Chasing Simple Marketing for Entrepreneurs

Last year, I didn’t set very many goals. I’ll get into more of why and what that looked like in this episode, but for 2024 I’m back to setting goals. So, as we ease into this new year together, I thought it would be fun to take you behind the scenes of my goals for this new year and how I plan to accomplish them.

But, before we begin – I just wanted to let you know that the quality in this week’s episode is not the quality you’re used to from the Chasing Simple podcast. In order to ensure my goals were as accurate as possible and really nailed down, I waited as long as possible to record, which means that my editing team is out of office for the holidays. I also had to record this on my phone instead of my typical mic (thanks to traveling for the holidays), so the quality just isn’t the same.

However, if you’d like to hear about my 2024 goals and some major life changes – I hope you’ll stick around anyways!

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

Last year, I didn’t set very many goals. I’ll get into more of why and what that looked like in this episode, but for 2024, I’m back to setting goals. So, as we ease into this new year together, I thought it would be fun to take you behind the scenes of my goals for this new year and how I plan to accomplish them.

But, before we begin, I just wanted to let you know that the quality in this week’s episode is not the quality you’re used to from the Chasing Simple podcast. In order to ensure that my goals were as accurate as possible and really nailed down, I wanted to wait as long as possible to record, which means that my editing team is out of office for the holidays.

I also had to record this on my phone instead of my typical mic due to traveling for the holidays, so the quality just isn’t the same. However, if you’d like to hear about my 2020 goals and some major life changes that are happening to us right now, I hope that you’ll stick around anyways. You’re listening to episode 194 of the Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield.

This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield. com slash book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me.

If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week. I’ll bring you transparent conversations. actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?

When it comes to creating your monthly content calendar and sitting down to create your content, because you’re batching it, right? The first step is not writing in the monthly calendar. It’s not even writing your categories and important dates on the calendar. If that’s where you’re starting with your content planning, well, all you’re creating is a plan.

But what you need is a strategy. What’s the difference? A strategy is like the inner structure of a building, while the plan is the decor. A strategy is what helps you achieve your goals, and your plan is how you achieve them. Your strategy is where you’re leading your audience, and your plan is what you’re talking about and when.

Without having a strategy first, putting together a plan will simply mean pulling ideas out of thin air. So, how do you start with a strategy? By starting with your goals, and working backwards to ensure that you’re moving your audience toward them. What are your yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals?

How can you translate them into content your audience wants to ingest? You’ve got to consider those questions before you even begin deciding what it is that you’ll post about. And if you want a simple way to create both your strategy and your plan, grab your Chasing Simple content planner. The planner is my number one bestseller, and for good reason too, because this massive, more than 130 page planner was designed with strategy in mind.

It’s not merely a place to write down what you’re going to post and when. Yes, that’s part of it, but first, you’ll walk through intentional pages full of strategic questions to get your brain moving in the right direction before you even start writing down your topic ideas. In addition to the traditional calendar pages, you’ll find yearly planning pages, monthly prep work, monthly reflection questions, repurposing worksheets, and so much more.

If taking your content to the next level is a goal of yours, the Chase and Simple Content Planner was created for you. Grab yours for just 27 at amandawarfield. com slash planner. So, like I mentioned in the introduction, I didn’t really do goals for 2023. Um, I ended, if you’ve been listening for a while you may remember me talking about this on the podcast last year, but I ended 2022 in severe burnout.

Very, very severe burnout and I knew that for my mental health, I just needed to not try to improve myself or I spend a lot of time focused on goals in 2023, so I didn’t even purchase a goal planner for 2023, which I’ve been buying goal planners since 2018 now and have been very goal focused since 2018 and I didn’t buy one, I took a year off and I just didn’t set goals, I set zero personal goals for 2023 and then I had I had a revenue goal for the business and I had some projects that I wanted to work on.

And that was really it, which turned out to be the best thing I could have done for myself because 2023 was a whirlwind. Um, the The first five months of the year were great, I, nothing really even stands out in my mind. I was very much just recovering from burnout, trying to relax, you know, um, working on my book, things like that, but, it was simple.

Um, and then June came around, and I I started having some pretty severe health issues, um, including, I was at a conference with my youth group and I ended up collapsing due to my heart rate being so high. It was in the 170s, um, resting. And that was a whole thing which led to weeks and weeks of recovery in June and July, um, and just kind of.

I mean, just bare minimum, everything, for a long time. Um, and then, I got put on anxiety medicine, and that was life changing, honestly. Um, but it didn’t solve the heart issues, so there was a lot of back and forth with the heart doctor and things like that. And, um, then in July, we, traveled. We did a whole massive trip for my 30th birthday and we flew out to Washington to see friends and see Taylor Swift in concert which was incredible and then we went to Disneyland and the last day of our trip was my actual birthday and I woke up with COVID so that was fun so I’m You know, barely recovered from this hard stuff, and then I have COVID.

And the first time I had COVID, I was like asymptomatic. I had almost no symptoms, and this time it hit me really, really hard. And I was down for a while, and five days after my birthday, we lost my grandfather. Um, whom I was very close to, and that was hard because I didn’t get to say goodbye because I had COVID.

Um, and we just didn’t It was one of those things where it, it happened. It was surprising, but it wasn’t. Um, Anyways, so didn’t get to say goodbye. That was a whole emotional thing that rocked our world. And then in August, my husband lost his mother. And it, it was a lot. It was June, July, August were a lot, and in August I finally got diagnosed with, um, SVT, which is super, super ventricle tachycardia, um, or basically the, an upper chamber, and my heart beats too fast sometimes, um.

Not really anything that can be done at this point. But anyway, so there there was a lot going on and Around this time since we had gone back to Washington to visit in July Russell and I had been having talks about moving back and End of August early September. We finally decided. Okay, we’re gonna move back.

We’re gonna move back in June 2024 Because we wanted to, you know, save money and all of that stuff and just give ourselves time to transition. So, it’s a cross country move. It’s not a small thing. So in the midst of all of this life, uh, people, we’re making this decision and we, our plan was we’ll move back in June.

We will We’ll keep our house in South Carolina, we’ll rent it out, and then we will rent in Washington. Because we wanted flexibility, we wanted freedom, we wanted the ability to go, okay, this isn’t working, let’s move back. Um, well. One morning in September, my husband comes home and he goes, you know, I don’t think we should rent.

I think we need to buy. And I was like, what? Okay. Alright. So I hop on Zillow just to like, look. And. And. Immediately, first house I look at is the perfect house for us. It’s very, it’s in the exact area we want to be in. It’s very close to our friends out there. It’s a great layout for what we need and want.

And, um, yeah, we just, I immediately was like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. And then when I showed him, he was all about it too, which surprised me because he’s not normally excited about things like that. And so then we start going, well, is it wild, is it crazy to buy a house in September if we’re not moving until June?

That seems weird. Um, and so then we’re going back and forth, and we decide, let’s go ahead and start the process. As we start the process, interest rates are spiking, so it’s a whole thing. And I was sitting there, and I was like, man, I wonder if I should reach out to the church. Uh, meaning the church that I went to and was planning to go back to, uh, when we lived there previously.

Which I guess, maybe, you may or may not know that we lived there, now that I’m saying all of this out loud. Um, from 2016 to 2019, we lived in Washington, and I started my business in 2018. While we were in Washington, but my business didn’t actually really take off until 2020. So Many of you many that are listening may not know that we actually lived in Washington previously So throwing that in there just to add to the confusion

So South Carolina is home it’s where we both grew up that’s where we moved back to at the end of 2019 But we’ve missed Washington ever since so we’re going back to the exact same place Well, I guess I should say we are back in the exact same place, surprise, that we were before. Um, so I had this thought of, maybe I should reach out to the church and just be like, Hey, if anything part time comes up, I might be interested.

Just because, again, interest rates were high and it was just, it’s a lot, um, a lot mentally as far as like, Is this the right move? This is a big decision. Moving across country again is not exactly cheap. Washington’s a more expensive area. Um, and minimum wage out there is like ten dollars higher an hour than in South Carolina.

So, um, I had had this thought and I was like, you know what? Maybe later. I’m not gonna do that right now, but As we get closer to June, maybe I’ll reach out and just see, depending on how things are going. The very next day, I got a text message asking if I wanted a job at the church. Um, and turns out the associate pastor and youth director that was there at the time had gotten an offer to be a head pastor at another church, and so he was leaving.

And they offered me a position for Youth Director and Community Outreach Director, which is a lot of marketing. Um, so it’s this part time job where I get to like blend two of my passions. Um, which is really cool because when Russ and I were talking about it, I was like, I mean, I’m, I was going to help with a youth group for free, so I might as well get paid to do it if they’re offering, you know.

Um, But, the current youth leader was leaving in November, and the church was perfectly willing to like hold the position for me until June, but I, the church I was going to, um, currently in South Carolina, the church I was going to, we were in the midst of that kind of transition, and it’s just, it’s hard for the kids, it’s hard for the church, and I was like, you know what?

Maybe I should go out now and start this job, we have, we’re getting, we’re in the midst of buying a house anyways, um. Maybe I’m supposed to be going out now. So, all of that being said, currently, I am living in Washington, again. I am now working part time at the church, and I’m also running my business still.

And um, yeah, we’re making that transition out there slowly and it’s Not something we’ve announced yet because we had to wait for everyone to be in the know, my husband to tell his job, all that fun stuff. So, this is the first time I’ve actually announced this out loud to the business world, which is kind of wild.

Anyways, all of that being said, that’s what our 2023 ended up looking like, where from June on, it was just a lot of chaos. And a lot of survival mode, um, because I moved in November and then spent November and the first few weeks of December getting acclimated. And then I went back to South Carolina for Christmas and so, it’s been non stop.

Life has been non stop since June. So, I am, all of that being said, that’s kind of our life update. And also, I’m really glad that I didn’t set goals for 2023. Bye! The goals ish that I did set, again, I had a revenue goal of 70, 000, and if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode about my income report, I got very close to it, which was thrilling.

Um, I never meet my revenue goal, I always set it too high, and that’s just the kind of person I am. So, getting close is It makes me plenty happy, um, which you can hear all about my 2023 numbers in last week’s episode if you didn’t already. But that was really the only goal I had, um, and then I had projects.

I had marketing projects and just regular projects. So marketing projects, I really wanted to try out JV Webinars as a marketing strategy. And then obviously the book was a massive marketing project that I worked on throughout the year. Which, if you haven’t grabbed a copy, go to Amazon, search for Chase and Simple Marketing, grab your copy.

But, JV webinars did not go as well as I hoped. I started kicking them off in June and that’s when life kind of got crazy and so I didn’t really get much, um, traction with that. I had some wonderful people willing to part with me, partner with me, and I did a couple of them and then life got crazy and I just had to back out.

for my mental health and for my actual health as well. So that marketing project didn’t go like I’d hoped. The book, however, went better than I hoped, so all’s fair in love and war and whatever. Happy with that. The other big projects I had on my plate were shop and funnel updates and then the membership switch up, which I talked about a lot in last week’s episode, but I did a complete overhaul of my membership to make it more affordable and just more of what people needed.

More accountability, more action time, um, and less education. It’s still education based, but it’s like quarterly education versus monthly education. And then we spend the quarter action on what we’ve learned versus just throwing education at people. So that was a massive overhaul that I did in order to make it more affordable and more feasible for people.

And that was a big project I had for the year. And then the other projects were just updating different items in my shop, different offers that I have updating funnels and testing out funnels behind the scenes. So those were. Again, I don’t want to call them goals, because they were more projects, so I really had a project based year versus a goal based year.

So, that’s what 2023 looked like, now that I’m however long into this episode. But, and that’s our life update, is just, everything is chaos, and it’s great, but in the best possible way. We’re thrilled to be back in Washington, um. I already miss the warm weather. We’ve gotten snow already, which I just, but it’s been really nice to be back.

So, um, that being said, my 2024 goals, let’s talk about them. Because I did set goals again this year. I snagged a goals with Lakin planner from, uh, Lakin strum. I think she might still go by Lakin Edwards professionally, but regardless plan with Lakin. If you know her. You know, if you don’t you should know.

Um, she has this incredible goal planner. It’s the best goal planner I have ever used. I am so thrilled. She’s been talking about doing this for a while and I’m thrilled that it’s finally out here because it just, man, the prep work is good. I was talking to her about it and, you know, I, I thought I had goals and then I did the prep work and I was like, whoa, now I actually have goals.

So that being said, I’m excited to share this with you. My first goal for this year is consistent 8, 000 revenue months. So instead of doing a yearly revenue goal. I am doing a monthly revenue goal because I, my husband is going to be in school, um, he’s getting another masters this time in cyber security, and um, I’m going to be the main provider while he’s in school this year.

And so instead of an overall yearly goal, I really need to hit monthly revenue numbers. So, what this goal means to me, though, is right now I’m hitting around 6, 000 revenue months and that’s plenty for what we need, but I would like a little wiggle room. I would like a little bit just more space, um, in what I actually have coming in.

And so I want to work my way up to 8, 000 a month. Revenue wise and I fully recognize that that means I may not hit that until the last quarter of the year But I’m gonna spend the year working towards that and the way I’m gonna do that is by really focusing in on my Um, repurposing content VIP days and promoting those and also increasing my shop sales and increasing my membership.

So those are the three ways that I hope to bring that number about and what I’m going to focus on to bring that about. But that number is the actual goal. So the goal and how I hope to do it. Now the second goal is similar and it is to have consistent 2, 000 months. Specifically from the community with a max of 15 VIP members and I got really specific with that because it would be easy to just accept a ton of VIP members and make that 2, 000 a month, but my VIP members are Get a lot of one on one attention the VIP members of the membership.

They get a quarterly one to one call They get the ability to submit content and copy every single week for feedback and review and it just takes more time And so I really wanted to put a max limit on that And so I came up with that what that number was Which is why that’s included because I just want to be able to always offer the best to those VIP members and I didn’t want to just be like well I can easily make that with Taking on 20 or 30 or whatever, VIP members, I wanted to be really strategic with that.

So, um, and that basically, as far as how I get there, that just looks like marketing, it promotions, improving my funnels, running ads, things like that so that I can hopefully increase my numbers so that I can increase how much I’m making from that each month. Which would also help with, like I said, increasing my membership as part of hitting that $8,000 overall revenue goal for the month.

Another part of increasing that revenue goal is my repurposing content VIP days where, again, I get sent long form content and I turn that into other content and so right now those are 500 total. That’s what the VIP day is. I want to raise that up to 750 by the end of the year and you might be thinking, Amanda, why don’t you just raise it then?

Just tweak the numbers. But I want to be really strategic about it because I would rather. And this is something where I’ve had to make, um, short term decisions versus long term decisions now as the main breadwinner. Um, I would rather, if I was making long term decisions, I would say, I’ll just raise it and I’d rather take less at 7.

50. And spend less time, but short term decision wise, I’d rather be able to book up at 500 because I know that’s a steal. And for the amount of content that you can, it’s basically a quarter’s worth of content. So, I know it’s a steal, and so I’d rather book up and spend the time to get the money at this point.

Just, like, again. Making short term decisions for now being the breadwinner. So I want to do it really strategically So my hope is to increase those bookings that I’m getting Eventually book out to be a quarter ahead booked out. That’s where I’d like to be before I raise the prices So that’s kind of the goal there and we’ll see I need to be booked out before I raise them.

So That’s how I plan to achieve that. I kind of got to step my way to it. Now, my other goals are less Actually, I have one more that’s really strategic as far as Getting to that 8, 000 a month and that is 815 new leads through my Community sales funnel throughout the year. I was able to take the funnel I created last year for the community that sales funnel and look at what it converts at and know that if I Want to hit X amount of people in the community and the funnel converts at X or Y I guess then I need 850 people to go through the funnel to convert that number to get that number.

So that was really fun to be able to get to do that. Um, I’m such a numbers nerd. I love. Getting to do the math on funnels and things like that to, to get to that. But anyways, all that being said, I knew, okay, I’ve got to get 815 new leads through that funnel. How do I do that? Um, podcasts is always a great one that always brings in new leads.

So doing more podcast pitching, I also want to play with ads this year and sponsoring as well. I’ve done a little tinkering with ads, but I haven’t actually really done a bunch with them. I don’t. I don’t feel confident in them. So that’s something I really want to set money aside for this year and be able to to do But then sponsoring that’s something I haven’t done before either, but i’ve seen so many people Doing that or at least offering it particularly for like summits or conferences and things like that podcast I would like to try dabbling in that this year at some point to see Whether or not that will bring in enough leads to that funnel.

So Anyways, all of that being said, um That is another goal I have. Now, two of my other goals for the business. I have a very business focused year this year, um, Are to one, become an S Corp or elect as an S Corp, I guess I should say, for tax purposes. I don’t know if I’m there yet. First step for that is finding a CPA, honestly.

because I want someone to be like, yes, that’s a good idea. Or no, it’s not. But I’m hoping by the end of the year to be able to do that. And then I also want to create an operating expenses budget. So up till this point, I’ve just used the profit first system, which I love. It’s great. Highly recommend that book if you haven’t read it, but the way it kind of works is you have these buckets and, or bank accounts and your operating expenses budget.

If the money’s there, You can afford to buy something, which works, but I want to get even more strategic with how I’m spending my money. I want to set up, you know, this much per year on marketing, this much per year on office supplies, this much per year on education. You know, I want to set it up so that I have a yearly budget for Um, so I’m going to be doing a lot of research for each of these different categories, so that, um, especially as I’m playing around with ads and sponsorships and things, I’m able to get strategic with it, and it’s not just if it’s there, it’s there, because that doesn’t mean it’ll always be there, with just You know, some months you make more, some months you make less, so I want to get even more strategic with that, but within the profit first system still, but just even more budgeted, and that’s the last business goal I have.

I have two personal goals, um, and they’re really more about just getting back to Routines I’ve had previously. So one is having a date night every week. We were really really really good about having date nights every single week up until the pandemic and the pandemic really just broke. Broke all of that and we haven’t gotten back into it since and so that’s something I want to get back into this year is Weekly date nights where we are just connected, phones are away, and we are spending time together.

And then the other thing I want to get back to is consistently working out five days a week. I had a great routine going until I started having the heart issues this year and that really just knocked it all out. So, those are my two personal goals. Um, I’m, I’m still trying to I want to minimize how much pressure I’m putting on myself this year as far as personal goals and improvements I’m trying to make in my life.

And I really just want to, I want to spend less time working and more, and get more strategic with it, which is what I feel like I’ve done with these goals for this year. Um, I know exactly what I need to do and it’s more so a focus on marketing this year versus new projects. I don’t have any I’m not creating new offers this year.

I’m not, I don’t have anything big on my plate. It’s just improving what I have and marketing what I have. So, I’m excited for 2024. That is it. A really deep dive into my goals for this year. If you’re still listening, thanks for sticking around. Um, your action step for this week is to send me an email. My email is hello at amandawarfield.

com and let me know what your 2024 goals are for your business. And this week’s book recommendation is Mad Honey by Jodi Pica. Man, I saw a TikTok where she was on TikTok saying how to say her last name and it was Not what I expected it to be at all. I was definitely, I’ve been saying Picolt and that’s not right and I can’t, is it Picole?

I don’t remember. I should have gone and watched the TikTok before I recorded this. Um, But Madhoney by Jodie Picole, she, I just love the way she makes you see other people’s point of view so well. I mean, it’s truly, her books are astounding, um, and she takes hard issues and tackles them head on and just kind of, she makes you think.

So I read that one in the 2022 maybe, beginning of 2023, so it’s been a while, I don’t fully remember what it was, but I remember ending it and being like, wow, that was a good one. So. That is your recommendation for this week. I will link to it in the show notes if you want to check it out. And until next time, my friend, I hope that you go out and uncomplicate your marketing a business.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode’s show notes, as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 194: Conversations Over Coffee – My 2024 Goals (And a Life Update!) appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

As we’re all easing into the new year, I wanted to share a behind the scenes look of how I’m planning for 2024 – beginning with taking you behind the scenes to a part of my year end wrap up that I’ve never shared before.

My 2023 Income Report!!

I’ll be frank – I’m nosy, and you probably are too. So, I thought I would share a deep dive into my numbers from 2023 and how they changed from 2022. Then, I’ll share a look at how I use those numbers to make decisions for my business in 2024.

But, before we begin – I just wanted to let you know that the quality in this week’s episode is not the quality you’re used to from the Chasing Simple podcast. In order to ensure my numbers were as accurate as possible, I waited as long as possible to record, which means that my editing team is out of office. I also had to record this on my phone instead of my typical mic (more on that next week), so the quality just isn’t the same.

But the information is incredible, so I hope you’ll stick around regardless!

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

As we’re all easing into the new year, I wanted to share a behind the scenes look of how I’m planning for 2024, beginning with taking you behind the scenes to a part of my year end wrap up that I’ve never shared before. My income report. I’ll be frank, I’m nosy, and you probably are too, so I thought I would share a deep dive into my numbers from 2023 and how they changed from 2022.

