Going Solopreneur

Growing your business is all about marketing. Sure, you need to offer a great product or provide spectacular service, but even those things are largely affected by marketing. Marketing is the stories we tell each other, and ourselves, about the work we are doing. So if the stories aren’t hitting home and your business isn’t growing, chances are your marketing isn’t working.

So what can you do about it? The good news is that you know the problem — it’s your marketing.

The bad news is that it’s going to take some effort to turn things around.

There’s no quick fix here, but that’s how marketing works.

It’s a slow burn. It’s drip by drip over time.

It’s connecting with one person at a time and leaving them with an amazing story to share. Little by little, drip by drip, things start to grow and grow and grow.

Why isn’t your marketing working as it should? I have some ideas and some things you can do to fix them.

Think about what you’re doing for your marketing right now. You might be blogging or advertising, doing webinars, sharing video, only using social media, or email marketing. Whatever channel or medium you’re using, there are common threads that apply. That’s what I’ve listed below, some of the common reasons why marketing just doesn’t hit home.

As you read through the list below, keep in mind that there’s usually not just one reason why your marketing isn’t working the way you’d like it to. Typically, it’s a combination of several things going on. Try to be objective about what’s working for you and what’s not.

Common reasons why your marketing isn’t working and how you can fix it

It’s all about you

One of the most common marketing mistakes I see is making everything all about you. You might be trying to convince people of how great you are, so you talk about your credentials, where you went to school, your experience, and on and on. This is not what your customers care about. They want to know how you can help them. How can you make their life better?

How to fix it: Make your customer the hero of the story you’re telling. Talk about all the good things they get when they choose to do business with you. Make it all about them. Show them that you understand their struggles, you feel their pain, and then show them the solution. You’re not the hero of the story, they are. Make sure they know it.

You’re not consistent

Marketing takes time. It takes time for people to get to know, like, and trust you. One mistake I see entrepreneurs make all the time is not being consistent. In the beginning, they’re super excited and so they start blogging once a week. This goes on for a little while but then they get busy and miss a week, and then it drops down to once a month, and then they’re only blogging once a year, and then they can’t figure out why their business isn’t growing.

How to fix it: Be consistent. It may not seem like much is happening at first, but stay the course. It takes time to gain traction with content marketing, but it’s the best way to grow your business. Come up with a posting schedule that works for you and stick with it. This is easier said than done, I get that, but for a solopreneurs, this is how we do our marketing, this is how we build our audience, this is how we grow our business.

You’re too focused on vanity metrics

Vanity metrics are those things we focus on that look good on paper but don’t really mean all that much. Vanity metrics are things like the number of page views you get on your website, how many people clicked on your ad, how many likes you have on your Facebook page, or how many Instagram followers you have. It’s very easy to get tricked into thinking that these vanity metr...

Writing is hard. Writing an effective sales page can feel close to impossible. Today on the podcast, I share a simple template you can use to create powerful landing pages that get more conversions.

Before I get to the template part of this post, I want to make sure we’re all on the same page. Literally!

As an entrepreneur, you don’t have time to mess around posting on social media every day. You need to automate your processes. After trying several social media scheduling services I can honestly say that CoSchedule is the best! Read on to learn how you can use CoSchedule to easily automate your social media marketing.

What is CoSchedule?

CoSchedule is an easy-to-use marketing calendar and social media scheduler. CoSchedule enables you to build a seamless workflow from start to finish.

You can sync all your favorite tools and social platforms into one place, so you can focus on driving traffic to your website (instead of jumping from one tool to the next).

CoSchedule integrates with tools such as WordPress, Google Analytics, Evernote, Google Docs, MailChimp, Zapier, all of your social media accounts, and more!

In a nutshell, CoSchedule simplifies the complicated process of creating and managing your social media marketing.

How CoSchedule will make your life better

Here are a few ways CoSchedule will make your life easier and turn you into a social media marketing pro:

* Eliminate the guesswork of social scheduling. With so much competition, it’s tough to get through the noise. Best Time Scheduling spaces out your messages for maximum coverage, getting your the most social engagement every time.

* No more copying and pasting. Create a predefined social sharing template you can reuse again and again, so you can focus on creating exceptional content, not manually filling in your social queue.

* Instantly share content from anywhere on the web. Curate and share content with followers without ever leaving the browser. No more copy/paste commands or switching from one tab to the next!

