathave you been doing?
Becky Simpson (21:50):
Can I like rewind, especially after the
last talk? I understand rightnow. And I don't have kids COVID
life. I don't mean that to soundtone deaf like it. There
actually are not a lot of placeswith the things right now. So I
guess that's more of agenerality
Emily Thompson (22:07):
is your word.
It's my world.
Becky Simpson (22:10):
It's my world.
Acknowledging that things arecrazy right now. And there are a
lot of things that we didn'tchoose. So
Emily Thompson (22:16):
yeah. Right, there's still some choice. Okay,
I like it perfect. You
Kelley Knight (22:22):
can about you, I was thinking of the word ample,
which is a luxury. And I havereally almost probably never
felt that way before. But we'rein a brick and mortar business
scenario. And so since we'repaused right now, it really does
open up for me a lot of time.
And then also sort of likepsychic space. And our business,
(22:44):
we're open at 1030 11am to 9pmon almost every day, except for
Sunday, 363 days a year. And sothere's always someone working,
there's always like an employeethat has a need, or you have to
have this sort of likeheightened awareness that we're
always operating. And just justshutting that down has given me
(23:06):
so much just sort of space torelax. I've never had that
experience before. But granted,also I am childless, we don't
have any kids in the house. Andso my time really does feel like
it's my own currently. And I'mkind of working through a little
bit of guilt, like milking that,like it's kind of it's
(23:26):
enjoyable.
Emily Thompson (23:29):
I think it's an important mindset shift. I mean,
because you're a brick andmortar store is shut right now,
like closed down. And also, thisis one of those scenarios, guys.
We're like a business is closed.
And granted, you still havewebsite and stuff, but a huge
part of Kelly's revenue streamis non operational at the
moment. So you could just aseasily say wasted Hmm, you know,
but like, that's not the choicethat you've made it you have not
(23:53):
said wasted. You said What wasyour word? I'm sorry, your full
time field. So I think it'simportant. I like that. Thank
you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm Erica,what about you?
Erica Courdae (24:08):
It's funny, I'm like watching the chat. So if
you see me like squirrel I do.
There's a part of me that yes,choices there. Because there is
that actionable place of this iswhat I am choosing to do or what
I'm not choosing, choosing todo. Part of it. Um, it feels
like for me, it's kind of goingto be the word now. Because
(24:29):
there are points when it's thekid. So this is what I have to
do now, a six and an eight yearold that are both going on 37
and 40. So having to figure thatout and you know, with business,
my default is always to go thereso I can very easily just get
absorbed in it. So I have toalso create boundaries to say I
(24:49):
am choosing now to go in mealprep or I'm choosing now to go
sit and do nothing. Whatever itis that I am being called to do
now is kind of what it has to bebecause the way that you're
feeling is an ebb and a flow. Sotrying to honor that, and not
getting stuck in the shoulds.
(25:11):
And I have to and I ought to,and well, why am I not? what is
now called for?
Emily Thompson (25:19):
That's powerful practice and mindfulness, for
sure. Probably more so than youever do. Like, are you always
thinking about time now? Or isthat just a recent thing?
Erica Courdae (25:30):
No, because I think before it was, Oh, of
course, I'm going to get up inthe morning and take the kids
and I can go work out, ofcourse, I'm going to come back
and I can work and they're notgoing to be here and I can do
whatever I need to do before Ihave to get them. Of course, I'm
gonna go into the studio, and Ihave clients, but I have a
podcast interview, and I knowthat I can do these things, that
(25:51):
surety isn't there in the sameways that it was. So being able
to say, Okay, I'm not going tolet that derail me. And what do
I still need to do to find a wayto be grounded in a time where
you're like, what the hamsandwich is happening to me
right now. To figure it out, andthat's part of trying to figure
it out. And that doesn't meanthat it always feels good there
(26:12):
at times, it now is like, Whatthe fuck, however, it passes.