Then, I’ll share a look at how I use those numbers to make decisions for my business in 2024. But, before we begin, I just wanted to let you know that the quality in this week’s episode is not the quality you’re used to from the Chasing a Temple podcast. In order to ensure my numbers were as accurate as possible, I waited as long as possible to record, which means that my editing team is already out of office for the holidays.

I also had to record this on my phone instead of my typical mic due to traveling, so the quality just isn’t the same. But the information is incredible, so I hope you’ll stick around regardless. You’re listening to episode 193 of the Chasing Symbol podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Symbol Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.

com slash book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome friend, this is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here, to help make marketing simple and less time consuming, so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?

When it comes to creating your monthly content calendar and sitting down to create your content because you’re batching it, right? The first step is not writing in the monthly calendar. It’s not even writing your categories and important dates on the calendar. If that’s where you’re starting with your content planning, well, all you’re creating is a plan.

But what you need is a strategy. What’s the difference? A strategy is like the inner structure of a building, while the plan is the decor. A strategy is what helps you achieve your goals, and your plan is how you achieve them. Your strategy is where you’re leading your audience, and your plan is what you’re talking about and when.

Without having a strategy first, putting together a plan will simply mean pulling ideas out of thin air. So, how do you start with a strategy? By starting with your goals, and working backwards to ensure that you’re moving your audience toward them. What are your yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals?

How can you translate them into content your audience wants to ingest? You’ve got to consider those questions before you even begin deciding what it is that you’ll post about. And if you want a simple way to create both your strategy and your plan, grab your Chasing Simple content planner. The planner is my number one bestseller, and for good reason too, because this massive, more than 130 page planner was designed with strategy in mind.

It’s not merely a place to write down what you’re going to post and when. Yes, that’s part of it, but first, you’ll walk through intentional pages full of strategic questions to get your brain moving in the right direction before you even start writing down your topic ideas. In addition to the traditional calendar pages, you’ll find yearly planning pages, monthly prep work, monthly reflection questions, repurposing worksheets, and so much more.

If taking your content to the next level is a goal of yours, the Chase and Simple content planner was created for you. Grab yours for just 27 at amandawarfield. com slash planner. I love a good income report. I love when other people share theirs and I just so firmly believe in transparency in the business space, especially financial transparency, that this was something I really wanted to share with everyone this year, particularly because So often, and this is something I’ve talked about before, it’s something I think we all recognize on some level, even if Sometimes our brains like to tell us otherwise.

Um, so often we’re told this lie that we haven’t made it in our business until we’re making six figures. And I know I fall into this trap even sometimes still, where I start to think, I really need to hit that six figure mark if I want to be successful. And then I have this realization of, No, I don’t. I’m successful now.

I can support us. I can be the main breadwinner with what I’m making and more on that to come next week, but I am making what we need and I’m happy and I have balance and that’s what success is. But it’s really easy to fall into that trap of I’ve got to make six figures. So I wanted to I wanted to just keep really transparent with you and share exactly what I made this year, or last year, I guess I should say, as this comes out January 2nd, but I wanted to share exactly what I made in 2023 so that you could, you know, Just see a picture of what success can look like and it doesn’t have to be six figures.

It doesn’t have to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s great when someone else makes that for sure, like that’s a huge milestone, but um, Yeah, I just wanted to create this episode to encourage financial transparency, financial literacy, um, and just More balance and more simplicity in this online space instead of the constant rush, the constant push, the constant just dogging ourselves to try to make this fake picture of six figures.

Anyways, it’s a whole tangent that I could go down but That’s why I wanted to create this episode for this week and something I’m really excited to share with you. So we’re just going to, we’ll dive into the numbers. So first things first, my total revenue for 2023 and mind you, this is running the numbers.

There’s still a little bit of time left. I waited as long as I could to record, but this number could change, but I don’t foresee it changing drastically. But total revenue. As of recording this for 2023 is roughly 61, 000 and again, nowhere close to six figures, but plenty for what my husband and I need.

And I’m really happy with that number. I didn’t really set goals for 2023, which again, I’ll get into more next week, but um, I did. I was trying to achieve 70, 000 for the year, so I’m pretty darn happy with 61, 000. Uh, that is a, well, let’s just talk about 2022 revenue. 2022 revenue was about 45, 000, so from 45, 000 that’s about a 36 percent increase.

And I’m very happy with that number, especially considering how hard this year was in the business space, um, and how just everyone’s tightening their belts. So I’m thrilled with those numbers and really just, honestly, if I make the same next year in 2024 or this year in 2024, I will, I will feel good. So I’m really happy with that.

Now, my total expenses for 2023, because revenue only means so much, right? You can make a million dollars and still not have a successful business because your expenses are too high. My total expenses for the year were around 30, 000. I, well, 2022 expenses were 22, 000, so I had a 35 percent increase in expenses this year.

Now, That I don’t love. Not thrilled with that number. I did go into 2023 knowing it was going to be a high expense year between launching the book and getting, you know, I had to hire a lot of help for that. Um, or I chose to hire a lot of help for that so I could make it the best possible book that I could put out there.

I Rebranded that was another big goal for this year was finally getting real branding done from an actual designer and I also Had to invest in a MacBook. So there were a lot more expenses that This year than I would have liked but I also knew going into this year that it was going to be higher I definitely hope to see That number could go down next year for sure in 2024.

I definitely want to be a lot more mindful about my expenses especially with some recent life changes that we’ve had which I’ll get into in next week’s episode, but that’s something that Not terrible, but not great and that left my owner’s comp, which, let me just back up, because of the way my business is taxed as a single member LLC, my owner’s comp, my, my personal paycheck is considered profit.

So that’s not included in that expense number. Just because for tax purposes it’s not an expense for the business, it’s profit. So, my owner’s pay was about 27, 000 this year, and that’s roughly all the profit. I basically paid myself all the profit from the business this year, whereas 2022’s owner’s pay was about 15, 000, so I had an 83 percent increase in my paycheck from last year to this year, which is great.

Phenomenal. But, last year, in 2022, my Profit, even though I only paid myself 15, 000, my profit was 21, 000, so I only had an increase of about 27 percent in profit from 2022 to 2023 because I I had more expenses, so my profit percentage increase was dropped, but also my owner’s comp increased so much because I took basically all of the profit this year versus last year.

I save a lot more money because I knew 2023 was going to be a big year expense wise. So I would definitely like to see my profit increase next year, for sure. As those expenses go down, I want to build back up my savings for the business. Uh, I don’t have plans for any major projects currently. So, that, that’s my hope.

We’ll see. Um, but, yeah, I’m, I’m pretty happy with those numbers. The one I’m least happy about is definitely the expenses, but again, it was a calculated decision that I knew going into the year was going to happen. So all things considered, I’m pretty happy with how 2023 worked out. And now that I know my numbers, I now go into looking at my income streams and my expenses.

And so my largest income streams were my one to one services, which are my Monthly copywriting clients, where I do the content marketing strategy and copywriting. My quarterly strategy clients, where I just do the marketing strategy and then they create their own content. And then my VIP day repurposing, my repurposing content VIP days, where Business owners give me their long form content and I turn that into email newsletters and Social media captions and short form video outlines so that they don’t have to create content So those are my three main one on one services.

That was definitely the largest income stream, which is not surprising in any way shape or form because when you’re doing one to one work for someone, it’s more of an investment for them than say, a membership, which is my second largest income stream. I am honestly a little surprised that the membership was my second largest income stream just because I had a major transition with the membership this year, where it got a complete overhaul.

And I’m thrilled with where it’s at, because it was specifically batching focused, and I took my content batching bootcamp course and just put it on its own. It used to be only included in the membership. It’s on its own, you can buy it separately now, and the membership instead of being batching focused is now just marketing focused.

And we have quarterly themes now, which are just, I’m, I’m thrilled to be able to dive into one marketing topic, one marketing strategy each quarter and really dive deep into it throughout the quarter with my members and help them improve one thing at a time. And really just simplify their marketing. So for example, Q4 of 2023, we created new lead magnets and we got really intentional with creating lead magnets that would lead to sales.

Well, Q1, our theme is all about setting up our email list and getting an email newsletter going so that those people that were bringing in from those lead magnets will now they have somewhere to go and be nurtured. And so I’m just. I’m really glad that it is as high in my income streams as it is because it just is something I’m really passionate about and it’s such a, it’s a great way for me to be able to help business owners in an affordable way because that was something this year that I was really passionate about.

I wanted to make the membership more, um, More affordable, so you can join for just 27 a month Versus previously it was a lot more than that and I just really wanted something that was affordable And still saw results. It’s much more action focused and community focused than Education focused, there’s definitely education, but it’s it’s more action focused.

Anyways, I’m just going off on a tangent but all of that being said I’m surprised but thrilled to see that it was number two in my income streams. And then the third and fourth largest income streams were Content Batching Bootcamp, The Course, and The Planner, The Content Planner, respectively. Um, again, Content Batching Bootcamp.

It only became available as just a course in August and so it just goes to show how like a testament to how much people love that course that it rose to number three of my income streams in just that short amount of time. And then the planner, it’s no surprise to me that that’s on here. That is definitely one of my best sellers all year long.

So the 2024 and 2023 content I included them both. Um, just Because, for the sake of, it doesn’t matter which one is which, um, but both of those combined grabbed the number four spot for my income streams. So, what does all of that mean? Well, I like to look at my income streams and decide, okay. What does this, what does this tell me?

What do I do with this? What does this mean for 2024? And for me, well, it just showcases exactly what I should be digging into and putting my marketing energy into because I have so many different revenue streams with all of the different items in my shop. I know that these four things are ones that I should really be focused on marketing to.

So really focused on marketing my one to one services. Particularly those VIP days because currently I am full for ongoing clients, but those repurposing VIP days, that’s something that I will be continuing to really market in 2024. The membership is something that I’m going to continue to market.

Content Batching Bootcamp, the Content Planner, those are all things that I know if I put energy into marketing them, they are going to bring in sales. They’ve proven themselves, right? So that’s one thing it tells me. It also tells me where to not put my energy in. I have other courses that I love, but clearly right now they need work.

They need I’m tweaking with either the sales page, or the object itself, or how I’m marketing it. There’s so many different things I need to look into. So that indicates, okay, I know that these are great courses. I’ve got my A Year In Preview course, which is all about how to plan your marketing content.

In planning your year in business, I’ve got my launch strategy course, which gives all of my secrets away for how I create launch strategies for myself and my clients. I know the content’s good, I’m not marketing it well, clearly. So that tells me that I need to work on those funnels and those sales pages and those offers throughout the year.

It also can tell you if you look at the income streams that didn’t make any money, it can tell you. Um, whether or not you need to work on improving that offer and that marketing, or it may tell you, Hey, time to shut this one down. I shut down a service or an offer earlier this year that I was like, you know what?

It’s not selling and I don’t feel passionate about it and I’m not, it’s fine, but it’s not one of my favorite offers. And so I shut one down earlier this year, took it out of my shop and there’s just, there’s different things that can tell you and you. You kind of have to make those decisions based on your gut because sometimes things aren’t selling because you’re not Marketing it and sometimes it’s not selling because it’s not what your people need and you kind of have to make that decision for yourself But looking at your largest and smallest income streams can help you make those decisions for the new year The next thing I look at are my expenses.

So my largest expenses for 2023 or my one to one services my Podcast editing team. Shout out to Gaffin Creative, my amazing VA, who if you need a VA, let me know. I will hook you up if she has room, but she’s incredible. Um, and then I also had some one off services. One on one services. So I had my book editors.

I hired two different editors to help me with the book. I hired a book designer to design the cover. I hired, um, I hired a brand designer this year who not only I hired her for my total rebrand, but I also hired her to design the 2024 content planner because 2023 was the first year I launched it and it was functional, but it wasn’t pretty.

And now the 2024 one is functional and pretty. And so, Like I said, some of these were just known expenses that I was going to have throughout the year, but without a doubt, one to one services were my largest expenses. Again, makes sense, right? We all know that that’s going to be the largest expense typically, um, if we are hiring one to one services and that’s something that, well, I’ll get to that in a minute.

My second largest expense was my Macbook, um, that was an unexpected expense this year. Like I said, I had planned for expenses, um, and then in January, my laptop, unexpectedly, not really unexpectedly, let’s be real, I kind of knew it was dying, but it bit the dust, um, I borrowed my husband’s laptop for months until I was comfortable enough and then he finally was like you need to buy your own laptop.

I want mine back. So that was an unexpected expense. Thank goodness for all of my savings last year because Yeah, Macs are not cheap, but I wanted something that was quality so that I, it would last another five to ten years. So that’s my hope with this. We’ll see. But that was my second largest expense. My third was a membership I’m part of and then my fourth is Cartra which is the software I use to run my business.

Um, all of my one to one stuff goes through HoneyBook but my shop, my email list, my funnel, everything else is in Cartra and I could not run my business without it. So, when I look at my expenses, I look at, okay, which of these can I cut in the new year? And particularly going into 2024, I’m having to be a little bit choosier, again, just based on some life circumstances that are happening that I’ll get into more next week.

But Karcher will definitely stick around. It makes it’s worth back tenfold, um, if not more, and I obviously will not be getting rid of my podcast editor or my VA, that’s for sure. But I probably won’t hire as many one off services in the new year. There are a couple projects or a couple investments I would like to make if I save the funds, but they’re not fully necessary.

Like. My wish list, I guess you could say. I want to get new brand photos done. I haven’t had brand photos done since June or July of 2021. It’s been a while. Uh, my business has evolved. It’s past time. That’s a wishlist item for sure. We’ll see what happens. And another wishlist item for one off projects would be hiring that brand designer again to maybe create some sub brands for my shop and some of the different courses I have.

But again, those are wishlists and not Needs so we’ll see but if I have to keep expenses low probably won’t happen this year I obviously do not plan to spend a ton of money on equipment this year I Again a wish list item, but not necessary. I may upgrade my iPad when I bought it 2019 I think is when I bought my iPad.

I originally got it so that I could use it for social media. And so I got a mini, and because I wanted to be able to like hold it in my hand easily so I could record stories and things on it, and that worked really well for a time, but then as my phone got better and better and better and the camera got better and better, I don’t like using it for that any longer.

And so, um. The, the purpose of it being mini isn’t necessary any longer and now it gets used more so as a second screen For me particularly when I am like at the library or at a coffee shop working and I’d rather it be larger But it’s again, not necessary. The old iPad works So Wishlist item for sure.

But other than that, I don’t plan to purchase equipment for this year So that’s an expense I’m definitely cutting, and then the membership I’m part of I will be cutting as well. It has been incredible. I love being part of memberships, particularly for networking purposes, like it’s just the best way to network virtually, but this one, it’s one of my top expenses for the year, and it’s just not something that for this year is going to be feasible, but I hope to go back to it in the future when it is more feasible and I have a little bit more, um, wiggle room with my expenses.

So, when I look at expenses, that’s what I look at and I kind of go, okay, will I continue this one this year? What does my budget look like? How much wiggle room do I have with expenses? So on and so forth. So what I want you to do, your action step for this week, is to take a look at your own streams of income and expenses and kind of do that same mental process that I just did out loud for you.

Do that for your own and see what you come up with as far as where are you putting your marketing Time and efforts. Where are you going to cut expenses? What are your wishlist items? What are your must have items for 2024? And just kind of see where that leads you. And it’s a really great way to wrap up 2023 and start to.

Think about and make lists or just mental nodes of what you might be hoping for in 2024 with your business. Now, your book recommendation for this week is Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. And this one, man, I’m not even sure how to describe it. It,

it kind of fantastical, but it’s not fantasy, but it’s I’m not really sure. She has a really great way of writing books that are real life, but not at the same time. Um, with just like a little hint of, I don’t even want to say magic because it’s, it’s not necessarily magic, but it’s just a little hint of the unreal.

Um, but regardless, I’m, I’m just going to leave it at that. But It’s an incredible book. I will link to it in the show notes if you want to check it out. And again, that Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. And now my friends, I hope that you’ll go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes, as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 193: My 2023 Income Report appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

This week’s episode is something extra fun and special. We are going to be airing an episode, a guest episode that I actually did on another podcast, the Shoot It Straight podcast with Sabrina Gebhardt, which if you’re a photographer, you need to be listening to her podcast. But even if you’re not a photographer, you should still give it a listen because Sabrina is It’s all about sustainability in business and if you’re here, I assume that you also are always looking for better sustainability in your business because that is a core value that she and I share and it’s just a podcast you need in your life if that’s something that you’re really passionate about as well.

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

Amanda Warfield: This week’s episode is something extra fun and special. We are going to be airing an episode, a guest episode that I actually did on another podcast, the Shoot It Straight podcast with Sabrina Gebhardt, which if you’re a photographer, you need to be listening to her podcast. But even if you’re not a photographer, you should still give it a listen because Sabrina is It’s all about sustainability in business and if you’re here, I assume that you also are always looking for better sustainability in your business because that is a core value that she and I share and it’s just a podcast you need in your life if that’s something that you’re really passionate about as well.

But I am sharing a episode with you that I actually did on her podcast. So what you’ll hear is Sabrina interviewing me for her podcast in this episode. So what we’re talking about is consistency in marketing and I’m sharing You know, why consistency in marketing is so important, but also why it is that so many entrepreneurs find consistency so difficult and what you can do to implement better strategy in your marketing so that you can see more consistency.

So this is a canvas episode. Like I said, after you listen to this one, be sure to head over to shoot it straight and give it a follow so you can hear more. Great interviews and solo episodes with Sabrina, because you’re definitely going to want to check that one out. You’re listening to the Chasing Simple podcast, episode 192, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield.

This episode is brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your copy at amandawarfield. com slash book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching GameCock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here, to help make marketing simple and less time consuming, so that you can spend less time on your marketing, and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee, or whatever your drink of choice is, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Hey there friend, I’m popping in really quickly to ask for your help.

If you haven’t already, would you mind leaving a rating and review for the Chasing Simple podcast? You see, ratings and reviews are really important in the life of a podcast because it tells the podcast player that people are listening and enjoying the show. which means that this show is more likely to get suggested to a wider audience.

Not only that, but honestly, I love to read the encouraging words from listeners, especially on those hard days of entrepreneurship. So if you’ve felt encouraged by this show or you’ve learned something that you’ve been able to implement to improve your business, I would love to hear about it. So please go leave a rating review if you haven’t already.

It would truly mean the world to me. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast. Today we’ve got my friend Amanda Warfield and I’m really, really excited because Amanda and I got connected on the Instagram, I don’t know, maybe a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago. I don’t know. Time flies. And, um, she has taught in my group and I have been on her podcast and now it’s her turn to be on mine.

And so this is one of those situations where we followed each other online and now we’ve gotten to kind of know each other. And it’s really fun because it’s going to make the conversation just like friends, right? We’re like old friends at this point. So Amanda Warfield is in charge of Chasing Simple, the podcast, the business.

She’s got a content planner. She’s got a book coming out. I hope it’s okay that I say that. Um, she does so many cool things and she also has another hustle where she is a Disney travel agent, which is like so rad. Um, anyways, that is just a little bit about her, but I’m going to let you introduce yourself.

Amanda Warfield: First of all, I’m so excited and it’s funny because I have zero like placement in time of when we got, but the last like. three years have just been this time warp where everything happened all at the same time. Basically, 

Sabrina Gebhardt: it feels like, yeah, yeah, it’s really hard. I feel like now that I’m not like a student in school, I’m like, when was that exactly?

You know, it’s really hard. 

Amanda Warfield: And if there isn’t some, like, Anchor in time, some big thing that happened. I have no clue when anything happened. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: Totally, totally. 

Amanda Warfield: But for those that haven’t met me yet, I’m Amanda Warfield. I’m a simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist. And like Sabrina said, I’m the host of the chasing simple podcast, my book, which will also be titled chasing simple because I’m not creative and naming things.

Is also coming out this summer, which I’m really, really excited about. And I know Sabrina actually has gotten to read a very early draft of it, which is really fun. Um, so yeah, 

Sabrina Gebhardt: we, we’ve done a lot together. We have. I’m just realizing this now. Yeah, we’ve done a lot together and just however long it’s been, I don’t know.

Um, okay. So today we are chatting about something really fun that Amanda knows all about. And I. I like to think I know a little bit about, but she’s the, she’s the mastermind here. So it’s going to be a great conversation, but before we dive into today’s topic, back up and tell me how you got started in business and like what your trajectory has been.

Yeah, absolutely. 

Amanda Warfield: So when I started my business back in 2018, which is crazy that it’s almost been five years, but back in 2018 started my business, I was actually teaching on. capsule wardrobes and simple living. And that was what I was really passionate about at the time. I was super excited to be able to like, Oh, I can create courses online.

I was also a teacher. So it was like, Oh, I can take my educational background and do that online with something I’m super passionate about. How cool is that? And so I started a blog, started a business and was talking about Caps Wardrobes and Simple Living and things like that. And at some point kind of veered more into time management.

And then I started noticing that other entrepreneurs really struggle with time management because they lack that structure, right? We, we can do whatever we want at any given time. And so I started teaching on that more and that turned into this topic of Consistency with your content marketing, which is what we’re going to talk about today.