* Automatically re-use your best social messages. ReQueue fills in the gaps of your daily schedule (with intelligence), not manual guesses! It takes into account your entire social schedule, uses Best Time scheduling to promote your messages at the most optimal times, and finds the gaps in your schedule (so you don’t have to).

* Refine your social media strategies with actionable insights. Track your social performance across multiple profiles so you know what’s working (and what isn’t). Use real-time data to make updates to your social strategy, so you can continue to drive results.

* Stop guessing at what will (or will not) resonate with your audience. Utilize your social network reports to identify top messages and create content you know your audience will love.

How to easily automate your social media marketing with CoSchedule

Marketing content calendar

One thing I love about CoSchedule is you can see your entire marketing schedule at a glance. Here’s a look at my current calendar which includes soon-to-be-published blog posts and all the social media sharing campaigns I have going on right now.

You can customize your content calendar using colored labels, tags, and even create custom saved views.

You can also move things around quickly and easily. Just drag and drop your content to a new day and anything associated with it will automatically sync to its new time.

My favorite thing about the calendar is how it grabs my scheduled WordPress blog posts and makes it easier to create my social media campaigns.

Social media scheduling

This is the 

Today is Thanksgiving here in the US, and on this day of expressing our gratitude, I wanted to share a few reasons why I’m so grateful for being an entrepreneur.

I could easily write out a list of 100 reasons why I love being an entrepreneur. Choosing to quit my corporate gig to do my own thing has been life-changing for me. I love this life and I don’t think I could ever go back to working for someone else.

For wherever you are on your entrepreneurial journey, I hope you eventually feel this grateful about it too. On this Thanksgiving Day, here are ten reasons why I’m so grateful for being an entrepreneur.

1. I can work from anywhere. I’m not tied to an office or even a geographic location. This, of course, depends on what kind of entrepreneur you decide to be. I have chosen to work “location independent”, meaning I can really work from anywhere as long as I have my laptop and a good Internet connection.

2. I get to make my own schedule. My time is my own and only I get to decide what I do with it. I’m most productive early in the day so I choose to block out time in the mornings to get my creative work done like writing blog posts and working on client projects. I only schedule meetings and calls in the afternoons. I wouldn’t necessarily be able to do this if I worked for someone else. They would most likely make my schedule for me.

3. I get to be as creative as I want to be. I’m a naturally creative person and being told what to do all day, every day for years and years was not a lot of fun for me. As an entrepreneur, I can be as creative as I like with my business. If I want to start a podcast, I can do that. If I decide I want to start teaching branding and marketing at the local University, I can do that too.

4. I get to do work that fulfills me. This is a big one for me. I get to do work that truly helps people to become more successful entrepreneurs, and that is so fulfilling. I never felt that way at my corporate job. I never felt like I was really helping anyone. I just always felt like I was another cog in the machine.

5. I get to choose who I work with. As an entrepreneur, I get to choose my own clients. If I don’t get a good feeling about a prospective client I don’t have to work with them. I can choose to walk away and spend my time helping someone else.

6. I get paid what I’m worth. I’m a hard worker. I’m passionate about what I do. I don’t want someone else telling me how much money I’m allowed to make. I don’t want anyone besides me dictating my worth. The more I hustle, the more money I make. I love that.

7. I get to keep trying until I get it right. As an entrepreneur, I get to decide what direction I want to take my business. If I try something and it doesn’t work, I can try something else. There’s no failing at being an entrepreneur unless you give up entirely.

8. I get to shape my own future. I have big dreams. I want to write a book. I want to be a keynote speaker. And I can pursue that dream with all of my being if I choose to. I can shape my own future to be whatever I want it to be. It just takes a little hustle and a little grit.

9. I get to be part of the entrepreneur community. I’ve never felt truly alone as an entrepreneur. It always seems like there are so many amazing people I can learn from. I’ve read tons of great books and listened to countless podcasts on entrepreneurship. It’s comforting to know I’m part of this supportive entrepreneur community, it feels like a family that I can go to for help and support whenever I need it.

10. Being an entrepreneur is exciting. Finally, I’m grateful for the excitement that being an entrepreneur brings into my life. Sure it’s scary at times. I’ve heard it said that being an entrepreneur is a lot like jumping out of an air...

Creating a manifesto is an important step in building a meaningful brand. When you share your values and beliefs you will begin to attract more people who believe what you believe.