So,
Emily Thompson (26:19):
right. So all we can do is now
the most important lesson thatyou can learn when it comes to
taking a draw of your time is totake control of your mindset
around time, whether you'redoing that through focusing on
now, like Erica, or recognizingyour choice, like Becky, or
(26:42):
simply choosing the positiveaspect of your situation like
Kelly, you create time bymanaging your mindset around it,
and then setting your prioritiesand doing the work. Speaking of
time, I'm a big fan of notwasting it, of all the resources
you have at your disposal. Timeis the one that you can't make
more of, it's finite. So whenyou're wasting it, you're
(27:05):
wasting the most precious thingof all, which is why I mindfully
use tools and systems in mybusiness that save me time or,
in a sense, give me back mytime. For example, I could spend
way too much time and back andforth email chains, with my
clients trying to find the besttime to have a meeting. Or I can
take back that time by justsending them a link. Instead of
(27:28):
spending even five minutes in asequel email, or maybe 15
minutes. If we're both busyfolks, I can send the link in
about a second and instead usethat time to do literally
anything else. What tool do Iuse to save this time for
myself? acuity scheduling, Iwouldn't call it a time machine.
But if it works with my calendarto schedule meetings and saves
(27:50):
me a boatload of time too. Icould see how one might think
that it is acuity scheduling,the scheduling assistant that
works 24 seven behind the scenesto fill your calendar so that
you don't have to, for a limitedtime only get 45 days of acuity
scheduling absolutely free. nocredit card required by going to
acuity scheduling, calm slashbeing boss. Okay, let's flip
(28:16):
back over to marketing for aminute. And this next clip I
want to share with you a peekinto our creative marketing
strategies panel, which wasmaybe my favorite session of the
event. I could actually probablysay that about all of them. In
this session, I was joined againby Kelly Knight, the owner of
modern mystic and Tara McMillanwho gave that keynote as well as
(28:38):
automotive void, a lawyer forentrepreneurs who has joined us
previously on episode number 73.
These days, if you attend to anysort of marketing talk,
especially when a bunch ofonline business owners are
around, you're going to spendthe entire time hearing about
social media, what's working onInstagram, the most use of
Pinterest, how to make Facebookwork for you. Boring. Why?
(28:58):
Because business is not justsocial media. For years, I felt
the business marketing space hasbeen so inundated with ever
changing info about what'sworking right now on social
media, that you forget thatthere were 1000s of years of
business that was done beforethe internet. So when I call
(29:19):
this creative marketingstrategies, it was a little
tongue in cheek because what Ireally meant was marketing
strategies that aren't socialmedia, or as Tara McMillan
snidely called them regularmarketing strategies. And I
challenged the boss experts toshare the tactics they use to
market in their highlysuccessful businesses that have
(29:40):
absolutely nothing to do withsocial media. Feel free to enter
a gasp here. So to get us in,one of our community members
went straight in with afollowing question for a boss
experts. Can you give us somereal life examples of creative
marketing that you've done? Offsocial media and response,
(30:00):
autumn takes the lead. Yeah, so
Autumn Witt Boyd (30:11):
one thing I wanted to talk about that came
up earlier was cold pitching.
And I don't necessarily like dototally cold pitching. But what
I have been very intentionalabout and this was something
like I'm Oji being boss. So Idon't know what episode this
was, but very long time ago,Emily and Kathleen talked about
having like a hot shit 100 orhot shit 200 List of like dreamy
dream clients, so people youwould love to work with. So I
(30:32):
created one like years and yearsago. And every maybe once a
quarter or so once or twice ayear, at least I sit down and I
look at it. And I try and seewho am I one or two people away
from. So as my network hasexpanded, I now am really
intentional about trying toconnect with those people and
asking for connections. So Ihave found, like Kathleen said,
(30:56):
sending out a totally cold pitchrarely ends up anywhere good.