And I had created this system for myself for creating a month’s worth of content at one time. In one week, I was able to batch out a whole month’s worth of content. And then I could spend three weeks not worrying about marketing myself, which was really, really nice. And I happened to share about that on Instagram one day and people lost their minds.

I had never gotten so many messages before, and it made me sit back and go, Okay. This is actually a problem that other people have too. It’s not just me. And so I started talking more and more about content batching and that just kind of evolved into this full love of marketing. So it’s really funny that really the core of my business as it is today started with this topic of consistency.

Sabrina Gebhardt: Yeah, that’s so cool. I love how you were so in tune with your audience and you picked up that little nugget of, Oh, this is where things are going to go. Right. I love that you were super aware. 

Amanda Warfield: I want to say, I want to pat myself on the back for that, but honestly, it was so obvious because I had significantly more messages than I had ever gotten before.

I mean, I, people left and right were DMing me about this and I was like, oh, okay, let me try it again. And so then I posted about it again and the same thing happened. And I posted about again, the same thing happened. And that was when I was like, all right, they’re hitting me over the head with this. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: I should, I should move towards this.

Yeah, no, I love that. I love it. So before we get really deep into this conversation, we’re talking about consistency in marketing, but why don’t you define for me? Like what you’re going to, what you’re calling marketing for this female, creative, small business entrepreneur. So good. 

Amanda Warfield: Because I, this is what I struggled with when I first started my business.

Originally, I was like, I’m terrible at marketing. I suck at it. And now it’s what I do for a living. Yeah. Marketing is such a vague term. We hear the word marketing and we’re like, yeah, I mean, I kind of know what that is, but like, what is it really? All’s it is, is using, and if we’re talking specifically content marketing, using content that we’re creating to get the word out about our businesses.

So marketing is just whatever it is that you’re doing to let other people know that your business exists. And it’s really as simple as that, but there are so many different facets of marketing that we can get really overwhelmed 

Sabrina Gebhardt: by it. Yeah. And that overwhelm is a really big part of the problem. And I’m sure we’re going to talk about it today.

So when we start talking about consistency in marketing, right? Consistency in selling ourselves, consistency in putting ourselves in our business out there. Like, what does that even look like? Right? Like, what does that mean? 

Amanda Warfield: Yeah, so good. A lot of times we look at marketing experts and those, those bigger business owners that we look up to and we see them talking about best practices for any individual content platform.

Oh, well, if you post to Instagram stories five times a day, you’re going to continue to show up best in people’s feeds. And if you post it this time, yada, yada, yada, we look and we hear people talk about these best practices and we think, okay, well, I, as a solopreneur, you know, a very small business owner.

Maybe I have a small team. I need to work to those best practices. I’ve got to show up all the time, create a ton of content, and that’s how I’m going to grow my business. But in reality, that’s great for those businesses that have large teams. I have a couple clients that have massive teams, like 10, 20 people.

There are the kinds of people that can put out YouTube and podcasts and blog and TikTok and Instagram. Because they have other people on their team doing that for them. They’re creating the bare minimum of that actual process. They’re not doing the entire full from concept to scheduled, right? They’re just doing the littlest bit.

And so they’re able to put on a ton of content, but most of us.

Yeah. And it’s not realistic. And that’s how we end up in even more overwhelm. We end up burning ourselves out on our content, which just consistency is gone at that point, right? We’re done. We’re ghosting. And so what consistency actually means is setting a schedule that you can stick to and it’s realistic for you, whether that’s showing up daily on Instagram stories or whether that’s showing up once a week.

whether that’s putting out a new podcast episode every week or whether it’s putting one out once a month. It doesn’t really matter the rate that you’re showing up as long as you’re showing up when you say you’re going to. Yeah. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: Yeah. I love that. And I mean, I think it’s so important to set realistic expectations for yourself.

I mean, Just from the sole fact that like we are all in different seasons of life, right? Like I have three kids, you have no kids, you know, some of us are single. Some of us are married. Some of us are, um, divorced. Some people have health issues or, I mean, it’s, it’s all. Plays a part in what you can manage and trying to run your business the same way, like you said, as people who have this massive team, it’s like not fair.

It’s not fair to yourself. You 

Amanda Warfield: know, it’s like the, the same where people are like, Oh, Beyonce has the same 24 hours in a day as you. No, she doesn’t. Nope. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: She absolutely does not. She’s got like 10 other people’s 24 hours. Yeah. 

Amanda Warfield: Right. Like she’s got a whole team that are helping her. And you know, it’s in theory.

It’s a great sentiment, but realistically. No, it’s not the same. It’s definitely not the same. And not only does showing up consistently and when you say you will, it’s good for your mental health. One, it’s good for your own overwhelm, but it also builds the know, like, and trust factor. With your audience when they know, Hey, Sabrina is going to show up every Tuesday with a new podcast episode.

I don’t know if that’s when your podcast actually goes live, but when I know that every Tuesday, when her new podcast episode goes out, when I go on my morning walk, that’s what I’m listening to on Tuesday mornings. And it sets up this rhythm where they know, Oh. I’m going to have her in my earbuds every Tuesday morning.

And I trust that that new episode is going to come out. But if you say I’m going to show up every Wednesday and then you skip a week, well, your people are going, where’s your episode? And if you think they’re not paying attention, they are, because I can guarantee you the times where my, I’ve had a tech issue and an episode hasn’t gone out, it’s all these DMS.

Hey, um, this week’s episode is not out. Uh, what’s going on. And even, and I’m over here like no one listens to my podcast. Why would they listen? I get those DMS, even if this is a little small time creator. And so it’s so important that you show up when you say you’re going to be, because your people really do pay attention to that.

And they really do say, Hey, this is when I’m listening to this podcast and I’ve got a routine around it. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: Totally. And here’s the thing about consistency and like, what is realistic for you? I know I’m going to get asked. How do we decide what’s realistic for us? Like, how do we learn? How do we figure that out?

Is there a starting point that you recommend? And then like, what’s the process? 

Amanda Warfield: The starting point that I typically recommend is. Do your best to lay out what you feel like is a realistic plan for you. Look at the amount of content you have been putting out. So maybe your goal has been every other week for your podcast and you’ve sometimes been meeting it and sometimes not.

Okay. So every other week’s not realistic. What are we going to do? We’re going to take that back to once a month, but I tend to say, okay, lay out your plan, what you think is realistic. And then cut it in half. And that’s always every time I run club content batching live, that’s where I get these like shot faces.

Like, Oh my gosh, what? Yeah. We get cut it in half. You can always add bonus content in. You can always increase once you’re in a rhythm, but it’s so much better to put out less content on a consistent basis than to aim for more content and end up inconsistent because people are going to stop paying attention if they don’t feel like they can trust you.

Sabrina Gebhardt: Okay. That is. Such gold. Um, another reason why I love that is I am constantly telling people like we underestimate how long everything takes, right? Like, we’re like, Oh, I can bang out a whole month’s worth of posts in a couple of hours. And I’m like, no, you can’t, you know, or we think just writing a really solid blog post will take, you know, one morning and I’m like, well, you know, it.

Everything takes longer and whether it’s because we’re not in a rhythm or we’re not doing it in a bad, in a bad schedule, and that’s a whole other conversation, but things take longer. And we totally underestimate how long it takes us to do things well. 

Amanda Warfield: Well, and we, what we, we think is we’re like, Oh, in the best, most ideal scenario, it’s going to take this time, but you don’t account for the fact that you didn’t sleep well last night or that you ran out of coffee and you didn’t have your typical cup this morning, or that your kids are homesick from school.

There’s so many. Actors that go into play. When you sit down to do any given task, your pet is driving you crazy and wants attention. You know, like you never know what’s going to be happening and so to say, oh, I’m going to be able to knock out this in this many hours, it’s always better to. underestimate 

Sabrina Gebhardt: than it is to overestimate.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So if I’m going to start, like, if I’m going to commit to consistency in my marketing, okay. And you’ve already said, like, make your dream schedule and then cut it in half. So then what, like, what am I starting with? What does that look like? Like, how am I creating that rhythm where I can actually be consistent?

Yeah. I 

Amanda Warfield: always recommend to set aside a dedicated amount of time ahead of time. So Again, for some, it’s a week, some it’s a couple of days, whatever that looks like, but set aside a rhythm where the third week of every month is going to be a week. Where you’re working, working strictly on marketing. Maybe the first weekend of a month is where you’re gonna be working on your marketing, but set that aside and then mark it off on your calendar for the entire year, protect that time because what ends up happening is.

Over and over again with my students. Oh, I set up my batch weeks, but then I scheduled a dentist appointment that morning, or I, I had a meeting that I needed to really attend and I ended up doing a bunch of meetings that day. And then I just didn’t have time for matching, protect that time and make it a priority so that you have the time to sit down and focus and.

Knock some work out without having to go, okay, well, I’ve got an hour before this thing and 30 minutes here and this little bit of time here. Stop trying to squeeze it in and make it a priority because your business needs marketing. It just, it’s got to be a priority in some level and it doesn’t mean you need to spend all your time marketing, but you need to do some marketing.

Sabrina Gebhardt: I love the protecting the time because, I mean, we will protect our schedule when it comes to client meetings or working with other people. But when it comes to just when we’re working with ourself, quote unquote, you know, when we’re the ones that have to sit down and do it, we don’t protect that time.

And it’s really kind of sad because just like you said, like our business needs some sort of marketing. Okay. Whether you’re going to be on social media or an email list or blogging for SEO, like you have to do something, you have to do something for people to find you. And when we are not committing to doing that consistently and allowing us to have that time.

To do it. It’s, it’s like, we’re not giving our business our best, right? Like we’re not putting, we’re not going all in. We’re just kind of like, oh, nobody’s finding me. I’m not getting leads. I’m not getting the kind of leads I want. I’m not getting, well, what have you been doing lately? You know, 

Amanda Warfield: the number one complaint people have is I’m not getting leads and I’m not seeing sales.

Okay. Well, when was the last time you showed up in your content? And talked about that service. When was the last time you showed up on Instagram stories and told people about your course? If you’re not talking about it, they don’t know about it. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: So most shoot it straight listeners know at this point that I love to really get to the why behind the thing we’re talking about.

That’s just, that’s what this, that’s what this podcast is all about. The why, like I like to get to the underlying issue because I think a lot of it is the same. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about pricing or marketing or imposter syndrome or whatever it is, fill in the blank. A lot of the struggles, their internal struggles that we have, right?

The thing about it is with entrepreneurs, like we are our business. And so if we’re having mindset struggles or battles with things, right? It carries over. It carries over from personal to business. So why do you think creative entrepreneurs struggle so dang much with consistency? I think there are 

Amanda Warfield: three main reasons.

One is the overwhelm and just the mental aspect of well, I haven’t set aside the time to prioritize this and it’s on my to do list. But you look at your to do list and you go, gosh, there’s so much to do. Marketing. That means I got to figure out what I’m going to say, where I’m going to say it. I’m going to actually say it.

I’m going to, you know, there’s so many tasks that go into post to my stories today. That’s not a simple task. And so we overwhelm ourselves by not protecting that time and being intentional with our marketing. I think another thing is that imposter syndrome of, Oh, who am I to talk about this thing? Even if we’re.

Doing the thing with our clients. Like our clients are happy. They love what we’re doing. We still feel, uh, why no one wants to hear from me. So we’ve got that imposter syndrome. And then I think the third thing that can hold a lot of us back is that we feel bored with talking about the same thing over and over and over again.

Yeah, that’s 

Sabrina Gebhardt: huge. And it’s. It’s something that like, I know you teach your students and I teach my students, but yet I still struggle with, and I’m sure you still struggle with too. Like you’re aware of it, but it’s still a problem. We do. We feel like we’re talking about the same dang thing all the time to all the places.

And there is that level of boredom. So I love the overwhelm, the imposter syndrome and the boredom. Do you have any tips for combating any of those things when it comes to pushing through and marketing your business anyways? 

Well, 

Amanda Warfield: we’ve talked a lot about combating the overwhelm. So I feel like, you know, set aside that time, be intentional with it.

As far as imposter syndrome, I wish I had other than just do it. Um, that’s just one of those things where you just, you show up even when you don’t want to. And that’s not to say I show up all the time, but even when you’re like, why would they listen to me? You show up and you do it anyways. Writing a book.

If you want to learn about imposter syndrome, I it’s rough. Um, and so I don’t have any answers for that one other than just, it is a thing that we all struggle with and you’re not alone, but boredom. I actually recorded a podcast episode about this today. So the biggest and easiest thing you can do. Is to really pay attention to messaging when you sit down to prepare to play in your content.

So before you even decide what you’re talking about and when you’re talking about it and what your strategy is for the next. month of content. Ask yourself, one, what’s happening in my niche right now? What is happening that’s affecting my people that I could talk about? So for example, let’s say it’s November and you know, okay, well in November, if I see If I’m business to business, I know that I, all of my audience members are in full on sprint right now.

All of us in the business space, November is a sprint. So based on whatever I talk about, how can I mix that idea of this is going to be a sprint month where everyone’s really busy, how do I mix that into my messaging this month? If you are. A family photographer, maybe you are in November. You probably have already done Christmas minis, but let’s pretend you haven’t.

Maybe that’s, you know, like, oh, Christmas minis are coming up November. People are gonna really want to make sure that they’re thinking ahead for Christmas cards. That’s going to, you’re going to mix in your messaging based on what’s happening during whatever month it is. And then there’s so many other ways you can take that to, if it’s like.

You know, AI chat, GBT, that’s all a big thing right now. For those of us that are copywriters and content creators, there’s the whole, Oh, they’re going to take your job. That’s a whole conversation that’s happening in my niche right now that I can take and mix into my messaging of how do we use this to keep it simple in our marketing, right?

So pay attention to what’s happening in your niche and in the world around us. That’s a great way to mix some new, fresh ideas into a consistent message that you’re already talking about. And then the other thing to pay attention to is pop culture. So what’s happening in pop culture right now that you can just slip in as a reference, not to change your messaging, but just to reference.

So recently the Prince Harry book that has been a big thing that’s been all over everyone’s feed. How can you make a reference to. something being the spare or I don’t know, you know, just a little, a little sentence inside your content and copy to, to make it feel fresh and new, even though it’s the same thing you’ve always said, you’ve just got a new reference 

Sabrina Gebhardt: in it.

Yeah. I love that. And. Number one, like we’re all creatives. So this should be like a fun twist on how can I talk about this in a new way? But also even if, even if you do have those super loyal listeners and followers that do hear you talking about it over and over again, the new reference, the new twist, the new way you word it could hit them in a way that it’s never hit them before.

And maybe all of a sudden they’re like, Oh my gosh, I do want to work with her. Oh my gosh, I want that experience, right? Like it, it can land differently too. I love that. 

Amanda Warfield: Well, you think about we go back and we will rewatch TV shows and we rewatch movies and those don’t change. They don’t get any new updates and yet we still go.

Oh, I’ve never noticed that. Yeah, totally. So just imagine a different example or a different reference and what that can do for someone who’s listening or watching. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: Yeah, that’s such a great point. I mean, that happens every single time you rewatch a movie or you read a book, a book again, right? Anytime you’re revisiting the same thing, you pick up on different stuff.

So that’s so smart. Um, I love it. So if anybody is listening right now and they are just struggling because of all the things and the overwhelm and the to do list and the running the business and wearing all the hats, right? What is something they can take away today, this week to start to implement consistency in their marketing without making the overwhelm worse?

Mark 

Amanda Warfield: the calendar. I want everyone, if you don’t already set aside time for your marketing, go to your calendar and for the rest of the year, set aside a little bit of time each month that is strictly for marketing and put washi tape over it, put a sticky note, whatever, so that you can’t add new things to the calendar for those days.

So that is strictly for your marketing. If you do nothing else after this interview, 

Sabrina Gebhardt: go do that. Girl. Same. That is like my favorite. That is my favorite thing. Whether it’s. marketing or goals or white space or anything. I’m like, if you don’t put that stuff on your calendar, you, it’s a daydream. It is a daydream that is never going to come to fruition, you know?

So that is such a great tip. That’s such a great tip. Okay. Um, I’ve got four kind of rapid fire questions that I love to end with. So what is your current favorite coffee shop order? 

Amanda Warfield: I am so basic. Cinnamon Dolce Latte from Starbucks. Every 

Sabrina Gebhardt: time. Okay. Love it. Basic is good. You know what you want. It’s available all the time.

Love it. Um, okay. Dream vacation. You cannot say Disney. You cannot say anything Disney related. Okay. Well, um, no Disney Paris or Disney Hong Kong. Okay. Cause I know that’s where you’re going. 

Amanda Warfield: Um, Oh, that makes it so hard. Honestly, 

Sabrina Gebhardt: probably the beach again. I’m just any great beach. Yeah. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a great beach ocean in my ear.

Amanda Warfield: No, no, I don’t want to get in the ocean, but like I want to sit there with the book and the sun and be a lizard 

Sabrina Gebhardt: and yeah, yeah. Well, and it like literally forces you to relax because there’s like only so much to see and do, which is really great. Which is really great. Okay, have you been to Disneyland Paris before?

Amanda Warfield: No, I haven’t done 

Sabrina Gebhardt: any of the international ones. Oh my god, it’s so cute. Like, literally, when you go on It’s a Small World and it’s in French, you’re like, This is the most charming thing I’ve ever been on. It’s so cute. It’s so cute. We went there, um, When I was pregnant with my first, we went on our baby moon to Paris and we had originally, so it wasn’t supposed to be a baby moon.

It was supposed to just be a vacation and it was supposed to be 10 days to Paris and then a couple of places in Italy. And we were going to bounce around. And, um, then I got pregnant and I was in, it was the tail end of my first trimester or the very beginning of the second trimester. And I was still like, felt just gross and sick and did not feel good.

And so I, um, we were like, okay, we’re still going. Cause we’ve like set aside time for this amazing vacation, but let’s just cut all of Italy out. And we’re going to do 10 days just in Paris. We’re not going to go anywhere highly recommend because if you’re the kind of person that likes to like see all the historic sites and like, why wouldn’t you?

We did one site a day. We took an afternoon nap every day and then we like wandered around like a local. And so it was like the slowest, most magical vacation. Anyway, the last day we were like, we’ve seen everything. Let’s go to Paris Disney. So we hopped on the train and did it just on a whim. And it was so fun.

See, we’re planning a trip 

Amanda Warfield: to Japan right now. Amazing. I, of course, was like, well, we’re going to Tokyo Disney and my husband and I, you know, I had to argue for two days because there’s two parks I have to go to, but when are we going back to Japan? Right. Right. 

Sabrina Gebhardt: So hopefully you totally should. Oh, I bet Tokyo Disney is so cute with all the anime stuff.

Best one. Yeah. I bet it’s awesome. Oh my gosh. I bet it’s awesome. Okay. Um, okay. When you think back over the course of your business, what was the decision or the investment that was the biggest game changer for you? The first 

Amanda Warfield: group coaching program I invested in. And not because the program itself was I mean, it was incredible, but not because of that, but because it was the one, the first time that I had ever like invested in myself.

And two, it’s when I really started to create friendships within this online business space. And that for me was something that I was missing for a good. Two and a half years of being a business owner was I was doing it all in a bubble and that did nothing for me mentally for the business, like starting to figure out, Oh, like, it’s really cool to have people in my corner so that I think that for me was the biggest game changer was just realizing like how important relationships 

Sabrina Gebhardt: were.

Totally. And that’s such a good point. I mean, I will always say that like the big education investment is always the game changer in my opinion, but when you look at it from the. side of like community and friendship. I think so many new entrepreneurs are in that space of loneliness, even if they wouldn’t say they were right.

Like, I don’t think they may, I don’t think they necessarily identify that like, Oh, I’m all by myself. And I’m sad until they’re on the other side. And they’re like, Oh my gosh, what was I missing? Right. Yeah. It’s 

Amanda Warfield: just something about having people that get what you do and you don’t have to. Explain. I don’t know if you listen to, um, Haley Gaffin and Brie Pair’s new podcast.

They’re the episode this week, they were sharing about how their husbands just like, don’t even tell people what they do because no one would get it. Right. This is why I have 100 percent friends in the business space. is so important because my people ask my husband what I do and he’s like, I don’t know.

Sabrina Gebhardt: Totally. Totally. Totally. Um, I get it so much. Okay. If you were not in content marketing and coaching and now an author, what do you think you’d be doing? I’d probably still be teaching. I mean, 

Amanda Warfield: that’s what I was doing before. Um, I, I very much am passionate about education. And so I, in some capacity, I would be teaching.

I don’t know if I’d still be in the classroom. Um, but maybe. Teaching somehow within my church or something. I don’t know, but something education, which I know is you really outside of education, but 

Sabrina Gebhardt: that’s okay. That’s okay. You know what I meant? Outside of like business education. Yeah, no, I love that.

Okay. I love it. So why don’t you go ahead and share how everybody can connect with you in the future and reach out to you? 

Amanda Warfield: Yeah. Probably best places, Instagram. Um, I’m, I’m pretty consistently showing up in stories there and you’ll see lots of cute cat stuff. So that’s always good. But I’m at Mrs. Amanda Warfield.