But sending out a slightly warmpitch or asking a friend for an
introduction or saying, youknow, I'll be in their city, is
there a way we can all gettogether so it feels more
natural. I mean, I sent Emily acold email, I don't know if you
remember this, I do. But I wasjust a podcast listener. And she
(31:16):
was moving to Chattanooga andhad mentioned it on the podcast.
That's where I live. And so Ijust sent her an email saying,
hey, like, I don't want to be acrazy person. But if you need
anything, let me know, like, I'mhappy to be helpful. And we had
coffee, and then it kind of, youknow, turn into a client
relationship. So I've done thata lot, because my business is
low volume, high touchrelationships. And so I don't
(31:40):
need a million clients, I need,you know, 100 really great ones.
So you know, I've built thatvery intentionally. So my
favorite creative thing thatI've done, though, was I put
together we call it our milliondollar dinner, and I invited, I
was in San Diego already. And Iwas one person away from a lot
of the people I wanted to workwith, who also live in San
(32:03):
Diego. And so I really, likekind of leaned on some of my
friends and clients to invitethese people I was really
wanting to get to meet and wethrew a beautiful dinner. And
that's how I landed AmyPorterfield as a client, like
she was friends with some of myclients. And I sat myself across
from the table from her and, andeven that was kind of though I
(32:24):
didn't land or that night likeit was several months later,
that was the beginning of arelationship. So that's what I
said, when I've kind of I'llcold pitch our relationship more
than trying to cold pitch aclient,
Emily Thompson (32:36):
if that makes sense. And it will say to
autumn, like we've gotten toknow each other over the years,
and she is a master at nurturingthese in person relationships
and not just not just peopleshe's meeting online, but she's
very active in her localcommunity. And
Autumn Witt Boyd (32:55):
going out for brunch, that's what we did,
right? She's
Emily Thompson (32:58):
always brunch and cocktails and dinner. She
lives a fab life. I'm doing allthese fun things. And, and
again, it's not even so muchnurturing people who will
directly turn into clients, butthose people will rep you to
anyone and everyone they meetwho needs you. So it's also
(33:18):
really setting yourself up for avery powerful word of mouth
marketing engine that I think isjust as powerful, if not
actually more so than justnurturing those relationships so
that those convert,
Autumn Witt Boyd (33:32):
hey, I want to hear what Kelly has to say no,
Emily Thompson (33:34):
right.
Kelley Knight (33:36):
So we're a consumer facing business. And a
lot of our marketing is tiedaround building community and
education. Because sometimes theproducts that we sell like a
ritual kid or, or even crystals,people aren't really sure how to
engage with them. So I think oneof the most successful creative
ideas that we've beenimplementing is our Sunday
school classes. So every Sundayat 11 o'clock before the market
(33:59):
opens, we open our doors, webring in an expert on some sort
of topic for a free class to ourpublic. And they teach for an
hour and then we record that andthen we push it out as a
podcast. So we get distributionfor our sort of our online
remote community. And then wealso build real life
interactions with our in person.
Customers who become super fansthrough this engagement. And
(34:22):
then what we've learned is, weusually sell about $1,000 or
more of product when we firstopened on a Sunday. So instead
of start opening at noon with$0, we're usually starting
anywhere between 1000 or 11 $100in sales, which across you know,
50 to 52 weeks a year. That's anextra maybe $50,000 of revenue
(34:43):
every year through thiscommunity engagement,
opportunity that creates a lotof relationship building
goodwill, but then also convertsto actual dollars. So I would
say that's probably one of thebest ideas that we've Had and
you know, I'm I post the podcastwhich is loosely like I record
(35:03):
an introduction and then we gointo the live class. But it
feels like some of our customersthat can't experience in person
really feel like they are partof our community and it feels
hyperlocal and customized. Andthey're listening in on this
sort of experience. So I thinkthat's been a really great tool,
or just one activation. I'vedone that we've now we've done
(35:27):
it for over a year, and it'sreally been working.