Sabrina Gebhardt: Love it. And we’re going to have all the links and everything in the show notes. So thank you so much for being here today. It was so fun chatting. Um, I love all of our little tangents we went off on. I knew we would, I knew it was going to be a great conversation. So Thank you for being here and, uh, we’ll see you next time.

Okay. Thank you for having 

Amanda Warfield: me so much.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 192: Consistency in Marketing from the Shoot It Straight Podcast appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

One of the things I love most about being an entrepreneur is that you never stop learning. I’m a perpetual student – I love taking courses, attending conferences, listening to podcasts, and reading books. Gathering knowledge for improving my life and business fills me with joy, although sometimes you learn things the hard way and they aren’t so fun.

This year, there were 5 lessons that really stood out to me – some good and some not so fun ones. And today I’m letting you peek behind the curtain and sharing what it is I learned this year. And hey, maybe that means you won’t have to go through the hard lessons to learn the not so fun ones yourself!

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

One of the things I love most about being an entrepreneur is that you never stop learning. I’m a perpetual student. I love taking courses, attending conferences, listening to podcasts, and reading books. Gathering knowledge for improving my life and business fills me with joy. Although, sometimes you learn things the hard way and they aren’t so fun.

This year, there were five lessons in particular that really stood out to me. Some good and some not so fun ones. And today, I’m letting you peek behind the curtain and sharing what it is that I learned this year. And hey, maybe that means you won’t have to go through the hard lessons to learn the not so fun ones yourself.

You’re listening to episode 191 of the Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield. com. book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here, to help make marketing simple and less time consuming. So that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week. I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices and meet me here each week for love support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together. Shall we? Hey there friend. I’m popping in really quickly to ask for your help.

If you haven’t already, would you mind leaving a rating and review for the Chasing Simple podcast? You see, ratings and reviews are really important in the life of a podcast because it tells the podcast player that people are listening and enjoying the show, which means that this show is more likely to get Suggested to a wider audience.

Not only that, but honestly, I love to read the encouraging words from listeners, especially on those hard days of entrepreneurship. So if you felt encouraged by this show, or you’ve learned something that you’ve been able to implement to improve your business. I would love to hear about it. So please, go leave a rating and review if you haven’t already.

It would truly mean the world to me. The first lesson that I learned this year in entrepreneurship is that it is okay to change your mind and undo something that you’ve done. So, for a backstory, you might have heard this previously, but maybe you’ve only heard bits and pieces, or maybe you’ve never heard this.

But, Back in 2020, I launched my course, Content Batching Bootcamp, and it did incredibly well as a course. It’s truly what launched my business and is the foundation for my entire business. And without a doubt, it’s my best selling course ever. It just did so well. It honestly surprised me. Both myself and my husband with how well it did and then I ran it live three times and each time I Asked for feedback and put out a form and every single time.

I got the same feedback. Love the course so helpful I wish that it came with ongoing accountability Because it’s great to know how to set up a batch week that works for me But now I have to do it month after month and I thought you know what? That’s a great point I’m going to turn this into a membership Because I wanted to be able to give that ongoing accountability.

And so I did, I turned it into club content batching, which was a year long membership commitment. And the idea behind that was, okay, you’re going to commit to batching your content every single month for a year, and you’re going to be accountable to doing it together with us as a group over time, it became clear that.

While, in theory, that was something people wanted, it didn’t sell well, and I knew it wasn’t the course because the course had sold itself really, really well previously. And so, I sat with that for a long time. You know, 2021 was when I turned it from a course to a membership, and I sat with that feeling of, this isn’t right for, um, a year, year and a half.

I would say before I finally figured out what I wanted to do and there were a lot of feelings of Imposter syndrome and scarcity and just failure that I had associated with this because, you know, I really thought I was doing what my students wanted me to do and it didn’t work. It didn’t sell and there was this frustration of, man, this course sold so well and I thought I was doing the right thing by transitioning it.

to a membership and then no one wanted it. Maybe no one wants the course anymore. Maybe it’s not, you know, there’s all these thoughts that cycle through your head in these moments. And, um, it was really hard for me. Again, I sat with this for a year, year and a half. Trying to figure out what to do next and just not really being sure and it was really hard for me to decide to make that change and then to decide what to do with it and what I ultimately ended up doing was I Took the course material for content batching bootcamp and I turned it back into a course And then I got rid of the current membership that I had club content batching and I created an entirely new membership that was more aligned with my book and my business overall because The membership for Club Content Batching was really just focused on batching your content.

And I wanted a membership that was a bit more broad and that covered simplifying your marketing and your business as a whole, more aligned with this podcast and more aligned with my book, Chasing Simple Marketing. And so I created Chasing Simple Marketing, the membership. And so now instead of having a year long commitment that’s all about batching.

I have a membership that has a month to month commitment. You can cancel at any time, but also has quarterly themes where we deep dive into one specific area of improving your marketing. And so it’s still meant to help hold you accountable and to be really actionable and not overwhelm you with education, but it’s much more aligned with my business as a whole.

And so That was a really, really scary change to make because it was a big change and in a way it felt like going backwards. But immediately I started seeing sales of Content Batching Bootcamp, the course, again. And immediately I started seeing new members joining Chasing Simple Marketing, the community.

And so both turned out to be a success where together they were not. And if I had not pushed past those feelings of. If I have to undo something, I’m a failure. If I have to go back on what I’ve done, I don’t know what I’m doing as a business owner. If I have to undo what I’ve done, others will see me as a failure.

If I hadn’t pushed past those feelings… Which it took me longer than I wish it would have to do so, but if I hadn’t pushed past those, I would be feeling really unfulfilled in that area of my business. So that was a long story. I think that’s probably the longest of all of these different lessons that I learned.

But the first lesson that I learned this year is that it is okay to change your mind and undo something that you’ve already done. The second lesson that I learned this year is that things can change drastically over a year. So one of the things I do in my KPIs each month is at the very bottom I have a space for my biggest wins of the month and my biggest lessons learned of the month which If you are interested in having a kpi tracker template I do have one in my shop that you can check out and i’ll link to that in the show notes But that is something I do every month is first day of the month I do my kpis and I go through and I fill out that whole tracker And the very two last things in that tracker are what were my wins and what were my biggest lessons.

And I was looking back over that as I prepared for this episode. And it’s really funny because in February, I believe I had made a note in the biggest lessons of this is just going to be a slow year. And I just have to accept that that is what it’s going to be. And. And now I’m ending the year with, you know, exceeding records that I set for myself, exceeding goals that I set for myself.

And one in particular was I had a certain number of shop sales I wanted to hit by the end of the year on a monthly basis. I wanted to be hitting that. In February, I was like, I’m not gonna, it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to be hitting that number. And then all of a sudden I started hitting it and I’ve been hitting it consistently.

And I really started this year feeling like I wasn’t going to see much growth. But I’m ending the year feeling really good despite the fact that there is, you know, some economic issues happening right now. Feeling really good about where things are at. I’m not hitting all of my goals. I’m not hitting my big revenue goal for the year, but over the last eight months or so, I’ve really seen things change drastically and you know, sometimes it’s really easy to be in a moment and think well this year is just done.

I’ve just not hit my goals. It’s not what I want it to be and Looking back through my lessons learned this year was a great reminder that a year is a long time and things can change drastically, and that it’s okay to set big goals for yourself, even if you think they may not be reachable. The third lesson I learned this year is that crafting a strong offer takes longer than we think, and that they need to be reiterated over and over again.

This You know is a lesson that I sort of learned through that first lesson right of okay Well, I had content batching bootcamp and I turned it into club content batching now It’s back to content batching bootcamp. And so that was a great Lesson there, but I’ve also seen this happen with other offers that I’ve had man my content planner Got an incredible facelift this year and I’m amazed at how different it is and how much better the 2024 version is than the 2023 version and You know when I put it out last year and it sold so well I was like, I got a great offer here.

And now I’m like wait It’s so much better now than it was this is incredible And so it needs to be reiterated over and over even if you think your offer is great But on the other side of things i’ve seen offers take off a lot slower not because they weren’t a great offer, but just because I needed to Um, I don’t really dive further into the messaging, you know, maybe I had a really great idea, but it wasn’t honed in enough yet and it wasn’t clear yet and I put it out, but the audience needed more from me that I wasn’t quite giving them or, you know, there’s a lot of different reasons why an offer can’t quite hit the nail on the head just yet, but it’s not as simple as coming up with an offer.

And then, okay, your first launch is the end all be all. No, it, it really does take time to craft a strong offer, and a lot of times we want to put an offer out and have it immediately be successful, and that’s just not the case. And that is something that I’ve run into multiple times. This year, both with myself and with clients, actually, and it’s just a good reminder that it’s okay to reiterate things and it’s okay to take it slow and to really spend time diving into that offer as your people go through it and go alongside them and ask them, you know, what What could be made better about this?

I just got off a call with a Community member from Chasin’s of a marketing the community and I asked, you know, how are things going? Is there anything confusing and she said well, you know, I haven’t really gotten far into it and I get started And then I get distracted or whatever and I was like, well, you know, I intentionally created this material As audio trainings instead of video training so that you could take it on the go, have you been able to do that?

And she pointed out that with the way it’s set up in Cardstroke currently, that’s not actually feasible because when she closes that tab or closes her phone, all of a sudden it’s gone and it stops talking. And so that was a huge realization for me that, okay, well, I need to find a different way to set that up because that’s not going to work for the intended purpose.

And had I not gone alongside her and asked those questions, I never would have known that. So. Creating a strong offer does take longer than we think and that’s okay. The fourth lesson that I learned is that funnels really do make such a difference. A large part of the reason that my shop has taken off this year is yes, because people are more interested in DIY offers right now and lower ticket offers, but also because I’ve set up funnels that are leading people to different offers in my shop.

And We could, there’s a lot that we could talk about with funnels and I’m not going to go into a ton of teaching on them right now, but setting up funnel offers for people so that once they join your email list, they’re hearing about specific offers. Is huge because if they don’t hear about it, how are they going to know it’s there?

And so you have to set up those offers if you’re going to have an email list And listen if you’re just getting started and you’re like amanda, it’s enough to like send a newsletter Don’t worry about this right now, but start thinking about what could I send people to what could my funnels be about?

What could my funnels be because it really can make a huge difference And my final lesson in entrepreneurship that I learned this year is that my business is not more important than my health. At the beginning of the year, I shared on the podcast that I was really going to be focusing on myself, that I I wasn’t going to set goals this year.

I wasn’t going to have a goal planner. I mean, I set some business goals, but I wasn’t setting personal goals. I was really trying to take care of myself. And there have been a lot of lessons this year around my health, um, which I won’t go into a ton of detail about because you would sit here and listen to me talk about my health for a long time, but.

There were quite a few different points about this year where I really had to take steps back for my health For different reasons and I’m so glad that I gave myself the space to do that and in years past I’ve been so focused on growing my business that I’ve run myself into the ground and I’ve damaged my body in a lot of ways by not taking care of it and I’m very glad to say that that is a mindset that I’m changing and that has really changed this year for me, is that my health needs to come first and that everything else doesn’t really matter.

But it’s not always easy to live out either, and so it’s a constant reminder as well that, hey, this doesn’t matter more than my health. My health comes first. If I need a break, I need to take a break. If I need to disappoint some people in order to care for myself, that’s just what’s gonna have to happen.

So, alright, those are my, my big lessons that I learned this year, uh, I hope that you found this fun, maybe you can relate to some of these. If you can relate to any of these, if these, if any of these were also a lesson that you learned this year, send me a DM, I’d love to hear about it. And that’s your action step for this week actually, is to let me know, did you relate to any of these lessons that I learned this year?

And your book recommendation for this week is Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. I love the series. The series I enjoyed so much that I actually convinced my husband to read it as well because it is less, I don’t really want to use the word girly because I don’t, I don’t think that’s a fair word, but it’s less, um, it’s more fantasy, less romantic than Akatar or, um, I guess Crescent City isn’t super romantic either, but it’s easier to read than Crescent City.

Um, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, these are all series by Sarah J Maas, which I’m sure you do. Because they’re everywhere right now. But the Throne of Glass series was incredible. I actually want to go back and reread it. I also want to reread Crescent City. And Agatar. They’re all so good. I just want to own all of them.

But, um, yeah. That is your book recommendation for this week is Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. And… With that, I hope that you will go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing [email protected]. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you’ve never missed an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time, now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 191: Lessons Learned in Entrepreneurship This Year appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

You’ve heard last year’s predictions, you’ve heard my evaluation of my 2023 predictions; now it’s time to give you my 2024 marketing predictions.

I’ve got 6 predictions for you this year, and one really important action step to help take your marketing and your business to the next level in 2024.

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

You’ve heard last year’s predictions. You’ve heard my evaluation of my 2023 predictions. Now it’s time to give you my 2024 marketing predictions. I’ve got six predictions for you this year and one really important action step to help take your marketing and your business to the next level in 2024.

You’re listening to episode 190 of the Chasing Simple podcast. And I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield. com slash book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching GameCock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here, to help make marketing simple and less time consuming. So that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week offer you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices and meet me here each week for love support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together. Shall we? Hey there friend. I’m popping in really quickly to ask for your help.

If you haven’t already, would you mind leaving a rating and review for the Chasing Simple podcast? You see, ratings and reviews are really important in the life of a podcast because it tells the podcast player that people are listening and enjoying the show, which means that this show is more likely to get

So, if you’ve felt encouraged by this show or you’ve learned something that you’ve been able to implement to improve your business, I would love to hear about it. So please, go leave a rating and review if you haven’t already, it would truly mean the world to me. Last year, I only had four predictions for 2023, but today I have six for you.

So, we’re gonna go ahead and dive right on in. The first one I feel like is a no brainer, and that is that there’s going to be a continued emphasis on video content. So, whether that means you are showing up on YouTube, Or TikTok, or Reels, or Stories, whatever the case may be, video content is going to continue to be king.

It just really builds those relationships with people, especially for content that’s going to be the foundation. I guess you could say it’s that first entry point, whether they find you on YouTube, or they find you on TikTok, or they find you on social media, and it’s going to be, you know, the, the thing that gets them into your world, whatever it may be.

Video is going to be such a big part of that, a big part of bringing in those foundational relationships and just letting people into your world and into your personality. So, I encourage you to really lean into video marketing. You don’t have to use video in every platform, but I would choose at least one platform where you’re using video.

And again, it can be as simple as stories. And you just… Put your face on stories a couple times a week and talk to the camera. That can be it. It doesn’t have to be this huge coordinated thing, but. If you’re not already using video in some capacity, I really, really suggest that you do. The second prediction I have is possibly wishful thinking on my part, but I think that there’s going to be more emphasis on email marketing versus social media marketing.

Now, I do think this is going to be happening because I’ve already been noticing this year, in 2023, that there has become a lot of apathy. Towards social media. We kind of talked about that in the last episode, but there’s just been a lot of apathy towards social media where people Instagram engagement particularly has really died off and People are not interested in pouring a ton of time into a platform That’s just going to do that to them again, which honestly I’m here for I have I’ve always said that worrying about the algorithm is not worth our time, and it’s not worth our mental health to pour all of our time and energy and efforts into social media.

Do I still think social media has its place? Yes. But, I’m hopeful that people will start doing more with their email marketing. Instead of their social media marketing. And when I say instead, I mean, strategy wise, focusing their strategy on their email marketing, not only doing email marketing and not using social media, because social media can be a great way to get your leads into your email marketing, which we’ll talk about one of those ways and when I predictions later, but that’s kind of what I’m thinking is going to happen is people will be more interested in email marketing strategy and less interested in social media strategy.

because of the apathy that we’re seeing with social media, but I’m hopeful that we won’t give up social media totally as business owners just because it is such a great way to build community and be connected. My third prediction is one that I don’t love to say, but I really do think is going to be true, and that is that even more small businesses are going to close.

We have seen many small business owners closing their doors this year. We’ve seen a lot of small business owners quitting their business and going back to working a corporate job. That has just been the case this year. And, you know, if it has to happen, it has to happen. And that’s just the unfortunate reality of a recession and economic downturn, but I hate to see it.

And so my hope is that I can continue to Give resources and give education that will keep business owners from having to do that. But I do worry that that will be the case. On a happier note, let’s talk about some things that can help you avoid that. So my fourth prediction is that there’s going to be a bigger focus on tiny offers in 2024.

There was already a clear uptick in this in 2023. So again, this is kind of a no brainer one, but I think that that will absolutely be continuing into this new year. As long as we are in this economic downturn that we will be seeing tiny offers being a bigger focus, it has certainly been a bigger focus for Purchasers, and I think in 2024, we’re going to see a lot more focus from the business owner side of things where they’re really trying to take what they have and turn it into smaller offers, uh, whether it’s a course and they take that course and they split it into multiple mini courses that are cheaper, or whether it’s adding on payment plans to turn a bigger offer into something that’s more affordable.

Or whether they’re creating totally new tiny offers, whatever the case may be. I think we’re going to see a lot more business owners really leaning into that this year because even though that means they need more sales, right? If you sell a product for 10 versus a product for 100 and you’re trying to make 200, well, it’s two sales versus 20 sales, right?

Which a lot of business owners, when the economy was doing really well, kind of Decided they would rather just find two people to pay a larger sum and yeah, in theory, that is easier when the economy is doing well. When we are focusing on trying to keep things afloat, well, finding 20 people sounds a lot easier to pay 10 a piece versus two at a hundred each.

So while 2023 was full of purchasers focusing on those tiny offers, I think we’re going to see a lot more business owners. Focusing on creating and repurposing tiny offers. My fifth prediction is that Minichat will become inundated and stop working as well as it is now. However I say this, and if you have not already taken advantage of Minichat, I want you to do so.

Hop on before it gets inundated, um, because it will as does any new tactic, right? But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing in the meantime, especially because it’s free So if you haven’t heard of mini chat You’ve probably noticed it happening on your social media feed where someone puts up a reel or post and says Comment these specific words in the comments and I will send you the link to this specific thing.

It could be a podcast episode. It could be a freebie. It could be a course. I mean, it could be a link to anything really. I’ve, I’ve been using it. Um, many, many of my clients have been using it this year. This has been a very well used thing already. And what it is, is that you can set up automations. And again, this is free.

You just have to connect your Instagram account to it, or your Facebook account. When someone comments those specific words, there are also other triggers, but this seems to be the one that most people use. When someone comments those specific words, then it automatically has this automation where It will DM them a specific message or link and it also you can set it up so that you have a variety of comments that it will leave for people that do respond so you’re not just saying the same thing over and over so it’s a really cool automation tool again it’s free and I’m sure that they will come up with new ways to be used as it does become inundated but I think the way that it’s being used now with the comment this and I’ll send you the link will probably get overused but It’s still early enough that you should get on it still and start using it until that case comes, until that day comes where you see it’s not working as well.

And again, because many chat wants to make money, they will most likely find new ways to automate and, uh, people will find new ways and it’ll be continuing to reinvent itself. I am sure. So I do think the current way will become inundated at some point in 2024, but I don’t know when that will be. And I think it’s worth hopping on.

Now, my final prediction. I kind of alluded to this one in last week’s episode. Well, I didn’t allude to it. I straight up said it in last week’s episode, but relationships will be even more important than ever. And this is something that I predicted in 2023. And I think that it will go even deeper in 2024 because without relationships, if you’re trying to do business alone, you will not survive.

You will not survive this economic downturn. The way we’re going to survive is by doing it together. There’s that quote, right? A rising tide lifts all boats and when you link up together and you Build that tide together and we all rise together. That is when We all succeed. So your action step for this week is to come hang out with us in the rising tide society.

Rising tide society is a nonprofit that I volunteer with that I am really passionate about. If you’ve read my book, you have heard me talk about it multiple times at this point, but their mission is to help lift each other up through community over competition. And. They, you know, have tons of resources for business owners.

It is a really, really great way to get connected with other business owners and Also continue to learn and be educated and improve your business So I’m going to link to the Rising Tide Facebook group in the show notes If you haven’t already become part of it, I really, really recommend that you do.

And so that’s your action step for this week is to go join that Facebook group. There are over 75, 000 small business owners inside, and this is a global community. Be sure to go do that. Now, your book recommendation is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmas. This one was really, really popular last year, so you’ve likely heard of it.

The cover gives off rom com vibes. It’s not, um, it, it is a more serious type of book. Uh, it really touches on a lot of issues that women face in the workplace and especially that women in STEM face in the workplace, especially previously, but it’s not, um, who is it, Allie Hazelwood? It’s not that type of women in STEM book.

It is a much more serious There, there are some trigger warning, warnings associated with it that I won’t go into here. But, um, it, despite the fact that it’s not what it looks like, you know, don’t judge a book by its cover, but despite the fact that it’s not what the cover really kind of showcases it to be, it really was an incredible read.

So I will link that into the show notes as well. And now my friend, I hope that you will go out and uncomplicate your marketing and biz.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes, as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 190: My 2024 Marketing Predictions appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Last week on the show, I re-aired my 2023 marketing predictions. And today, I want to share more about how those predictions worked out. Because I believe it’s important to evaluate what truly happened this year in marketing before we can predict what’s to come in the new year (which is next week’s episode – stay tuned!)

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

Last week on the show, I re aired my 2023 marketing predictions, and today, I want to share more about how those predictions actually played out. Because I believe it’s important to evaluate what truly happened this year in marketing before we can predict what’s to come in the new year, which is next week’s episode, so stay tuned for that.

You’re listening to episode 189 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield. com book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, Simplicity Focus content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching GameCock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing…

Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week. I’ll bring you transparent conversations. actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Hey there, friend. I’m popping in really quickly to ask for your help.

If you haven’t already, would you mind leaving a rating and review for the Chasing Simple podcast? You see, ratings and reviews are really important in the life of a podcast because it tells the podcast player that people are listening and enjoying the show. which means that this show is more likely to get suggested to a wider audience.

Not only that, but honestly, I love to read the encouraging words from listeners, especially on those hard days of entrepreneurship. So if you’ve felt encouraged by this show or you’ve learned something that you’ve been able to implement to improve your business, I would love to hear about it. So please, go leave a rating and review if you haven’t already.

It would truly mean the world to me. Alright, so last week you listened, or re listened, to my episode from last year, the end of last year, where I shared what my marketing predictions were for 2023. Now, I want to do something that I don’t often see done with these prediction episodes. I think prediction episodes are really fun, but they kind of get forgotten about, and…

I want to follow up with, okay, what did I get wrong? And what did I get right? So we’re going to cover, you know, what I predicted that happened this year and what that didn’t, or that maybe happened in a way that I didn’t anticipate. And I just thought this would be a really fun way to. And the year, the first prediction, again, if you listened to last week’s episode, you already know this.

And I went into detail about my prediction, but the first prediction was that everyone is going to do what they should not do, which is cut their marketing. Because at the end of last year, we were kind of in this weird, will there or won’t there be a recession place. And so I predicted that most people are going to cut their marketing because that’s what people tend to do when times are tough.

And sure enough, that is exactly what happened this year. Um, without a doubt, marketing budgets got cut. In the past, it has been… Um, a piece of cake to get new clients for the next year for my marketing services. And even throughout the year for, you know, one off offers like a VIP day, that was not the case at all this year.

In fact, moving into 2023, which this was. You know, directly not in line with what I predicted, so I’m not really sure what I was thinking at the end of last year. But one of my big goals for 2023 was to focus on VIP days and pretty early on in the year I realized that that was not a realistic goal and I needed to switch things up with my plan for the year and I did.

And it all worked out, but… I did notice, oh, people are not interested in really pouring money into marketing right now. There’s a lot more DIY things happening. So that one was correct. For sure. People cut marketing budgets. And I get it. I really do. You look at expenses and you go, what is absolutely 100 percent necessary?

Um, Yeah. Yeah. And for a lot of us, if it isn’t something that, you know, I’m not going to cut my P. O. box, right, or I’m not going to cut Kartra, I literally cannot make money without Kartra, and it’s illegal to not have some kind of, um, address for my business, and I’m not going to use my Real personal address, right?

So those are things that you just can’t cut. And marketing seems to be one that is easier to cut, even though when you cut marketing, you cut your leads and it just creates a self fulfilling prophecy. But I get it all that to say. So that prediction was unfortunately correct, unfortunately for me, but that is what it is, and that’s something that as.

a marketing strategist, I have to be prepared for, right? Uh, you may have similar things in your business that during different points in your business journey, you’re just going to have to be prepared that you’re going to see a dip in sales. And that is what it is. But My second prediction was that shops and smaller items are going to be easier for people to commit to.

And that has by far been the case this year. Like I said, people are much more interested in DIY options. They’re much more interested in options that they can do themselves, right? And that they can, because they’re doing it themselves, not pay as much for. So, that has been something. Um, for sure that has, that was a correct prediction on my part.

And, uh, like I said, in hindsight, I look back and go, what was I thinking with my own strategy at the end of the year? Why did I not pour into my shop from the beginning last year? Which it was one of my goals, but it wasn’t one of my main focuses, um, moving into this year. And so. Why? Knowing that this was one of my predictions, why did I not focus on that over VIP days?

I don’t know. Hindsight, right? But that is something that I have seen rapid growth of is my shop over this last year and I’ve certainly made improvements and changes, but my shop sales have grown exponentially while my one to one sales and bookings have dropped drastically throughout this year. And that’s not because they’re not good offers, right?

Like, I, I can realistically look at, okay, well, every single client that was a 2023 client, except for one, rebooked for 2024. So, I know it’s not the offer, it’s just… People aren’t as interested in booking new services right now as they would have been in previous years when the economy was maybe doing a little bit better.

So prediction number three, I did not, this is one that I most definitely got wrong. My prediction was that you were going to move to TikTok and I stand by the fact that TikTok Can do incredible things for business owners But what i’ve noticed instead I really thought that more people were going to move to tiktok this year As their social media platform and instead what i’ve seen is that people have just become more apathetic to social media in general So they’re not as interested in Really creating social media content.

They’re not interested in really having a strategy to it. It’s just something that they do because they feel like they have to. And it’s much more off the cuff, which I think is great. To not feel so indebted to the algorithm, but Yeah, I definitely thought I thought tick tock was going to see more movement of the small business owners on to tick tock that being said I personally have stopped using TikTok, um, for my business for one personal reasons.

Um, I, I ended up needing to lock down all of my social media accounts for a time this year just for some personal things that were going on, but also because man, people are mean. So, yeah, I, I think it can do great things for your business, but I also do think it is a time consuming social media platform and your time could be better spent.

So I’ve changed my mind about tech doc. Actually, I think your time would be better spent working on your email list. Prediction number four, relationships are going to be more important than ever. That one is Absolutely. 100 percent true. And in fact, uh, next week when you hear my 2024 predictions, you will hear that that is something that I think will be even more important in 2024 than it is now.

Relationships, relationships, relationships between other business owners who could potentially send you referrals and with your clients and with people who buy from your shop. People who invest in you, even in those smaller products, it’s going to be so important to continue to build relationships. So three out of four, I’m feeling pretty good about the fact that three out of four were a success for this year, but I definitely got the TikTok prediction wrong.

So your action step for this week, what was one thing that you expected to happen this year? I would love to hear what you maybe thought was going to happen this year and you just did not see it happen. Send me a DM and we can commiserate together over our failed predictions. And then next week, be sure to tune in because I’ll be sharing my 2024 predictions with you.

And once again, it’ll just be a nice little fun, relaxing end of year episode to kind of get you thinking about your 2024 plans, but nothing super serious that’s going to make you go, Oh, I feel like I have so much I need to walk away from this and do. So your book recommendation for this week is One Italian Summer by Rebecca S E R L E.

I’m gonna be really honest. I didn’t love this book. The storyline I felt like could have been a lot better. It was a little strange to me. But I loved, loved, loved the scenery in this setting. And it really, before reading this book, I had Never really thought about Italy much at all. Like I hadn’t really had this desire to visit and after reading this book This book just made Italy come alive for me.

And now it is moved to the top of my travel bucket list So for me, it was worth the read for that reason alone Um, I I love a book that can just make me fall in love with a setting that I’ve never been to So One Italian Summer by Rebecca Searle I’m probably butchering that, but S E R L E, as always, we’ll link to that in the show notes if you want to check it out yourself.

But I also just wanted to share, so one of the members inside of Chasing Simple Marketing, the community, her business is all about bringing books to life for people and she has a free book club kit for One Italian Summer. So I’m going to link to that in the show notes as well because it’s really fun because she not only like.

You know, has book club discussion questions and things like that, but she has different activities that you can do to make the book come to life, which I think is so unique and just really fun. So I’m going to link down the show notes as well. If you have already read one Italian summer and if you really loved it, or if you haven’t read it yet, but you want to.

So be sure to check out Words On Location and just see kind of what their book club kit has to offer. All right, my friend, until next time, I hope that you go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time, now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 189: What I Got Wrong in My 2023 Predictions appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Today we’re doing something a little bit different here on Chasing Simple. For this episode, I’m going to be giving you a replay of an episode I released a year ago. Episode 136: My Marketing Predictions for 2023. This episode aired originally on November 29, 2022. And the reason I’m replaying it for you is so that we can discuss it next week.

Often, you’ll see podcasters put out these types of episodes about their predictions, but you don’t usually see them go back and talk about them later. But I thought that would be fun, so today you’ll hear my 2023 predictions again, and then next week I’ll go over where I was wrong and where I got things right.

My hope is that this series is informative for you as you move into planning for 2024, but also that it’s a fun break from all of the end of year hustle that we’ve been doing lately between Black Friday and the Christmas season coming up.

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

Today we’re doing something a little bit different here on Chasing Simple. For this episode, I’m going to be giving you a replay of an episode I released a year ago. Episode 136, my marketing predictions for 2023. This episode aired originally on November 29th, 2022. And the reason I’m replaying it for you is so that we can discuss it next week.

Often, you’ll see podcasters put out these types of episodes about their predictions, but you don’t usually see them go back and talk about those predictions later. But I thought it would be fun, so today you’ll hear my 2023 predictions again, and then next week I’ll go over where I was wrong and where I got things right.

My hope is that this series is informative for you as you move into planning for 2024, but also that it’s a fun break from all of the year end hustle that we’ve been doing lately between Black Friday and the Christmas season coming up and the end of the year is just a lot, so I hope that this is a nice little fun break to just enjoy some content without feeling a lot of pressure to do something about it.

You’re listening to episode 188 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner, and you can grab your own for 2024 planning at amandawarfield. com / planner.

How do I find time to create content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically? Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing.

Welcome friend, this is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist. speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or

Helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation.

They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing… Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week, offering you transparent conversations, actionable steps.

And judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating, your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship together. Really quickly before we dive into this episode, I just.

Have to share something that I’m really excited about with you. My book, chasing simple marketing is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion, but without that masters of business administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing.

Overwhelming and frustrating throughout these pages. I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing, and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business.

To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amandawarfeld. com book. I’ll see you there. My first prediction is that everyone is going to do exactly what they should not do. And by that, I mean that typically in a recession, the first thing people want to cut is marketing.

Which, I get it, marketing typically is a large part of your operating expenses, right? But, it is the last thing that you should be cutting. And I know, you’re like, Amanda, Great. You’re a marketing person. Like, obviously this is what you’re going to say, but this is not just me. Okay. Think about it when you cut your marketing and you no longer are marketing as much as you were before.

What’s going to happen to your leads? That pool is going to get smaller. And what’s going to happen to your sales if your leads pool gets smaller? Well, your sales are also going to get smaller, right? It’s just the nature of it. Marketing is simply the attracting people to your space and nurturing them once they’re there so that they become leads that turn into sales.

If you aren’t marketing, you are not bringing those leads in like you were previously. And frankly, if we move into a recession, they’re going to cut back naturally anyways, and so you’re really extra cutting back on that. I don’t want to say doubling because I would just be pulling that number out of thin air, but not only is it going to get cut back because people aren’t going to be buying as much if we move into a recession, but then also you’re minimizing those leads that you had anyways.

So it would be a double whammy for you to cut back on your marketing. And here’s the thing. There may be ways that you can tighten up your marketing. budget. I’m not going to give examples of that because it just wouldn’t feel fair, but there are ways you could tighten up your budget. I just want you to do it strategically.

Pour into a strong marketing strategy and plan and cut back on other costs where you can for the upcoming year. Do not cut yourself off doubly from potential sales and leads because marketing’s your largest expense. That is just natural and that’s just the way businesses run a lot of times. Now, my second prediction, and this is one that I am absolutely already seeing happening, is that shops and smaller items are going to be easier for people to commit to.

And this is a two fold issue, okay? So first, obviously money is going to be an issue. If we move into a recession, people are going to be buying less, and they’re only going to be buying what they feel like is absolutely necessary. And so money is going to be an issue. Not only are people only going to be buying what they feel like is absolutely necessary, but they’re also going to be more likely to DIY things.

They’re going to be more likely to say, Okay, well, I know that they’re an expert, but I just can’t put the money down for that right now. But, I could do a smaller offer that they have. So, having digital products, if you don’t have them already, I highly urge you to start thinking about how you can turn some of your bigger offers into digital products, or parts of your bigger offers into digital products, so that people who are really concerned about money and really have to tighten things down, as a lot of us probably will be, will be able to DIY.

What they need to DIY for the next year or however long and then when things get better and feel better They’re gonna come back to you as the expert. Okay, the other issue I said this issue was twofold So there’s the money I guess you could count the DIY thing as a second So maybe let’s say threefold the other issue that kind of plays into this is The fact that time is going to be a large component of this.

So I’m not saying that no high ticket items are gonna sell. That’s just not true. They will. It may be harder to sell them, but they will. But I predict that we are going to See people more willing to commit to a high ticket VIP day than a high ticket ongoing group coaching program or membership or One to one offering if it’s something that has a time commitment.

I I think that we’re going to see people less and less likely to commit to those. Again, that doesn’t mean you need to shut down all of your offers like this. I’m definitely not saying that. I’m just saying to prepare for that, and a good way to prepare for that, is to start thinking about, okay, could you offer and implement a VIP day?

Could you offer and implement digital products? What are some ways that you can diversify your different revenue streams and give people other options because people are going to be very hesitant to commit to any ongoing type of commitment where they’re like, well, I’m committed to paying X amount every single month for six months.

They’re just not going to because we’re, we’re afraid because we don’t know. What the next six months are going to hold. So, I guess you could call that threefold. There’s a time issue, there’s the money issue, and there’s also the issue where people are just going to be wanting to DIY things. So, shops, smaller items, VIP days, other revenue streams, start thinking about those.

Don’t cut back on what you’ve already got. But start thinking about other ways that you could have different revenue streams to serve people in different ways. Now my third prediction. Is that you’re going to move to TikTok. I really hope you will move to TikTok. Here’s the deal. I see every day. I’ve been talking about TikTok for months and months and months and months and months now.

Months. You can go all the way back to episodes 111 and 112 where I debrief a lot of what I was doing on TikTok way back at the beginning of the year. Okay, I’ve been talking about TikTok since February. This is airing in November. Almost every single inquiry I’m getting at this point for my Disney business is coming from TikTok.

I went viral once on my cat account over a month ago at this point. And I am daily getting just 8, 10, 12, 20 followers still a day on that account because of that one video. And I’m not doing anything with that account, it’s literally just for fun, but it showcases the power of growth that TikTok has right now.

And I’ve talked about this in the past, but every social media channel has A life cycle, and a lot of us right now are really resistant to moving over to TikTok because Instagram feels like our place, but I need to remind you that change is inevitable as a business owner, and we have to adapt. We have to adapt, and if you think that your people are not on TikTok and that you’re too old, you’re wrong.

I promise you, you’re wrong. One of the men that’s running for governor of South Carolina right now, he’s gotta be in his 40s, 50s maybe. He is racing up the polls because he’s using TikTok. Racing. And let’s just say no one ever thought that he would be anywhere close. Racing the polls because he’s using TikTok because he recognizes that that is the place to grow your platform right now.

I know that it’s uncomfortable. I know that we’re overwhelmed and we don’t want to learn new things, but you’re not too old. Your audience is there. I tend to see millennials, especially lurking. They’re not so much the ones making a ton of videos, although it’s becoming more and more common, but they’re lurking and they’re there.

I promise you. And they’re sending TikToks to each other. They are sharing like crazy in their various DMS behind the scenes. As business owners, we have to change with the times. Especially if we’re running online businesses, and especially if content marketing is a large portion of how we get our leads, and it’s a large portion of how we market.

And if you want to talk about TikTok, I’m happy to do that with you. I get it. It’s, it’s a lot, okay? And we all felt so comfortable on Instagram, but Instagram… At this point, it’s a great place to nurture the people you already have. It’s a great place to nurture your superfans. It is not a great place to grow.

And frankly, it’s not a great place to nurture people that aren’t superfans. Because if they’re not actively looking for your stuff, they’re going to have a hard time seeing it. It’s not going to show up as often, or hardly at all. So, number three, TikTok. You’re going to move over there. I’m going to see a lot more business owners over there.

I promise, I know it’s overwhelming. Just get on there and make your own account. Okay, and just spend some time on it. Check out the culture, play around on it, see what’s getting posted, see what you enjoy, and just, just check it out. That’s all you need to do, okay? Now, the fourth prediction I have is that relationships are going to be more important than ever.

And I feel like this is probably a no brainer, you know, if we’re thinking about business Um, even outside of a recession, obviously relationships are incredibly important. The people in your network, the people that you lean on, all of that, always so important. But it’s going to be more important than ever during a recession, if that’s what we’re moving into because we trust referrals that someone gives us more than we will ever trust any other kind of marketing.

Do I buy from people that I randomly find on TikTok and Instagram? Absolutely. Am I 100 percent more likely to buy if I’m already following someone and then someone I know says, oh my gosh, yeah, I love their stuff. Absolutely. Relationships are going to be more important than ever. Lean into the people in your circle.

Lean into the people in your network. And lean into the people… That are already purchasers from you serve them so, so well, that relationship marketing is going to be more important than ever moving into the new year. So to recap those 4 predictions, first and foremost. The first thing that everyone cuts, it’s going to be marketing, but it should be the last thing you’re cutting.

So I really encourage you to really focus on your marketing strategy and plan and cut back in other ways throughout your operating expenses. Two, shops and smaller items and easily consumable, digestible items, like a VIP day, are going to be a lot easier for people to commit to. Three, TikTok is going to continue to be the place where people are going to grow as far as content marketing and social media goes.

And four, relationships are going to be more important than ever. So your action step for this week is to make your TikTok account. Don’t worry about posting on it. Don’t worry about coming up with your strategy. Don’t worry about doing anything except create your TikTok account. And just see what’s on there.

It’s going to take some time. If you give it one hour and you’re like, this is stupid. You did not give it enough time. Okay. The for you page will get scarily accurate, but you have to give it time to see what it is that you’re interacting with. Okay. So get on Tik TOK and just interact with it. Get on there for 20 minutes a day or 10 minutes a day.

Whatever feels good for you. So that timer and get on there and then just. Let it evolve so you can get into the culture and see what happens. But I want you to start your TikTok account. That’s your action step. And your book recommendation for this week is The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis. And Fiona Davis does such a good job weaving two very different and separate storylines together.

And I, I’m pretty sure I’ve shared about another one of her books previously as one of the, like, book recommendations of the week. But this one is so good. It parallels… two different models in two very different time periods that are struggling financially, and the models themselves aren’t related at all, but they both somehow end up involved.

With the same family and mansion decades apart. And it’s just, it’s very intriguing. She does a really good job of weaving those two different parallel storylines together. So, The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis, I highly recommend and I will link to that in the show notes. Alright my friend, don’t forget.

Send me a DM, send me an email. I would love to hear your thoughts on your predictions for marketing in 2023. And until next time, I hope that you will go out and uncomplicate your life in biz.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast, and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 188: Replay of Episode 136: My Marketing Predictions for 2023 appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

As this airs, Black Friday promotions have already happened for some of us, and are just gearing up for others but either way – the end of the year is near and we’re all beginning to think about 2024.

One of the things you’re probably wondering is how to choose the best marketing strategy to use in the new year.

Usually, when we choose our marketing strategy we look around at what others are doing, and decide that looks like something exciting and decide that we’re going to try that too. And while there’s nothing wrong with a little inspiration, the issue with this method is that we are most often not doing this strategically. We are starting with what we see front-facing instead of looking inward at our own business and starting with the end in mind.

Today, we’re going to discuss how you can choose a marketing strategy based on your own business, as well as the two parts your marketing strategy must contain. By the end, you’ll have a strong foundation for a Q1 marketing strategy that will actually move the needle in your business.

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at [email protected]!

As this airs, Black Friday promotions have already happened for some of us and are just gearing up this week for others, but either way, the end of the year is near and we’re all beginning to think about 2024. One of the things you’re probably wondering is how to choose the best marketing strategy to use in the new year.

Usually, when we choose our marketing strategy, we look around at what others are doing and decide that that looks like something exciting and we decide that we’re going to try that too. And while there’s nothing wrong with a little inspiration, the issue with this method is that we are most often not doing this strategically.

We’re starting with what we see front facing instead of looking inward at our own business and starting with the end in mind. Today, we’re going to discuss how you can choose a marketing strategy based on your own business, as well as the two parts that your marketing strategy must contain. And by the end, you’ll have a strong foundation for a Q1 marketing strategy that will actually move the needle in your business.

You’re listening to episode 187 of the Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield. com / planner.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching GameCock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing…

Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week offer you transparent conversations. actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Really quickly, before we dive into this episode, I just Have to share something that I’m really excited about with you.

My book chasing simple marketing is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion, but without that masters of business administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing. Overwhelming and frustrating throughout these pages.

I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing, and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business. To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amandawarfield.

com slash book. I’ll see you there. So you want to know what the best marketing strategy to use is? Well, it’s probably going to come as no surprise to you that this is going to be unique for everyone. The best marketing strategy to use. Well, it depends on a variety of inputs and that’s why it’s not simple.

It’s not black and white. That’s why we see marketing as so difficult because it’s not an intuitively simple process. to decide what the best marketing strategy is. If it was, everyone would be super successful with their marketing and you know, there would be no need for my job. There would be no need for me to be here coming to you with this podcast week after week with marketing tips and tricks and strategies.