Emily Thompson (35:31):
Yeah, and this is just a great example of a
product business that's usinginformation marketing. Yeah,
like, plain and simple. So Ioftentimes I hear product makers
are like, I don't know what Ican't do or don't can't do a
blog, what am I just going toshow myself in the studio? And
like, yes, you can absolutely dothat. I think that's great.
There's so many ways for you tosupport your community, and or
your customers, because thoseare not always the same thing,
(35:54):
through providing valuablecontent that supports the sort
of lifestyle that your brand isthere to cultivate. So I love
that you do that. I think that'sa great way for you to bridge
the gap between online andoffline.
Kelley Knight (36:08):
Yeah, definitely.
And then there was someone justasked him, I'm sorry, I can't
stop looking at the commentswith the app, how it is that I
promote the in store classes.
And I would say, it really isanother marketing tactic. That's
super old school for us. But wehave human beings in our store
who talked to other people. Andthat's how we get the message
out. And, and we spend a lot oftime cultivating and hiring and
(36:33):
educating our staff so thatthey're super knowledgeable. And
it's part of the training wherethey mentioned, if you're a
local that when they're checkingout, they'll say, because we
have a lot of tourists in ourbuilding, too. It's a
destination. So it's part of thetraining at closing to ask them,
are you local? Or are youvisiting and if they're local,
then we tell them about theSunday school class. And if
(36:54):
they're visiting, we tell themabout the podcast. And so either
way, we're continuing therelationship with the with the
customers.
Emily Thompson (37:02):
Yeah. Tara?
Tara McMullin (37:05):
Well, it's funny, because Kathleen, just posted
marketing tactic have a goodproduct service or offering and
I was totally going to say, youknow, I have come up with all
sorts of creative marketingstrategies over the last decade,
and most of them have been like,magic, but it's so true. But you
(37:26):
know, what it works every timeis when I develop some sort of
new product, some sort of, oreven just like a campaign around
something that even alreadyexists. Selling what I actually
offer has always grown myaudience. And I think it's
something that we forget,because again, like this agenda
(37:50):
of bro marketing is like buildyour audience, build your
audience, build your audience,and I am all for building
audiences. And also, the fastestway I found to build an audience
is to market a product and sella product. Because people, you
know, people understandimmediately, oh, this is what
she does. This is why I shouldfollow her. This is what she has
(38:13):
to offer what they have tooffer. Whereas when I'm just
kind of talking obliquely aboutrandom things tangentially
related to what I do, or what Isell, while while an individual
thing can be a hit, or likepeople can be into it, it just
doesn't have that samelegitimate urgency and that kind
(38:36):
of a cute that sort ofencapsulation of what I offer a
value that just sellingsomething does. And so I'm not
saying the actual sales processis what builds my audience. But
the the I do have what Iwhatever I'm putting out around
(38:57):
a product or service that isclear and direct, and just very
tangible. That's what builds myaudience and markets, my
business to a new group ofpeople.
Autumn Witt Boyd (39:11):
I kind of build on that. Yeah, what we
looked at, so we use a CRM, acustomer client, relationship
management software. And so I doa lot of tracking, I enjoy the
data. Even though like Tara,it's not always good data. But
we always ask our new clients oranyone who contacts us, where
did you hear about us? Or wheredid you find us? And I, you
(39:33):
know, I had been doing thepodcast for two years, and I do
all this social media and blah,blah, blah. And I looked at that
data about a year ago and it waslike 98% referrals or some like
bananas number and I was like,Oh, great, like I'm and it's not
that all that other energy iswasted, because that's
supporting the referrals. Butwhen I saw that, I looked at
everything I was like, well, wereally need to focus more on
(39:54):
referrals then. So we built ainto our customer service
process like it is now Askingfor referrals is part of our
like the end as we wrap upprojects that's now kind of
systematized.