So it’s not shocking that it’s going to be unique for everyone, but That does lead to the question of what do you consider? What are those inputs? How do you know what the best marketing strategy to use is for you? And before we dive into that, I will just say that this isn’t a set it and forget it type method.

You can’t decide right now after listening to this episode what the best strategy is going to be and all of a sudden. Everything’s going to be super simple and you’re going to sell like crazy. And you know, you, you won’t need any more help with marketing. It’s not going to be that simple because the best marketing strategy also has to do with your current season and where you’re at in your business.

And if you’re interested in learning more about. You know what marketing strategies work well for the phase of business you’re in you can go to my quiz amandawarfield. com quiz And take that quiz and it’ll tell you but you’re constantly growing and learning and changing things as a business owner and so I just want to highlight the fact that right here right now You’re going to make a decision at the end of this episode, but this is your decision for Q1 of 2024, and you’re going to try it, and you’re going to give it the whole quarter, and you’re going to see what happens, and then at the end of that quarter, you’re going to decide what changes you want to make, and whether or not you want to continue to tweak this current strategy and continue to move forward with it because it’s working or you’re going to decide this isn’t what I feel like is best and I’m going to change it up.

And maybe I’ll come back to this episode, episode 187 and determine again the next best strategy. But regardless, this is a what’s the best strategy for me right now type of episode. So as you probably know if you’ve read my book or if you’ve listened to other episodes of this podcast There are two parts to every marketing strategy You’ve got your nurture strategy and your growth strategy when you are choosing your marketing strategy for the upcoming quarter You have to consider both of these and how they’re going to work get there.

So your nurture strategy is there to Nurture, and to build relationships with the audience that you already have. And the growth strategy is there to bring in new members to that audience. And so they work together and you have to have both. You can’t just have one. You have to bring in new audience members in order to continue to have people to sell to.

And to market to, and once you bring them into your audience, you have to build those relationships in order to get them ready to buy from you, because you have to build that know, like, and trust factor before someone’s going to buy from you. And so you’ve got to have both parts and they’ve got to be working together.

So that’s something to be considering as we move forward. You also need to consider what your goal is and what it is that you’re going to be driving to. I highly recommend having one main offer each quarter that you are focusing on. And sometimes it works out, you know, you, you’re selling one offer at the beginning of a quarter and another at the end.

And it really depends on your offers and sometimes they work best during different months and things like that. But the goal at the most basic level is to be driving. To one main offer for that quarter and having one main focus, you can have smaller promotions and things like that. But what is that one main focus you’re going to have for the quarter?

You have to know that before you can decide your marketing strategy because different offers. Are going to need different strategies, and we’ll get to that in a little bit as one of the inputs you’ll need to think about. But consider what that end goal is. You have to know that end goal in order to really decide what strategy is going to be best.

Now that we know we’ve got to have two parts, now that we know we’ve got to keep that end goal in mind, we’ve got to know what that end goal is, and now that we know that this is a for now strategy that we’re coming up with, what are those inputs that we need to consider? I have three different inputs that I want you to consider.

So the first thing you have to think about is the one that, you know, is most common. It is the most common one we hear and it is think about your ideal customers and your ideal clients. Where are they and how do you reach them? Where are they showing up? Are they spending their time watching YouTube videos or do they prefer to listen to podcasts?

Are they shopping at markets? Where are they and what’s the best place that you can reach them? So, for example, maybe you have a planner shop and you know that your customers love to watch people on YouTube or even people on TikTok. They love video formats of watching different planner videos. They love to see people set up their planner.

They love to see people… You know, talking through the different stickers they have and the different planner sets that they have and, you know, their favorite way to spend a Friday night is with a glass of wine and all of their planner materials on the couch with YouTube going in the background. Well, if that’s where they are, you need to be considering video content, right?

But maybe that’s not what your people are at all. Maybe you have busy moms as your ideal audience. Maybe you’re selling a course on baby led weaning. And they’re busy, they’re tired. They’ve got young kids at home and you know, the only way that they’re going to take in any kind of content, any kind of marketing is through something that’s going to be, you know, ease of use.

So a podcast audio content is a great way because they can. Take the baby for a walk to get them to take a nap and listen in their AirPods. They can be unloading the dishwasher and listening on their AirPods. And so they’re able to, I don’t want to use the word multitask because I don’t believe that that’s a thing, but for the sake of all of us knowing what I’m talking about, they can do two things at once.

They can listen and take in that content and that marketing. Along with doing whatever it is they need to do as a busy mom. And so you have to think about where are your people and how do you reach them in the best way possible? YouTube videos are probably not going to work for busy moms. You’re probably not going to get a ton of your clients there.

And that’s not to say it’ll never work, but if we’re thinking about what’s the best strategy, what is the easiest way to reach them? So, gotta think about that, that’s the first thing. The second thing that you want to think about is yourself, because we want to make sure that you can show up consistently with your marketing.

If the best way to reach your clients and customers is going to be YouTube, but you know for a fact that you’re going to dread every second of YouTube and you’re not going to put out quality content, well, probably not the place to start. Maybe one day you can build up to that and maybe that’s the ultimate goal is, you know, you’ll need to get there at some point, but maybe right now you just need to keep it simple to start showing up at marketing.

You’ve got to get started somehow. And so you have to think about yourself. What type of marketing is going to be most natural to you? What do you feel like you can easily handle? And what’s going to be the least intimidating? So start there and then see what it is that you can handle and where you can go from there.

So again, going back to the whole for this season, start where you can. If it’s matches up with where your ideal customers and clients are great, but if it doesn’t just get out there and start something. And for right now, your best strategy might lean more towards just getting started and thinking about where you can realistically show up.

And then you also have to think about your offers. That’s the third input here. Think about your offers. What is a natural lead in and where do certain offers sell best? So if we look at my own business, for example, we can take my book as one offer and my one to one strategy services as another. Okay.

Well, the book I have found really sells well on podcasts. It’s a really natural, easy offer because it’s something tangible. that they can purchase. A book is a known quantity. You know what you’re getting with, with a book, right? You’re getting, you know what you’re getting into with a book, right? And it’s an inexpensive option.

So that sells really well through a podcast. My one to one services does not sell well through a podcast. I cannot show up as a guest on a podcast and have someone learn about me for the. First time ever and say, Hey, I have this one to one strategy option and I’m booking clients currently. And if you like help with your content marketing strategy, I’d love to plan that out for you.

I’m not going to get any new clients from that. Maybe. You know, one in a hundred interviews if I led to that every time I would, but realistically, that’s not the best use of my time. It’s not the best marketing plan for my one to one offers. What makes more sense for my one to one offers is talking to people on my email list that have already purchased other offers from me that already know, like, and trust me and have already said, yes, I believe in you and what you do.

That’s a way more natural lead in for that specific offer. So you’ve also got to think about your offers. What is a natural lead in and where do certain things sell best? So those three inputs again are thinking about your ideal customers and clients, thinking about yourself and thinking about your offers.

What do you do from there? You’ve got all of these thoughts in your head. What do you do next? You know what your end goal is. You know what that main offer is going to be. You know, those three inputs. Now we’ve got to go back to the two parts of the marketing strategy, and you need to determine your nurture and your growth strategy.

You’ve got to determine with your nurture strategy, how you’re going to take those three inputs. Yourself, your offer and your ideal customers and clients. Take those three inputs and decide how you’re going to show up to nurture your audience and to build relationships with your audience. For most of us, the best way to build relationships with our audience is going to be through content because content marketing is a low cost way to get in front of your people and to build that.

No like and trust. And so it comes down to determining where you’re putting your efforts with content. If you already have your full content engine set up, great, you get to really dig into the strategy. And truly, if you are interested in help with your strategy, Let’s chat because I am booking for 2024 right now for new clients.

So I have two different packages. You can work with me on a quarterly basis, and I will give you the strategy for your marketing and tell you what to talk about and when, or if you want to totally hand it off, if you’ve got the content engine rolling, and you want to be able to focus more on your growth marketing and building.

New audience members, and you want someone else to build those relationships for you with your content. I can do the strategy and the copywriting for you. So I’ve got those two packages. If you are someone that has your content engine nailed down, or at least mostly nailed down. However, if you’re like, I have no content engine.

I’m not showing up anywhere. Okay, where can you start? Choose one place to start showing up. I personally would say start with the email marketing. Because that is the way that you are going to build relationships really easily and also be able to build a subscriber base. Again, you’ve got to think about yourself and what’s going to be least intimidating, but that is something to think about.

Where are you going to show up? Which type of content are you going to start with first? So that’s the nurture side. You’ve got to start getting that content engine built up, but then you’ve also got the growth side and you still have to think about your offers, your ideal customers and clients and yourself for the growth strategy side as well, growth strategies are things that are going to get you in front of new audiences.

So I mentioned being a guest on podcasts, you can run ads, you can. Be a vendor at a market, you can do speaking engagements, the list goes on and on and on. And again, if you’re like, I need help figuring out what type of growth strategy works best for where I am in business, go take my quiz and I’m, I will send you a ton of resources on the best growth strategies for your phase of business.

Amanda Warfield. com slash quiz, go take that. And that’ll help you out, but choose a growth strategy. That’s going to fit your phase of business that is the least intimidating to you. Is a place where you can find those ideal customers and clients and is going to naturally lead into your offers. Now, one final piece of advice, keep it simple.

It is really easy to look around at what other people are doing and feel like you need to do it all. And it’s really easy to get shiny object syndrome when it comes to your marketing. Choose one marketing strategy for each quarter, really focus on that one marketing strategy. Because if you’re not focused in on that one marketing strategy, and again, when I say one marketing strategy, I mean, there’s two parts to it.

You’ve got your nurture and your growth side, but you’ve got both of those for that one marketing strategy. When it comes to focusing on one strategy at a time, you have to be really focused because if you’re not, You are not going to be able to learn how to best fit that strategy for your business.

When you start with any new strategy, you’re going to learn how to do it from other people and you’re going to implement it. And then you’re going to have to change it to fit your business because everyone’s business is different. I can use the same exact strategy for two different clients and have two totally different results.

And so you have to really focus on, okay, I’m implementing it. It seems like it’s working in this way, but it’s not in this way. How can I tweak it for my business? Which is why you have to keep it simple. So final piece of advice, choose one marketing strategy for Q1. That being said, your action step is to choose that marketing strategy.

Choose what you’re going to do for your nurture, your nurture marketing, and then choose what you’re going to do for your growth marketing for Q1 of 2024. And if you want to be held accountable to those. Send me a DM on Instagram. Let’s chat about it. Let’s see how you feel about it. And if you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them.

Now, this week’s book recommendation is I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy. And the title is dark, but the book is also dark. And it, I knew that child actors were. Not treated well, to put it mildly, but I didn’t know the depth of it and it just was a very, it was an enlightening book. It was an incredibly well written book.

Uh, there is a lot of,

There is some eating disorder content, so trigger warnings for things like that. But I would read everything that Jeannette McCurdy writes because it’s so well written and I just flew through it. So if you like memoirs, if that’s something that sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend that book. All right, my friends, I mentioned quite a few different things to go check out outside of this podcast.

So just a quick rundown. We’ve got the Quiz the three phases of business quiz that’s going to help direct you to a growth strategy That’s going to make sense for your phase of business. You can find that at Amanda Warfield comm slash quiz I also mentioned my book chasing simple marketing if you have not checked that out You can head to Amazon and go search for it.

You can find it in all the formats I also mentioned my one on one services. At this point, at the end of November, I am probably very close to filling up for the new year if I haven’t already, but I encourage you to go check it out. You can just head to my website and look for how to work with me. I have two different packages, like I mentioned, and I’ve got the quarterly package and the monthly package.

The quarterly package is where we get together, we chat, I help give you your marketing strategy. And I give you the full content plan for the quarter with that strategy. And that includes, you know, topic, the hook, the call to action and where you’re posting and when. And then I’ve also got the monthly package, which is the strategy and copywriting for that content plan.

So if you’re someone that wants to really focus on your growth marketing and hand off the nurture marketing to someone else, I’ve got you. All right, my friends, until next time, I hope you’ll go out and uncomplicate your marketing and biz.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time, now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 187: The Best Marketing Strategy to Use appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

It’s no secret that most of us buy online courses only to have them collect virtual dust. Even if we start them, it’s not often they actually get finished. And that’s not because the course isn’t great – it’s simply due to lack of time and accessibility.

For most courses, you’ve got to find the time to sit down at your computer, log in to the course, and watch the videos. Usually, even if you want to listen and not watch, you’ve got to drag your laptop around with you while you do other things. It’s a pain that means you’re not likely to do it.

And if you aren’t doing it – you know your students aren’t either.

But, what if I told you that you could create a course that your students were nearly guaranteed to not only listen to, but complete?

I’m joined this week by Sara Whittaker who has created a course that does just that.

Sara Whittaker is a teacher turned podcast strategist. She helps educators leverage the power of podcasting in order to build brand awareness, scale their business, and connect with their audience. Sara is also the host of the podcast, Podcasting for Educators, where she shares weekly tips on how to start, manage, and grow a podcast.

Thanks to her audio-only course, Sara has been able to ensure that her students finish the course – leading to better relationships and more referrals (and sales!) of her course. Today, she’s sharing not only her course strategy, but also her launch strategy for her course, as well as a way to make lead magnets that eventually convert. For my members instead The Community, you’ll get some really great tips as you’re creating your own lead magnets this quarter!

Sara Whittaker is a teacher turned podcast strategist. She helps educators leverage the power of podcasting in order to build brand awareness, scale their business, and connect with their audience. Sara is also the host of the podcast, Podcasting for Educators, where she shares weekly tips on how to start, manage, and grow a podcast.

Social Links:

Website: https://podcastingforeducators.com/

Podcast: https://podcastingforeducators.com/podcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastingforeducators

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic

Amanda Warfield: It’s no secret that most of us buy online courses only to have them collect virtual dust. Even if we start them, it’s not often they actually get finished. And that’s not because the course isn’t great, it’s simply due to a lack of time and accessibility. For most courses, you’ve got to find the time to sit down at your computer, log into the course, and watch the videos.

Usually, even if you want to listen and not watch, you’ve got to drag your laptop around with you while you do other things. It’s a pain, and you’re not likely to do it. And if you aren’t doing it, you know your students aren’t either. But what if I told you that you could create a course that your students were nearly guaranteed to not only listen to, but complete?

I’m joined this week by Sarah Whittaker, who has created a course that does just that. Sarah Whittaker is a teacher turned podcast strategist. She helps educators leverage the power of podcasting in order to build brand awareness, scale their business, and connect with their audience. Sarah is also the host of the podcast, Podcasting for Educators, where she shares weekly tips on how to start, manage, and grow a podcast.

Thanks to her audio only course, Sarah has been able to ensure that her students finish the course, leading to better relationships and more referrals and sales of her course. Today, she’s sharing not only her core strategy, but also her launch strategy for her course, as well as a way to make lead manics that eventually convert.

For my members inside of the community, you’ll get some really manics this quarter. You’re listening to episode 186 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple content planner, and you can grab your 2024 version at amandawarfield. com / planner.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist.

Speaker, educator, and author of chasing simple marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing…

Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week. I’ll bring you transparent, conversations, actionable steps.

And judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating, your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Really quickly, before we dive into this episode, I just.

Have to share something that I’m really excited about with you. My book, Chasing Simple Marketing is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion. But without that masters of business administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing.

Overwhelming and frustrating throughout these pages. I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing. And you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business.

To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amandawarfield. com slash book. I’ll see you there. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m really excited for this episode, mostly selfishly because I’m really excited to hear about what you’ve done with your course and how we can simplify our own course creation and launching process.

But I know everyone else is going to really love this too. So thank you so much for being here. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you 

Sara Whittaker: serve? Well, thank you so much for having me, Amanda. You were just over on my podcast and now I get to be on yours. So I’m super grateful that I am here today.

I am Sara Whitaker. I’m a former elementary school teacher, and now I have a business that’s called podcasting for educators where we kind of have like two different sides to my business. On one side, we have a boutique podcasting agency where we do podcast production for online educators. If you’re familiar with TPT, teachers pay teachers, a lot of TPT sellers, we do their podcast production.

And then on the other side of things, I am a course creator and a podcast host of a podcast called podcasting for educators, where we focus on helping business owners use podcasting as a way to market their business. And 

Amanda Warfield: you mentioned your podcast, why don’t you go ahead and share a little bit about that?

Sara Whittaker: Yeah, so I have a public free podcast, new episodes come out on Wednesday. And it’s really, I do have some episodes on, you know, starting a podcast, but most of it is focused on strategies for current podcasters, how they can grow their podcast audience, how you can really use your podcast to reach the goals that you have in your business and how you can really align your podcast content with your business.

I love it so much. And it’s 

Amanda Warfield: such an important thing because I think so many of us, we get stuck on that content creation hamster wheel that we were just talking about for your podcast, right? And we forget that it’s not enough just to throw a podcast out there. There’s more that we need to do with it. So I think it’s so important what you’re doing, just continuing to educate and helping those of us that are podcasting, take things.

Further and take them to the next step. I know that even though you are an educator, uh, you also happen to fall into the same trap that I think most of us do in this online education space where we buy courses because we’re interested in a topic and maybe it’s on sale. Maybe they’re having a launch.

There’s some great bonuses and we’re ready to dive in. And then, Work happens and our days to day to day gets busy. We end up having way too much to do and it just kind of sits there and collects dust a little bit. You know, we, we have it in the back of our mind. Oh, we, we really need to get to work on that.

Or maybe we even take, you know, we watched the 1st lesson or 2, but we never get past it. We never actually implement and then. Nothing happens and things don’t change. But yet, you’re still such an advocate for online courses. So, can you tell us a little bit about why that is? 

Sara Whittaker: Yeah, absolutely. And yes, I am super guilty of, uh, purchasing many courses that are collecting dust, and I have not made it all the way through.

But I consider myself a lifelong learner. I’m sure that so many of you do. There’s so… Many things for us to learn about this online business space. And there’s so many great courses out there. That’s why I love courses. I think that we can learn so much from them. I think sometimes they can also be a great way to connect with other people, if there’s a community component to it.

And so while I love courses, I just have trouble getting, getting all the way through them. And I’m sure that I’m not the only one that has that problem. 

Amanda Warfield: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think. The vast majority of us do have that problem, but what have you found working with educators? What have you found that works to help improve 

Sara Whittaker: that completion rate?

Yeah, so I was introduced to this idea of what’s essentially a private podcast. A few years ago through when I had I actually interviewed the creator of a platform called Hello Audio. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but it basically lets you create a private podcast feed and they originally created it for.

With the intention of people who have a traditional course, you’re able to actually take all of the lessons in your course and turn it into just an audio format, and it becomes basically a podcast for your course and so then. In that example, your students in your course have the option of, okay, sitting down watching traditional slides that are usually found in a course videos, or they can listen to the audio version on the podcast.

And some people like to do both. Some people like to maybe listen first, front load the information while they’re driving in their car or on a walk. And then if it’s something that. Is visual that, that you need to sit down at the computer and look at, they could then log into the course and look at it that way.

And they found that it did really, really well. And it really increased the consumption rate of people who were taking these courses and people were getting, were actually getting through the content and not just stopping at lesson one. And so when I created my first course, I have a traditional. Online course with slides and videos that helps people learn how to start a podcast.

And about the time that I created that course, I had learned about Hello Audio. And so from the get go with that course, I signed up for Hello Audio and I put all of my lessons on there as a private podcast. And I get such great feedback about that component. And so I think it’s something that all course creators should look at.

I think that there’s a piece, at least one piece of your course that you could probably turn into audio format to just better that experience for your students that are in your course. So I did that. And then there’s so many different ways that you can use this. idea of a private podcast. You can create an audio lead magnet where maybe you have a freebie that’s just a PDF guide.

Well, instead of a PDF, you could turn it into an audio series. And again, with the idea that people are going to actually get through the content and consume it more. So I tried that, and that did really well, and it was a great strategy for increasing my email list. So then, this year, in 2023, I decided to try creating an audio only course, where there wasn’t a video or slides component, it was audio only.

I have 

Amanda Warfield: so many questions just based off of all of that. I’m just over here like taking notes like crazy. Um, where do I want to begin? Let’s talk about completion rates because you mentioned those a couple times. Yeah. What have you seen, both with your more traditional course and your audio only course, as far as completion rates?

How do they 

Sara Whittaker: differ? So, my audio only course that I just did, Almost every single person that purchased the course is listening to the content and getting through the content, which is a really cool thing to be able to see. Like you can see how many, like the individual person, are they listening to this episode and how far it, how far, how much of the episode are they actually consuming?

Like what’s the consumption rate? Um, and I would say it’s 95 percent of my students. Um, yeah, and then same thing with my traditional course, looking at the, like the numbers of people. I don’t have like the exact stats in front of me right now, but looking at the actual numbers of people who have like completed the module versus listening to the module, the private podcast is actually higher than the traditional module with slides.