Tara McMullin (40:07):
Yeah. And to bounce off of that, I often hear
people say, Well, I really needto work on my marketing game, I
really need to work on mymarketing game, all of my
marketing is where are all of mybusiness comes from word of
mouth and referrals. It's like,wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, you have the HolyGrail marketing. And yes, it's
nice to have other channels. Andyes, word of mouth. And referral
(40:32):
can be slightly less predictablethan, say, a Facebook ad that
you know, is converting at acertain rate. But like, if you
have word of mouth andreferrals, you have a marketing
strategy, and you shouldoptimize the shit out of that.
Kelley Knight (40:47):
I would agree with that, too. It's the same
thing with the retail situationranks I'm saying we are
basically when I say it'sorganic growth, that means
fucking word of mouth, peoplelike us, and then they bring
their friends. And when theycome to visit Atlanta, they make
a big deal out of their way tosee us. And then they bring
their mom and she comes intotown because where their
favorite place where their bestfriend where they're expert,
(41:09):
where they're educator. And sothat's really why we haven't
done pretty much any paidmarketing, and we're going into
your four. Because that's howwe've been growing, it takes a
while for people to know aboutyou, and then people just start
snowball. So from a, you know,cost like a customer service
perspective, like payingattention to customer service
(41:30):
and the experience that they'rehaving with you. And the getting
those referrals even in a retailenvironment or a product
business. It's it's all thesame.
Emily Thompson (41:44):
So the secret isn't about cracking the
Instagram code or being great atFacebook, it's about delivering
a product or service that peoplecan't help talking about because
it is so fantastic. As TaraMcMillan called it, it's the
holy grail of business. That'snot a monumental discovery. But
it might sound fresh if you'vehad your head in the algorithms
(42:04):
for too long. The rest of thesession went on to share other
quote unquote, creative tacticsthat really dove into a common
theme. Just be a human who hassomething of value to sell, and
know the people you're sellingit to, but mostly bring that
being a human back into yourplans for marketing your
(42:26):
business. We know that a lot ofbosses here want to create, sell
and market what they know, bethat in the form of an ebook, an
online course or a membershipsite. And this isn't just for
coaches and educators. But asyou just heard from modern
mistake can really be great forproduct businesses too. But as a
(42:47):
coach myself, I know that whatoften holds bosses back from
writing and launching that ebookonline course or membership site
isn't because of a lack ofcontent or direction, but from
some serious frosty feelingsabout your ability to figure out
the tech. Well, our friends atpodia are here to help you do
that in a low impact way thatpushes frauding feelings to the
(43:09):
curb, and brings your expertiseand content to the forefront.
podia is a place where you cancreate courses, digital
downloads, and memberships allin one place. It's a hassle free
way for creators to earn aliving from their passion, get
14 days free with no credit cardrequired by going to podia.com
slash bosses. Okay, it's timefor me to start wrapping up this
(43:35):
little recap, and choosing onemore clip from our three days
together was a really hard job.
But before I do that, let meremind you that if you want to
hear the rest of these sessions,or any of the 19th sessions from
our three day conference, youcan access each of them now in
the being balls clubhouse, whichis the second tier of the being
boss community. In this space,you get all of the perks of the
community including the memberstable Monday meetups, which is
(43:57):
a weekly check in zoom callavailable to all of our bosses,
plus extra clubhouse onlycontent like monthly clubhouse
conversations, which are livecalls featuring a special guest
and all of the conferencevideos, you can learn more and
sign up at being boss club slashcommunity. And I do also have a
bit of news. This conference wassuch a smashing hit that I have
(44:22):
decided to do something we'vebeen sitting on on our dream
list for a very long time. Infact, I can totally just thank
COVID for the push to doing anonline conference because we've
been talking about doing themfor years and just never found
the right moment. Well, we didit and we loved it and our
attendees loved it. Seriouslythe feedback that we got from
(44:44):
our attendees sent us over themoon. They loved how highly
interactive it was, howconversational it felt, and how
engaged they were able to bethey live jazzed and so did we.
And so we're doing it again onOctober 8, ninth and 10th. So go
ahead and put In your calendar,and if you'd like to be among
the first to know when ourvirtual Tickets are available,
(45:04):
you can go to being boss club tosign up for our email list.
Unknown (45:10):
Now,
Emily Thompson (45:10):
let's get back to the good stuff. In this next
session, a session that tookplace on day two of the
conference, I was joined byKathleen Sr. Tara St. Is co
founder bring creative whoyou've heard from here on the
bean boss podcast three timesbefore on episodes 56 109 and
175. Along with Becky Simpson,who you heard from an earlier
clip, Lynn market Dan, who's thechief marketing officer of
(45:34):
podia, and a being boss vacationalum, as well as Vivian Kay, a
business coach and founder ofKinky Curly yackey, you'll
actually be getting a fullintroduction to Vivian in our
next podcast episode as she wasour live podcast guest at the
conference. We got together fora panel discussion around your
number one marketing asset. Andspoiler alert, your number one
(45:56):
marketing asset is you. Myintention for this session was
to bring in this particular mixof boss experts in very
different industries, but with adeep understanding of harnessing
the power of your ownpersonality to build a powerful
brand. Why? Because in our manysessions leading up to this, we
uncovered again and again thattoo many automations and funnels
(46:18):
algorithms, they're not servingour businesses, if anything, too
much of them makes ourbusinesses stop working. So how
do we bring that ever importanthuman element back into our
businesses, to hype up our ownvaluable work to connect with
our customers to make the impactthat we want to make? Well,
here's something for you toconsider. No one will ever be
(46:39):
more passionate about your work,then you show them that you are
about your work. This standstrue whether you're doing your
own marketing, or you've hiredout someone to do your marketing
for you. Your story, yourpersonality, your passion, is
the fuel that propels yourbusiness forward. You set the
pace and everyone else from yourteam to your customers will
(47:01):
follow your lead. The questionof passion came up in our
marketing panel and this is theclip that I want to play for
you. And attendee asked isadding your passion into your
brand positioning a way topersonalize your business or
does passion belong somewhereelse? Vivian takes the will here
sharing the role that herpassion and ultimately our
(47:22):
purpose has played in buildingboth her product and her
coaching business.
Unknown (47:32):
Think it's a way to personalize Yeah, only because I
know for me personally I couldlike even with kinky, curly Yak.
Yeah, I really don't care abouthair. It's so what my product is
his hair extensions, I don'treally care about that. But I
care about the I'm passionateabout giving people confidence.
So same thing when it comes tomy coaching ecommerce clients. I
(47:55):
really don't care about thetechnic, the technical stuff
about the SEO and all thatstuff. What I care about is
giving my my my clients theconfidence to make the great
decisions for their ownbusiness. Because that's really
what a lot of people arelacking. It's not that you can
go and learn technical stuffanywhere. But you need someone
who's been through all thatstuff, to give you the
(48:19):
confidence to make decisions foryour own business. So I think
that Yeah, the passion becausethat's what I'm passionate about
is giving people confidence. SoI think that Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Like
Becky Simpson (48:32):
it's the passion intersects with, like your
perfect audience. Like you. Imight be Miss interpreting this
a little bit too. But like, Ithink there's, you know, if
it's, we don't have to shareeverything, either that we do or
that we're into, and if itdoesn't serve us, okay, like
(48:53):
rewind, I used to, like, shareeverything on Instagram ish.
Like, I just felt like I took Isaw what everyone was doing. And
I was like, I'm gonna be thatmaybe that would be that. And of
course, that's the recipe forjust like not, it's not really
serving anyone or myself. And soI now can be passionate about
things, but I don't have toshare them. Because that's not
(49:14):
going to serve the people in myworld. But if it's like Vivian's
saying then of course, that'slike the best is then to share
our passions, then it makes usnot just this like lukewarm.