Do 

Amanda Warfield: you know how much higher is there? Is it a large difference or? Um, 

Sara Whittaker: I wish I had my numbers, but, um, I would say probably like 20 percent more. And a lot of people do both. A lot of people do both and they’ll come back. That’s another good thing about the audio component is. Maybe they purchased the course a year ago, they went through it, but then they need a refresher.

And so, I’ll constantly see like those numbers on the audio going up because people go back and they give themselves that refresher via audio. Yeah, 

Amanda Warfield: because 

Sara Whittaker: it’s so easy to. Exactly, yeah. Okay, 

Amanda Warfield: so what happens What is the benefit of someone actually completing an entire 

Sara Whittaker: course? Well, I think, you know, we have to have that mindset of if we’re creating this content, we believe in this content, we believe in the transformation that we want our customers to have.

We don’t want to just have this mindset of, oh, well, they bought the course. That’s all I wanted. I just, you know, wanted them to give me their money and, and I’m done. No, like we want people to actually get that transformation that we are promising them and that we believe in so that we can then. A, build that relationship with them, build that trust with them, and often then later they’ll also become not only return customers, but they also tend to become referrals.

If they are able to reach that goal that you promised them on your sales page, then they’re way more likely to then turn around and, and see, and maybe they have a friend who they know wants to achieve the same thing. They’re going to recommend you because they saw results with your course. Yeah, I’m so glad you led with 

Amanda Warfield: the actual, you know, the whole purpose isn’t just to make money.

Because I think that gets lost in this sometimes in the business space of just, no, we’re here for real people with real problems that we can actually solve because we have the skills and the giftings to be able to do that. 

Sara Whittaker: Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve all bought courses and digital products that you are promised so many things and then you buy it and you’re like, Oh, my gosh, this is not what I expected.

And there’s nowhere to go from here. Like, there’s nobody to ask questions to. I always include a community aspect to my courses so that people do feel like they have a place to come with questions or to celebrate their wins or to vent about a challenge that they’ve got because you don’t just want it.

people to buy and then feel like they’re kind of alone in the rest of the process. Yeah, 

Amanda Warfield: absolutely. So you dropped this little nugget earlier where you said there’s probably at least one piece of your course that you could turn to audio. Explain a little bit more about that and what you meant. 

Sara Whittaker: Yeah, so I, you know, of course there are Lots of courses out there where you need a visual component.

You need a video. You need slides. Like if I were to do a course all about how to edit a podcast, that’s not something that I’m going to create a private podcast or an audio course for. That’s something that I want you to see. I want to be able to share my screen. I want to show you what I’m doing. But Often, even with these courses, there are certain lessons in your course that you could turn into audio or, you know, a lot of courses or memberships have coaching calls or community calls or Q& A calls.

Those can be turned into a private podcast or an audio component of your course. Also, I know people who like I have a client who has a membership and a perk of joining the membership is that you get added to her private podcast where she does like quarterly podcast episodes. It’s not every week. It’s just once a quarter, but it’s just that bonus content that only her members.

So it’s just kind of another bonus piece that you can give people either for bonus content or just to make their learning that much more accessible. 

Amanda Warfield: Okay, and so you mentioned that Not all courses would be great for audio only. So what types of courses do well in an audio format? 

Sara Whittaker: Yeah, so I think courses that do well in an audio format are obviously things that aren’t going to need a ton of visuals like editing a podcast or maybe you’re a pantry organizer.

You’re going to want visuals for that. But if you have like a clear process that you can take people through in your course that You could, anything that you could create like a podcast episode for makes or a podcast series for makes a great audio course. I think that probably all of us have, maybe you don’t know it yet, but you could probably think of kind of like a series that you could create that you could turn into an audio course.

Many courses are great for audio courses that might just be like. Three to five lessons, 27 offer that would make for a great audio course, something that has like a clear end goal and a clear action item that people can take after listening. 

Amanda Warfield: Okay. So since you brought up pricing, my first thought when I hear audio only private podcast feed is, does it take away from the value or the.

Not take away from the value, but take away from the perceived value of the course. And do you have to price your courses lower if you’re going to be an audio 

Sara Whittaker: only format? Yeah, that’s a great question. And that’s definitely like a limiting belief that came up for me and that I know comes up for a lot of people when they’re considering an audio course.

And it really comes down to what you’re going to include in your audio course. Like, if it’s going to be a mini course, then I think Staying around that, you know, anywhere from like 27 to 47 is a great offer. But I, like, I can tell you from, for me, I, my audio course was 10 lessons. It included some resources in there that were linked in the, um, in the lessons.

And it also included a private Facebook group and I priced it at one 27. And my wait listers had a coupon code and I didn’t have any. Price objections. I think it’s all about the messaging. And as long as you can give and show what kind of result people are going to get, it doesn’t lessen the value at all.

I’ve seen people price audio courses way higher than 127 up to like that 500 range. 

Amanda Warfield: I love that. Okay, just something because I know that if I thought it. Everyone else was probably thinking it too. Oh, for sure. I wanted to address that because pricing is something that’s so difficult and it’s so personal and like you said, there are a lot of limiting beliefs around it.

Now you mentioned kind of how you package your up with the face, yours up with the Facebook group and everything. What, when it comes to putting together that package for the audio only course, what does that delivery look like? Because I’m assuming you don’t have. You know, Kajabi or Kartra or any other platform teachable like that.

You don’t have a platform because hello audio is your platform. So what does that kind of packaging look like? Is there any kind of video component at all that. Maybe, let’s say for example, you have a welcome video within an e I, I don’t know, I’m just wondering like what does that packaging look like when you wrap it all up with a bow?

Sara Whittaker: Yeah, this is such a great question and this is something I really kind of tussled with for a while because there are, and this is also what’s really cool about an audio course because you can package it in so many different ways and it can look however you want it to look. What it looks like when I can kind of take you like on the journey that a customer would take.

So I had a full sales page for this. I had my checkout page in Thrivecart. Once they purchased in Thrivecart, they get an automatic email. That has their individual link for the audio course, which is like, just to be clear, essentially just like a podcast is just private. So it’s not searchable within Apple podcasts or Spotify or anything like that, but you can still listen within like your Apple podcast app.

So they get this email, they get their link. They get to choose which app they want to listen in on. And so now they have, I dripped out my content when I first launched it. So I did like one lesson per week. And so they get instant access to the feed and then instant access and lifetime access to the Facebook community.

There was no. Platform, like you mentioned, like no kajabi or anything like that, that they’re logging into. It’s just this private Facebook group and within that private Facebook group, any resources that I am providing them in the lessons. I also I created little guides in the if you know, like the guides tab in the Facebook groups.

I created those where they were linked there for them. And then they were also linked. In the lesson description within their listening app as well. So in a way it’s great for them too, because they don’t have to log into anything. Everything was provided right there with one click, and it was all things that they could just organize into their Google drive, if it was any kind of.

Resource that went with the lesson. 

Amanda Warfield: What I love so much about this whole idea is by utilizing the hello audio feed, You mentioned this, but I want to reiterate it because I think it’s such an important part of this. But utilizing the Hello Audio feed, your course automatically ends up in the podcast player of their choice, just like any other podcast they listen to.

So it’s a known entity, and there’s not, how do I use Kajabi? How do I use Kartra? Where do I click? It’s just this automatic, oh, I use Apple Podcasts every day to listen to podcasts that I already listen to. This is the same thing. I just. I couldn’t access this until I had that private link, right? And so I love that not only does it make creating the course so much simpler for you, but it also makes accessing and using the course so much simpler for the students.

And so it’s simplified in multiple ways here, which I just, chef’s kiss, so good. What I’m most curious about. Is how does this actually differ? How does an audio only course differ from a 

Sara Whittaker: private podcast? Well, it, it doesn’t really, I mean, I think the differentiating factor here is that when we think of private podcasts, we usually think of free, like I mentioned how I’ve created a private podcast before as an, as an audio lead magnet.

So. In that scenario, it’s free content and all they have to give me their email address in order to access that content because it’s still gated. It’s still private, but with the audio course, I’m putting a price tag on it. Instead of giving me their email, they’re giving me money. So I would 

Amanda Warfield: say, and almost push back to that, I would say they’re different just in the way that they’re.

What they’re teaching and how they’re teaching, whereas I feel like and correct me if I’m wrong because I haven’t done this personally, but I feel like a lead magnet is going to solve one small problem for sure, yes, versus a course is going to give you all the steps you need to solve a particular problem and.

A lead magnet and a private podcast is going to deep dive into one particular thing versus a deep dive into multiple 

Sara Whittaker: particular things. Yes, definitely. And I think we all probably know now as business owners, if you’re signing up for somebody’s lead magnet, you’re going to be sold to you’re going to, they are trying to funnel you into a paid offer, whereas with an audio course.

You are, like you said, getting all of those steps inside of this course and you’ve already purchased it. So you’re not like being sold to throughout that content. 

Amanda Warfield: Right. Yeah. That’s so true too. It’s, it’s private podcasts are always going to be used. Up front to sell something to lead into a launch, most likely, which funnily enough, you had mentioned that you lazy launch this, how do you put it?

I would, I would love to hear more about that because I’m always interested in learning new launch strategies. So what exactly do you mean by lazy launch and how did you go about, you mentioned a wait list, but what else went into this launch for 

Sara Whittaker: you? Yeah. So I definitely call it a lazy launch, meaning that I just, I feel like when I think about Live launch, you’re thinking of the live webinars and maybe a ton of Facebook ads, like really going all out for this.

I really wanted to experiment and see what I could do without doing those things. And so my main strategies were, um, using my public podcast in the months leading up to. This audio course launch and so what I mean by that is really creating podcast episodes that really poked at the pain points that this audio course was going to solve so, um, and that that went on for, you know, three months or so creating this really intentional content.

So that by the time it came to the live launch, people were very problem aware. And now they know that there’s a solution. If they join this audio course, I created a waitlist. I had my waitlist open probably like two months before I opened doors. And I always, this, I always use a waitlist anytime I launch anything.

And I always tell my waitlist that. If they’re on the wait list, they will get a coupon code that only wait listers will get, and that’s always been super effective for me. I know I’ve heard mixed feelings about the wait list situation. I personally. Love a waitlist. It has worked for me and I will continue using it.

But yeah, really just being like intentional with the pre launch content and utilizing that waitlist. And then I had doors open for, I let them know what coming, what was coming. Like I really built that buzz. People knew what I had created. When doors were going to be open, I ran dynamic ads on my podcast for inviting people to join the wait list.

I ran a dynamic ad one week before doors open, letting people know doors are opening in a week. And then I ran another ad saying, Hey, doors are open this week. They close on this date. And so I used my podcast. I sent out. Daily emails that week. And then I created maybe three Instagram reels and went on my stories and that’s it.

So I use podcast email. and Instagram, which are the three things that I usually focus on. I just want to, 

Amanda Warfield: for everyone listening, I just want to point out some of the things that Sarah said that you’ve heard me say over and over again, and I hope that if it hasn’t already stuck, maybe hearing someone else say it will, but she prelaunched for three months, for 12 weeks, which every time I say that, I think people think, you know, I’ve got horns growing out of my head.

12 weeks of prelaunch, of really leaning into what those pain points were. She created the waitlist, which, I’m with you, the waitlist strategy works every single time, but it only works if you prelaunch. Yes. And that’s, I think, where some people, they put a waitlist out, but they’re not actually pre launching, they’re not addressing pain points, and they’re like, well, no one wants it.

Well, you haven’t given them a reason to want to be on the waitlist. Right. Um, and yes, I love the coupon code. Every time I do a waitlist, and I teach this in my launch strategy course, is give them, I open the doors for the waitlist a day early, they get a special coupon code, only good for that first day.

Oh, I like that. And then. And then you get the majority of your sales at the beginning of the launch instead of the end, which just creates a ton of momentum and leads to more sales because you’re able to say, look, all of these people have already signed up this week. 

Sara Whittaker: Exactly. That’s what, that’s, what’s always the case for me.

My biggest sales day is always the first day because it’s people on the wait list. 

Amanda Warfield: They’re ready. You have prepped them. They’ve heard about this for ages. They’re ready to go and they’re ready to buy in and it doesn’t take much to do that. It just it takes pre launching. But you also mentioned that you were able to launch.

Without this whole entire webinar strategy and all of this extra fluff. And I don’t even think we need to call that lazy launching. That should just be launching. We don’t need these major hype pieces that I feel like so many of the gurus are like, you’ve got to have a webinar or you’ve got to have a challenge or you’ve got to have this, those things are great additions.

But when you’re launching for the first time, they’re not necessary and they’re not always necessary. It’s one of those, if you can fit it in great, but if not, you can have a really successful launch without them. And they’re often just one more thing that you have to coordinate and handle and do. And then there’s all the emails and it’s a lot, but you’re gonna have a super successful launch just with your content and your current audience.

So thank you so much for sharing all the details and just letting everyone kind of have a peek behind the scenes of. What that looked like for you and yeah, just what works for you with your launches in a way that isn’t overwhelming and exhausting and taking up all of your mental time and capacity.

Sara Whittaker: Yes, of course. I love talking about this stuff and I, the other thing that popped into my head when you were asking about pricing and messaging for this, if you are somebody who’s listening and you’re like, I don’t know if my, like what I could price an audio corset. One thing that I really focused on for messaging is thinking about who my audience was, which is probably very similar for a lot of our audiences because everybody’s busy.

People know That they want the transformation that courses offer, but they like a lot of people know that they’re not actually going to complete it. And so sometimes that’s a hesitation when people buy a course. And so I really had that in my mind with my messaging and making it clear that these lessons are going to be bite sized.

They’re going to be tight. They’re going to have action items at the end of them. They’re going to be, you know, short so you can really get through this content. And that was a big piece of my messaging that I think helped with selling the course. Yeah, 

Amanda Warfield: absolutely. We, we are all exhausted and burnt out and it’s a lot that, I mean, that’s the entire premise of my membership is, hey, I’m not going to give you a new education every month, you’re going to get new education once a quarter and the rest of the quarter, we’re just focusing on taking action one small step at a time because, you know, we had the whole heyday, what, four years ago with online courses and, yeah, Everyone wanted one.

And now they’re great in theory, but no one gets through them. And we’ve come to realize that. And so it’s, it’s definitely, you know, we have to shift into this mindset of, okay, how do I make things as simple and as easily digestible as possible? 

Sara Whittaker: Yes, absolutely. Okay. So you 

Amanda Warfield: mentioned that all of your, your course modules end with an action step and we always end chasing simple with an action step.

So I would love to know if you could just give the listeners one action step to take this week to start moving towards being able to create their own audio only course, what would it be? 

Sara Whittaker: I think that I would recommend just getting out a piece of paper, or if you prefer, you know, doing things on a Google doc or in your project management tool, and really give yourself 15 minutes and think about if you want to create an audio course, start with the problem that you want to solve for people, and then start listing out the teaching points that will get them that solution.

So you can really start to think about how you can break This course down into bite sized lessons that would be appropriate for an audio course, sometimes just giving yourself those few minutes to do this and doing kind of like a brain dump on paper will help you organize your thoughts and help you really see, Oh, this is something that I could do.

Amanda Warfield: Yes, that moment of, Oh, I actually do know enough to do this. That’s how I felt when I started outlining for the book, because for the longest time it was, I don’t know, do I have enough to say? Like that seems like a big deal. And I know people feel that same way about the course. And the second you start just drafting things out, it’s this light bulb moment of, oh, I do know what I’m talking about.

Yes. I do actually have things to say and I can share this and help other people with it. So I love that as an action step. Thank you, Sarah. Of course. One last thing. I don’t let anyone leave without giving is a book recommendation. So if you could share one book that everyone should read, it can be business, but it can also be fiction or whatever.

Literally anything. What would it be? 

Sara Whittaker: Okay. This is one that I can actually answer it. If you had asked me this a year ago, I don’t know that I would have been able to answer it, but I finally joined a book club and we. And it’s gotten me reading again, which has been awesome. So I have lots of books I could recommend.

I think one of my favorites that I’ve read recently is called local woman missing. If you like thrillers, I’m blanking on who the author is. Um, it’s so, so good. And I don’t even want to give anything away, but if you like thrillers, you will love this. Have you read it? I think 

Amanda Warfield: so. I’m looking up the local missing, local woman missing.

I’m looking it 

Sara Whittaker: up right now, guys, because I know, I have it on my Audible, if I can pull it. Mary Cubica? 

Amanda Warfield: Yes, that’s it. We’ll link to it in the show notes, guys. 

Sara Whittaker: So good. It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time and I did not predict how it ended. I love 

Amanda Warfield: those. Those are, I just love a good twist. And I don’t, my husband’s the kind of person that like has to figure it out before it happens.

And I’m just like blinders on. I don’t want to know. I want the surprise Yes. 

Sara Whittaker: So good. Highly recommend. Perfect. 

Amanda Warfield: Wonderful. Okay. Well, Sarah, I know that everyone is like, okay. This has been just one of the most informational educational podcast episodes we’ve ever listened to. I need more from Sarah. Where 

Sara Whittaker: can they find you?

Yeah, so I make it really easy. I am podcasting for educators everywhere. That’s the name of my podcast. I actually episode 95 on my podcast. I do like a full debrief of this audio course launch with specific numbers and things like that. So if this is something that you’re. Interested in hearing more about check out that episode.

Um, but yeah, that’s my podcast. I’m podcasting for educators on Instagram. That’s my website. My email is Sarah at podcasting for educators. If you have any questions. , 

Amanda Warfield: we will make sure to link to all of that, including that episode in the show notes, guys. So go ahead and head there so you can learn more and connect with Sarah further.

Sarah, thank you so much for being here today. 

Sara Whittaker: Thank you. This was so fun.

Amanda Warfield: Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all of the resources you need to simplify your marketing [email protected]. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 186: Simplifying Your Course Creation with an Audio-Only Podcast with Sara Whittaker appeared first on Amanda Warfield.

Looking for a way to get new leads onto your email list and use your lead magnet to build a relationship with them? Look no farther, because what you’re going to want to create is a quiz. And my friend, Linda is here to tell you all about how to get started crafting your own.

Linda Sidhu is a list-building expert who helps entrepreneurs create irresistible personality quizzes that attract hundreds of new subscribers on autopilot. As a former top ten pharmaceutical sales representative, she had extensive training in personality types. She took the same methods that worked for selling products face-to-face and turned them into a personality quiz framework that converts views to leads at 70% and helps craft personalized marketing for her customers. Linda has been featured in Forbes and on multiple podcasts, including The Art of Online Business with Rick Mulready, the Go-to-Gal with Jaclyn Mellone, and the Cubicle to CEO podcast with Ellen Yin.

In today’s episode, Linda walks us through where to begin when creating a quiz, how to ensure your audience wants to take the quiz, tips for helping quiz takers finish the full quiz, what to do post quiz, and so much more! This episode is jam-packed with incredible tips for creating your next lead magnet. And for those of you that are inside Chasing Simple Marketing: The Community and currently working on your lead magnets – this is a must listen to!

Linda Sidhu is a list-building expert who helps entrepreneurs create irresistible personality quizzes that attract hundreds of new subscribers on autopilot. As a former top ten pharmaceutical sales representative, she had extensive training in personality types. She took the same methods that worked for selling products face-to-face and turned them into a personality quiz framework that converts views to leads at 70% and helps craft personalized marketing for her customers. Linda has been featured in Forbes and on multiple podcasts, including The Art of Online Business with Rick Mulready, the Go-to-Gal with Jaclyn Mellone, and the Cubicle to CEO podcast with Ellen Yin.

Social Links:

Instagram: Linda Sidhu- The Quiz (@linda_sidhu_quizzes )

Facebook Group (Quiz Creators): https://www.facebook.com/groups/813848232379718

Facebook Business Link: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063847641127

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic

Amanda Warfield: Looking for a way to get new leads onto your email list and use your lead magnet to build a relationship with them? Look no farther because what you’re going to want to create is a quiz. And my friend Linda is here to tell you all about how to get started crafting your own. Linda Sidhu is a list building expert who helps entrepreneurs create irresistible personality quizzes that attract hundreds of new subscribers on autopilot.

As a former top 10 pharmaceutical sales rep, she had extensive training and personality types. She took the same methods that worked for selling products face to face and turned them into a personality quiz framework that converts views to leads at 70 percent and helps craft personalized marketing for her customers.

Linda has been featured in Forbes and on multiple podcasts, including the art of online business with Mick Mulready and the go to gal with Jacqueline Malone and the cubicle to CEO podcast with Ellen Yin. In today’s episode, Linda walks us through where to begin when creating a quiz, how to ensure your audience wants to take the quiz, tips for helping quiz takers finish the full quiz, what to do post quiz, and so much more.

This episode is jam packed with incredible tips for creating your next lead magnet. And for those of you that are inside Chasing Simple Marketing, the community, and currently working on your lead magnets, this is a must listen to. You’re listening to episode 185 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield.

This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner, and you can grab your 2024 version at amandawarfield. com slash planner. 

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, Reading in our hammock, watching GameCock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me.

If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here, to help make marketing simple and less time consuming, so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Really quickly, before we dive into this episode, I just have to share something that I’m really excited about with you.