They person applies toeverything. It's like we can
then specialize and focus andreach the perfect people and
(49:37):
drive a deeper connection. Yeah,I
Emily Thompson (49:39):
think you're being spot on there with sort of
curating which passions you'resharing because I think that all
the creatives here are highlymulti passionate, like, so many
Maltese. So many possibilities,right? And I think that if you
are sharing all of them in oneplace, it can be very confusing.
And Ooh, can we make an Cakeanalogy here. It's like if you
(50:02):
have all the ingredients foryour cake, and you put them all
into your cake, like, no one'sgonna want to eat that cake. But
if you choose the rightingredients that support the
kind of cake that you're tryingto bake, then it's going to be
amazing. So yeah, I think that'sa wonderful little additional
tidbit on that,
Unknown (50:21):
for sure. Can I just jump in and also say I think
passion is different fordifferent people. So if passion
is showing up in your personalbrand, that we all sort of think
that I'm supposed to be soinspiring and purpose filled
and, and encouraging. And likethat's showing passion, because
you hear that word, and youthink that's what other people's
passions are. But for somepeople, your passion is being
(50:44):
logical and even keeled. Andyou're not Captain Kirk, your
Spock, and your passion showingup with a little eyebrow, right?
You're not even a cake. You'relike a, you're savory. I don't
know, you're a pork chop, yourlittle red berry on some pork
chop, right. And so I just wantto acknowledge people out there
(51:04):
who do not have not everyonepersonal brand, even with their
passions showing up and wearingtheir passion on their sleeve,
is that, you know, maybe you'renot super woowoo, maybe you're
not super intuitive. Maybeyou're not kind of more of those
really inspiring things. You'remore even keeled and reassuring.
Or maybe you're funny, you know.
So there's just different waysthat people show up in their
(51:25):
personal brand.
Emily Thompson (51:34):
We flesh out that question with a few more
food puns that I won't make youlisten to. But I think that you
get the point. And I'm actuallygoing to pair this with another
clip from this session. See, Itold you that it was hard to
choose just one where ourpanelists address a question
from a jewelry maker. Hey, MaryBeth, about sharing your
personality or being authenticwith a strategy. Because without
(51:57):
a strategy, you're not on a pathto get out of your efforts, what
you most desire. You'll hearBecky kick off this answer,
which is then wrapped up byVivian.
Becky Simpson (52:12):
To me, strategy is more about being mindful than
having like a full on strategy.
It's like Len was saying likeserving them in a way that's
relevant. I also feel like ingeneral, a way to be authentic.
Like we want to be authentic. Wewant to be our most like the
most us but we're a fish inwater. So we're like, What am
(52:33):
Who am I? I feel like just doingbeing kind of paying attention
to things like how do you textyour friends? Like, Are you
someone who uses exclamationmarks all the time in real life
to your friends than you that'show you can like type your
captions, but I kind of a littledrier humor or you know, it's
like, talk to I tried it I tryto do this is talk to say my
(52:57):
followers, like I'm texting afriend use talk the way I would
talk and you use the themes andthe conversation and all that
stuff that I would use. Sothat's like one like little
snippet of a way to look at thatcorner of it.
Emily Thompson (53:16):
This actually reminds me of been watching some
Netflix with the kid where we'rewatching heroes, which is very
exciting. You guys remember thatone from like, mid 2000s.
Anyway, um, there's a commercialI'm seeing over and over again
is Rachael rays, new dog foodcalled nutrish. Again, almost
basically just recite the wholething for you. But like opening
(53:38):
up, she's like, Hi, friends. Andshe's just like jolly little
Rachael Ray. And she's like, Ilove good eaters. Anyway, it's
Rachael Ray shows up talkingabout dog food, and you're ready
to buy it, because she's justtalking to you, like, you know,
you're just they're having dogfood dinner with her or
whatever. Um, sometimes I liketo look at sort of very personal
(53:59):
brands like that, and see howthey're showing up for something
as big and official as like anational ad campaign, because
usually, we can pare that downto how it is that we're doing it
in the same way if you'd like toexcellent. We know Rachael Ray
is probably texting with so manyexclamation points. And when
she's showing up for these ads,like she's all exclamation
(54:20):
points. I think it can be supersimilar to how it is that how it
is that those people areshowing, we can look both ways
both look at how you're talkingto your friends, but also sort
of look at how those biggerpeople are bigger are also
bringing their personalitiesinto their brand as well because
(54:40):
they're doing it you just haveto pay attention. Vivian, do you
have any thoughts on personalbrand for product people,
Unknown (54:49):
specifically? Um, it's all I think it's all about the
story, especially if you're ifyou're, you know, if you're a
jewelry maker, there's got to bea story as to why you started
making jewelry. And that's whatpeople that's what resonates
with people, people don'tnecessarily buy the jewelry,
they're buying the person behindthe jewelry and the story and
the lifestyle and the emotionsthat that is tied to the
(55:13):
product. So when you tell thestory, and you tell it in your
own voice, because like Lensaid, you just by being you,
you're gonna attract your owntribe. So whether they like they
don't like you, then they canpiss off and go by, you know,
jewelry from someone else, butthe people who, who love you and
love your story, and everythingabout you resonates with them,
(55:34):
they will be your bit. And thoseare actually the best, because
they will be your biggest fans,they will go and tell everybody
in their mother about you. So Ithink telling a story is super
important when you're selling aproduct, especially when you're
selling a personal product, ifyou're just selling I don't
(55:54):
know, like if you're justselling light bulbs for the sake
of selling light bulbs, thenyeah, you're not really gonna,
you're not gonna really havemuch success. But if you're
selling something, because youwant it to solve a problem, you
you know, you're you're solvingpeople's pain points, then it's
the perfect opportunity to tellthe story why. And that's what
will stick with people, they maynot be ready to buy your product
right now. But they're going toremember Yeah, you know, I
(56:18):
remember that girl that told methe stories. She said she her
grandmother used to make allthat resonates with me because I
miss my Grandma, I'm going to gobuy her jewelry. That's that's
really what it is. That's whatit's about.
Emily Thompson (56:35):
In order to connect with your customers, you
have to show them who you are,if I may say so. You have to
allow yourself to shine. Yeah, Itaste that cheese. And with
that, it's time for me toofficially wrap this up. But
first, I need to share somegratitude to all of our bosses
who shared these three days withus from your kitchen tables,
(56:57):
your couches, your beds from allover the world. Thank you for
navigating the switch to anonline conference with me. I
know it wasn't New Orleans. ButI think we can all agree this
was a blast. Thank you forcoming and hanging out with me
for showing up for the kind ofengagement and connection I
never thought was possible in avirtual setting. Even though I
knew you wouldn't disappoint,you still managed to blow me and
(57:19):
all the boss experts away withyour presence. And your follow
through has continued to impressme from Kundalini Yoga
challenges to follow up bookclubs. I'm so glad to know that
even remotely this conferencewas just the beginning of so
many relationships, and so muchdevelopment of your business and
your lives. And to all the bossexperts and to my team. Thank
(57:40):
you for showing up ready todeliver and deliver you did, we
made something seriously awesometogether. And to leave you
listeners with a littlesomething. I want to share a
couple of key takeaways fromdays of chats with some of the
most badass people I know and anentire community of creative
business owners. First, focus oncreating something of real value
(58:02):
more than figuring out any kindof tactic. Next, once you've got
that amazing offering, don't beafraid to sell yourself ever.
Also, our work has a farreaching impact. And when the
world has thrown a wrench ineverything, get back to the
basics. And finally, don't letthe trappings of online business
(58:25):
Jade you just be human. Thanksfor listening. And hey, if you
want more resources, we'retalking worksheets, free
trainings in person meetups andvacations and more. Go to our
website at www dot beam boss dotclub. Do the work the boss
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