My book, Chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion, but… Without that masters of business administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing overwhelming and frustrating throughout these pages.

I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing, and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business. To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amandawarfield.

com book. I’ll see you there. All right, Linda. I am so, so excited to have you on. I’ve really been looking forward to this episode and we just. Chatted for like five minutes, 10 minutes before we even hit record. So sorry that all of you missed out on that, but can you tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you

Linda Sidhu: do?

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me here, Amanda. I love talking about how to attract leads for your business. Specifically with personality quizzes. So if you don’t know me, I’m Linda Studio. I am a personality expert and quiz creator and how I got here. What I would just have to tell you a backstory of, you know, 15 years ago, I was in pharmaceutical sales.

And I worked with dermatologists. It was like a specialty. And at the time, I really was nervous about talking to these doctors about my products because I felt like they knew way more about them than I did. And there was no way I was going to be able to sell them something. Right. So luckily, My company really helped me understand different personalities and so how to communicate to different people.

And so I really relied on that. And I actually became certified in DISC. So DISC is the model I used. It’s Dominant Influencer Study or Conscientious. And for over 10 years, I would sit in my car and I’d be like, okay, Dr. Amanda, I’m going to go see her. What type of personality does she have? And if you were a dominant personality, I would go in, I’d get to the point, I’d give them options, I’d let them dictate how they were going to use my product, and then I’d get out of there.

I was efficient with their time. However, if you were a little bit more heart centered, like the opposite personality, maybe I’d ask how your weekend was, maybe I’d bring lunch instead so I could give you more time with me. I would show data on my products, I would talk about the testimonials and show before and after pictures with the acne patients, you know what I mean?

And, um, I would recognize that that type of person, sometimes it takes almost two years for you to build your know, like and trust factor before they would ever use your product on their patients. Right. So what happened was I, um, retired pharmaceutical sales when my son went, was born, had the opportunity to stay home.

However, when he went to school and he started kindergarten, I launched my business. And I was doing email marketing at the time. And so I thought, you know what? I’m going to do a personality quiz because in my head, understanding people’s personalities was the key to having a better communication. And then you could sell your offers in an effortless way, right?

So I’ve launched a personality quiz and what happened was Interact, the quiz platform, thought my quiz was doing better than quizzes they’ve had before. The conversion rates were higher. Not only that, but I had friends sharing it left and right. They were sharing it in their Facebook group. Like this is the result I got.

What did you get? Like, and it just went bananas. And so at that point I followed the breadcrumbs and I said, well, maybe I should really just focus on the top of funnel. Personality quizzes versus just email marketing. You know what I mean? And so that’s what I did. I actually focused, it led me to the decision to start focusing on personality quizzes for business 

Amanda Warfield: owners.

Okay. I love this so much. One, because I love personality tests, but two, I love that it forces you to think about your audience. As individual people, because I think we can, you know, before we hopped on and hit record, we had this whole conversation about how the art of relationship building is kind of lost, right?

And I think that that’s something that’s so great within what you’re doing with these personality quizzes for businesses is that it forces you to think about the different people that are in your audience. And it’s not just one collective body of people, and it’s not one collective. One, it’s there are a lot of people in my audience, and how can I figure out what their personalities are and group them together in order to serve them really 

Linda Sidhu: well?

Well, what quizzes do is in a fun way, they solicit information and feedback from your audience as well. So you’re also doing ongoing research. One of the first quest questions I have in my quiz. What do you identify with? Are you a coach, a course creator, a copywriter or something other? And I realized that almost 50 percent of my audience were coaches and I didn’t know that at the time.

So that dictates, okay, where am I going to show up now? Well, look at podcasts. You know, that have coaches as an audience, for example, Dallas Travers comes to mind. She’s got that podcast coaches on a mission, right? So it’s like, okay, now all of a sudden I know that being a little bit more intentional, it probably is wise for me to pitch Dallas to be on her podcast.

I can get in front of other coaches who tend to be on my email list as well. Those are also people who are creating quizzes and having success with them, right? Of course, creators are another one. So thinking outside the box on this, I’m like, okay, Kajabi, they are a platform that have post courses, like I’d love to somehow build a relationship with that company, right?

Or if you think like Amy Porterfield, she has digital courses. So that really just kind of dictates you and allows you to be more intentional. But going back to the clients, when people are taking your quiz, you’re engaging with them right off the bat. Uh, they’re going to their email box and they’re looking to see what result they got, possibly sharing it with friends, but they are a more engaged lead and they’re going to stay on your email list longer because you’re making extra effort to connect with them.

What do you think it is about 

Amanda Warfield: your quizzes that it, it makes it so attractive that people want to take it? How do you make it so that people see the quiz and are like, yes, that’s what I want to spend my time taking? 

Linda Sidhu: So you really need to have a really good title for your quiz. I actually just wrapped up a three day Nail Your Quiz Idea Challenge last week.

I run them once or twice a year. So if you missed this one, don’t worry. I’ll probably run another one because they are so successful. Really, you want your title to be something that people beg to click on. Now, titles are really good for two reasons. One, because they’re going to attract your right audience.

You need someone to look at that title and say, yes, that’s me. And it’s got to be compelling enough to, you know, click quit, you know, start quiz. The other thing it does is it repels your audience. So by having a good title, people are going to look at it and say, that’s not me. And they’re not going to take it and they won’t become a lead.

So when you have a good quiz title. What happens is you’re going to get not only not only quality leads, but I’m sorry, not only quality quantity leads, but quality leads, right? So I’ll give you a great example of this. Um, I had a coach create a quiz and she really honed a niche down into I want to help people with ADHD.

She has ADHD. She realized a lot of people that’s in our audience has ADHD. And so when we were working on her quiz, she said, I’m going to focus on this. And so her title of her quiz is what’s your ADHD superpower. And you better believe when people look at that quiz, they have ADHD, right? Same thing goes for a coach who might be helping people with their midlife crisis.

I had somebody come to me who wanted to create a quiz and, you know, her audience really was that person who was heading into the second chapter of their life. We didn’t want to say the word crisis. We wanted it to be positive, but she was really focusing on an age group. Right? So women over 40. So that was part of her quiz title, women over 40.

What’s your midlife advantage. So now people, women over 40 were saying, that’s me people in their twenties weren’t taking it and she was getting quality leads. So I really think it boils down to having a, like nailing your quiz title and idea. That’s so 

Amanda Warfield: interesting. And I, I look at people’s titles for everything.

I’m like, wow, that’s so good. And then I struggle with coming up with. My own so often right now as I’m writing my book, that’s what I’m stuck on is the tagline for the book because I just struggle with that. Do you have any tips on the best ways to figure out 

Linda Sidhu: what to name things? Yeah, it’s pretty simple.

First of all, you got to think about your offer. So after people take your quiz, what do you want them to do? Cause you’re going to need to communicate with them and get them down the funnel to actually become a new lead, right? Particularly purchasing something from you. So, for example, I have the Quiz Lab, and so that is my offer, or I create quizzes for people, right?

So, I work backwards from my offer, quizzes, and then from there, I try to figure out, well, what’s my expertise? Like, what can I do to serve them? So, really, when I think about people who want to create a quiz, they, they know they want a quiz. They just don’t know what their strategy or what they should do.

There’s a lot of moving parts. And so I kind of combine that with, um, some of the things I hear from my audience when I do research. And typically what I hear is people don’t know what their title should be. They don’t know what their idea should be. They also, when they do have a quiz, don’t know how to promote it.

Like, there’s so many things that they don’t know. But the first basic thing when I was thinking of my own title was, well, I know people are coming to me because they want a quiz, but they don’t actually know what to do after that. Like, they know what they want to quiz. So I named my quiz title, What’s Your Quiz to Cash Strategy?

And then it, um, the results actually show you which strategy you’re leaning into your strengths. You know what I mean? What are you, what are your strengths? Who are you? Let’s stroke your ego for a while and like celebrate who you are. And then I also give a strategy on like, okay, here’s how you, here’s, you want to create a quiz.

You’ll want to have a welcome series. You have your own strategy that works with your personality, right? So that’s what I decided to go with, you know, book titles are probably different, so maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but at the end of the day, you want something good that people are going to pick up again.

And they’re going to identify with it and say, I want to read this book. So, okay, we’ve got 

Amanda Warfield: people they’re in, they’re taking the quiz. Maybe they’ve gotten all the way through the quiz. What tips 

Linda Sidhu: do you have for helping ensure 

Amanda Warfield: that people actually complete the quiz? They don’t just start it and then end up bored 

Linda Sidhu: halfway through.

So I always, I think it boils down to the questions you’re asking them in the quiz. And this is a good question. Uh, so I’m excited to answer this actually, because a lot of people. Actually skip over this part. Um, but what happens is there’s three questions. I like to ask one is personality questions so we can ensure that they get the right personality result.

Typically, I have five of those in there just to try to dictate. Okay. Let’s see if we can get the right personality. So when she sees, when he or she sees the results, they say, Oh my gosh, that’s totally me, right? The personality questions. Second is research questions. Research question was the one I gave a little bit ago.

An example of that is like, what do you identify with? Are you a coach, course creator, copywriter, or other? The research questions help you as an entrepreneur. Try not to make them really heavy, like, you know, what’s holding you back, or what’s the biggest obstacle, like, and then tons of words, right? Like, ask the question, get to the point, try to be super tight with the question and the answers too.

And then the last question I like to ask is engaging questions. These are just kind of on theme with the quiz. They’re there to have fun. They really don’t mean anything except for trying to… They I kind of layer them in between two harder questions and the harder questions are the personality of the research questions, right?

They make you think a little longer. So if there’s 2 personality questions in a row, I might throw in an engagement question. Just it’s like a softball question just to get them to answer it and move on. I typically don’t have more than 10 questions because anything more than 10, you’re probably looking at the bottom.

Like, how long? How many questions do I have to get through this? You don’t want your new leads to feel that way. Okay. And then the good thing with quizzes is you can actually go back to your data and see the percentages of where people are falling off. In my particular quiz, people fall off the highest percent at question number two.

I actually leave that there for teaching purposes for people who are in my quiz lab. And the reason why I do that is because it’s about a 10 percent drop off, but it’s a hard question and I’m making people think too hard. And so I’m showing people, okay, this is a live example of what you don’t want to do.

Um, I mean, if it was like. 20 30%. I would totally change it. 10 percent is not bad, but you don’t want anything like higher than 6 percent for drop off rates. All my other questions are less than like 1 percent drop off. So I don’t know if that answered your question, but you really want to have good engaging questions.

You want them tight with getting to the point as quick as possible because people only have seconds to look at that. They’re distracted. If you’ve lost them, they’re going to click out of it. 

Amanda Warfield: Yeah, no, that’s super helpful in so many ways. I feel like I should be taking those right now. Yeah. You mentioned earlier, you’ve got to have a strategy like an end game involved that you’re leading them to what about the quiz sets them up for potential sale later, later, a potential conversion to whatever it is that you’re, you’re trying to move them towards.

What about a quiz sets them up for 

Linda Sidhu: that? Yeah. So when people take your quiz, the most important thing you’re trying to do is get them. To become a new lead. So it’s really about attracting them. Then there’s another step called the welcome series. And so this is a mistake I see entrepreneurs make is they might create a quiz, but then they don’t have a welcome series attached to it.

And that’s a missed opportunity because the welcome series has a lot of magic. In the welcome series, you’re validating your new leads. You’re sending an email to build your know, like and trust factor. You’re also, um, sharing ways and micro commitments to, uh, get to know you better. I know when I was on Ellen Yen’s podcast, Cubicle to CEO.

I’ve been wanting to actually use that podcast interview and repurpose it into my welcome series because again, that was a really good episode. I was on. It’s great to repurpose those things, but that episode alone is going to get them in, you know, listening to you. Right and so think about podcast interviews that you want to share.

I was able to be featured in Forbes, so I definitely put that in there. And 1 of my emails where I was sharing more about who I am. And the Forbes article was talking about failed partnership that I had and how I overcame that. And so that’s part of my story. So I have that in one of my emails, but it’s also a credibility marker, right?

So repurpose those things is really important. And when people click on a podcast interview or a Forbes feature, you’re getting micro commitments. You’re getting them to click. You’re getting them more into your world. And what quizzes and the welcome series can potentially do is get people to binge your content.

And when people start binging your content, they’re getting really excited to purchase from you. And then so the last couple emails, you could utilize a couple strategies. I like to utilize the nine word email. So right before my last email in my welcome series, I will say, Amanda, are you still interested in creating a quiz?

If so, click here and you know it whether it’s like a calendar link at the time to book a one on one call. Or maybe quiz lab is open. It’ll be a link to join the quiz lab. You know what I mean? But it’s a very short to the point, usually nine words. Um, and people view that email, uh, it’s almost like a pattern interruption.

Uh, but not only that. It looks like a personal email was sent to them because it’s how you would talk to a friend, and typically they’ll click on it. And I have actually had people book calls that way. No problem. And then potentially become a client. Right. And then the very last email you send to them in your welcome series for your quiz typically is on next steps if you haven’t already talked about it sooner.

Right. So if I’m running my three day nail your quiz idea challenge, that’s what I’m asking people to join. Um, things like that. And then maybe the last email is all about joining my three day nail your quiz idea challenge. And then when they join your challenge. You take them further. We help them come up with their quiz title.

They get an instant win. You’ve got the open, you know, doors open for QuizLab. And now you’re asking them to become a client. And that’s kind of how it all works. Just depends on what you have available to offer. I know some clients who create quizzes don’t have a course that they’re offering booking a call.

Like why don’t you book a call and we’ll talk about one on one support. There are people who use it to sell out group coaching programs. There’s people who use it. Um, you know, for a different reasons. I am actually I was hired recently. Where I’m doing a quiz right now where she just really wants people to bench her podcast episodes.

So now it’s like a personalized podcast for each personality, and we’ve really had some fun repurposing all that amazing content and what the people are going to do is it’s just going to bend all these amazing. Episodes and the way we tailored the quiz was based on their personality. So it was, we’re serving up what they need based on who they are.

So do you essentially create 

Amanda Warfield: three different welcome sequences or however many personalities come out of the quiz and then you send people down, whichever one they fall into? 

Linda Sidhu: I try to keep it simple personally, but I did have a client in the quiz lab that personalized, she did a private podcast for each personality.

And so she personalized everybody’s welcome series. So that was 20 different episodes that she created, but I will tell you, she went from 13 K to over six figures in a year by doing that. So the more you personalize your content and the more effort you put into place. And by the way, all of this is on automation at this point, right?

So it’s not like, you know, after you put the time and the commitment to do it, you build a foundation. It’s all there. She was able to see how she attracted the right lead. She was able to see the micro commitments, people booking a call and then booking the actual service. Right. So she had an awesome story, but no, I usually keep it simple.

I usually recreate four email ones. So they’re unique. And then I put the rest of the emails in each sequence for each personality to keep it simple. 

Amanda Warfield: No, I love that. That’s great. So, okay, you mentioned that common mistake you see is that people don’t have a welcome sequence afterwards. Are there any other common mistakes 

Linda Sidhu: that we should avoid?

Yeah. A lot of times people, um, will write the questions first. You actually want to come up with the theme and then you want to write, write the results first and then the questions. Cause then you know what questions are going to get the right result. You almost have to reverse engineer the entire thing.

So you have to work backwards from your offer. Same thing with the quiz. You have to work backwards with what you, how you put the quiz together. So really just kicking it off properly and like not starting with the questions is another mistake. The second mistake besides the welcome series, because there’s three big mistakes.

One is starting it off improperly. Number two is not having a welcome series. And number three is not knowing how to promote it. A lot of times people work really hard on putting this amazing quiz together and then they don’t know how to promote it. Um, and so I really try to work with individuals based on their personalities, like what feels good to you.

Um, you know, encouraging people to get on podcasts so they can share it. Um, having friends do partner like email swap so they can share it like partnering networking with other people. You can put it, you can run Facebook ads, you can put it on Instagram. I mean, there’s so many ways, but a lot of times I feel pretty bad, um, they fall short because they don’t know what to do.

It’s almost like you build a website. They’re supposed to come. Same thing with a quiz. They think I’ve got a quiz. Everybody’s going to take it. It’s not the case. You almost have to treat it like it’s It’s own launch, believe it or not, and really put the focus and energy there. Yeah, 

Amanda Warfield: no, I think that’s such a great point because really with any project that you have, you’ve got to have a marketing plan for it because otherwise it’s just going to sit there and then you’re going to think, well, that didn’t work.

And it’s not that it didn’t work. It’s that you didn’t 

Linda Sidhu: let anyone know that it existed. Exactly. 

Amanda Warfield: Oh man, this has been so good. And I know that I have so much to think of and I’ve created a quiz before. So I know that all the listeners are definitely just like. Probably a little overwhelmed with all the things that they want to do.

So what would you say that the, the number one action step to 

Linda Sidhu: take from all of this would be? Yeah. So this is another great question. I think before you do anything, what’s really going to serve your audience is for them to do some research. So I want to give your audience three questions to ask their audience and I want to encourage them to send out a survey.

And if they can, I would love for them to do an interview with like six different people to really get this information. One of the best questions I like to ask is what are you struggling with in regards to your expertise? So for me, I would say, what are you struggling with when it comes to, you know, attracting leads or growing your email list, right?

And that information alone is going to really tell you what your ideal client is having trouble with. And it’s going to allow you to get into their head. And you can actually take this information and use it in emails. You can use it on your quiz results. You can use it on your, um, sales pages. That alone is just an incredible question to ask.

Another great question to ask your audience is what’s holding you back from working with me. That’ll tell you why they’re not buying from you. Um, and then the third question is imagine if they received what they really wanted, right? In regards to your expertise. So for me, I would say imagine if you grew your email list by 500 people in seven days, because people were coming to me because they want to grow their email list.

I did have a client grow their email list. By 500 people in seven days. So I felt like I could say that because it was achieved by somebody versus like throwing out a silly number, right? So imagine if you achieved their desired result in regards to how you can help them, right? That is also going to give you some really good information.

I would also ask people what podcasts they listen to because it’s really important for you to start pitching yourself on podcasts and getting in front of borrowed audiences. So people who’ve already built the know, like, and trust factor, if they put you on your podcast, they’re exposing, you know, the audience to you.

And that kind of takes the lead already to be warm to hot, right? And you know this, um, but I always like to ask people. So in, I actually have a survey in my quiz. Welcome series on automation and it has all these questions in there. So if you take my quiz, you’re going to see my welcome series and an email too, is where I have my survey.

And now I have almost 200 people that have taken my survey with those questions and it’s all on automation, which I’m sure you’re going to love that. Right. And so you can go back and look at the, all the answers. And if I’m looking to pitch podcasts, I’ll be like, Hey, Amanda’s on that list. I should picture.

That’s 

Amanda Warfield: genius. I’m gonna have to go into my welcome sequence and add that. That’s so smart. Okay, so if you could give everyone one book recommendation, 

Linda Sidhu: what would it be? And actually, when I was thinking about this yesterday, it’s not a book that is out yet, but it’s one I’m very excited that’s coming out June 13th.

Okay. But Laura Belgray, she’s a mentor of mine. She has written and she’s releasing her first book and it’s called Tough Titties. Love it. And she is actually, if you don’t know Laura, she’s incredible. She’s an award winning copywriter. She was partners with Marie Forleo and uh, they have a joint course together called CopyCure.

Uh, she’s incredible. She’s worked for Bravo, Nick at Night, you name it. She’s an incredible writer and she’s a good friend of mine now. And I’ve already pre ordered it and I’m also going to be part of her launch team because I’m so excited. But yeah, I’m thrilled. It comes out I think June, June 13th. It’s called tough titties.

And I’m actually ordering probably 40 plus books to give to friends and families and clients. And I cannot wait to get my hands on it. 

Amanda Warfield: That’s so exciting. I will definitely have to check that out and I will make sure that we add that link to the show notes. Everyone else can check it out too. Okay. So I know everyone has just probably had a million more questions for you about quizzes and how to set them up and use them in their business.

Where can they find you and learn 

Linda Sidhu: more from you? Yeah. If you can share the link to my quiz, what’s your quiz to cash strategy. I love my quiz because I basically built it for my audience so we can personalize what strategy is right for you and your personality. So it’s what’s your quiz to cash strategy.

If you get on my email list, that’s my best way of, um, showing up. And actually I’m doing a fun thing for my community with Laura’s book. Um, if you order the book, you can get a workshop with me and her exclusively. So I always like to serve my community, um, you know, give away different surprises and different things.

Um, when I can last year, I was hosting a lot of virtual mixers, uh, where I was getting entrepreneurs together. And, you know, it’s just so much fun when you can serve people and just really get to know them. I wish I could do more of it, but there’s only so much I can do, but the best way to get on my, in my community is on my email list.

And then you’ll hear of all these incredible things to do. Great. 

Amanda Warfield: We will link to that in the show notes as well, so everyone can get inside. Thank you so much for being here, Linda. This has just been incredible. 

Linda Sidhu: Absolutely. It was such a pleasure for me.

Amanda Warfield: Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all of the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

The post Episode 185: The Next Lead Magnet You Need to Create with Linda Sidhu appeared first on Amanda Warfield.