What is a brand manifesto?

Your brand manifesto is a declaration of your principles. It’s a statement of your core beliefs and values. It’s what you stand for as a brand.

Your brand manifesto will make it easier for people to engage and connect with you and your brand because now they know what you stand for.

Simon Sinek explains how this works in his amazing TED talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action (over 41 million views at the time of this writing). He says people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. So in everything you do, start with why.

People buy from you because they believe what you believe, and creating a brand manifesto is a simple yet powerful way to show the world what you believe.

Why share your brand manifesto?

Once you’ve done the work and created a meaningful brand manifesto, don’t just hang it on the wall next to your computer, share it. But why should you share your brand manifesto? What does this do for you?

When you share your brand manifesto with your audience, they can clearly see who you are and what you’re all about. Sharing your manifesto gives your audience a reason to get behind you as a brand, it helps build relationships, and it creates brand loyalty.

When you share your brand manifesto you start attracting people who believe what you believe, and it’s these people who become your best customers.

So how can you share your brand manifesto?

Creative Ways to Share Your Brand Manifesto

Display your brand manifesto

Display your brand manifesto on your website

* Dedicate a page on your website to your brand manifesto.

* Add your manifesto to your “About” page.

* Create a shareable image of your brand manifesto. 99designs is a great resource for this.

* Use snippets of your manifesto on your homepage.

Display your brand manifesto on business or thank-you cards

* Add a short summary of your manifesto on your business cards.

* Add a different core value or belief to the back of each of your business cards (most printers can do this).

* Send thank-you cards to all your clients with your manifesto printed on the back.

* Include a brand manifesto thank-you card in every order that you ship.

Display your brand manifesto on your product packaging

* Display a list of your beliefs on the back of your product packaging.

* Add a different line from your manifesto on each of your products.

Display your brand manifesto around your store or shop

* Make big posters, one for each of your core values or beliefs, and hang them all around your store, shop, or restaurant.

* Make small posters of your manifesto and place them on all of the tables around your cafe, bistro, or bar.

* Add your manifesto to your carry-out bags or shopping bags. Lululemon is famous for this.

Create content around your brand manifesto

Create a blog post series

* Create a series of blog posts, each one dedicated to sharing one belief or value from your brand manifesto.

* Get others to contribute. Have other people write posts about what your beliefs mean to them.

* Incorporate your brand manifesto into every post you write. In everything you do you should be sharing what you believe in and what you stand for.

One of the best ways to increase engagement with your audience is to design amazing images to go with every blog or social media post. Today I’ll share a few tips on how to design amazing images for all those posts.

If you are writing a blog and sharing your blog posts on social media, make sure you’ve included an image on every post.

If you’re just creating standalone social media posts, be sure to use images for every one of those posts.

There may be exceptions, like if you’re just tweeting about the score of the sports game. But including images with every post is a good rule of thumb. You can’t go wrong with this approach.

Images grab your audience’s attention, they help create a consistent brand identity, and they help people to remember your message. In fact, studies have shown that people remember about 10% of what they hear after 72 hours have passed. But if they see an image paired with that same information 72 hours later they still remember 65% of the material.

Images are super important, but they need to look good!

How to Design Amazing Images for Your Posts

Below are a few ideas for creating better images for your posts. One thing to keep in mind – you don’t have to be a graphic designer to create attractive, engaging images. You just need to be able to follow a few guidelines and get familiar with a few tools.

Be relevant

My first tip for how to design amazing images for your posts is to make sure your images are relevant to your message. When choosing an image for a post, ask yourself a few questions:

* Does this image relate to this post? If you see this picture paired with the title of this post, will it make sense right away? If your post is a recipe for vegan ice cream, use a photo of vegan ice cream. If you’re sharing about your experience at a restaurant, use a photo of the restaurant, or even better would be a photo of you sitting at a table in the restaurant. Using a picture that’s relevant to your topic will help create a connection for your audience.

* Does this image help tell the story? Sometimes your image’s relevance isn’t clear right away, and that’s okay. For example, I used a picture of apples for a post about building brand awareness. The connection with the apples doesn’t make sense until you read the post and I share a story about how eating organic produce is better for you. The image helps tell that story.

* Don’t confuse. Whatever you do, try not to confuse your readers. If you’re writing a fashion blog about the new Fall boot styles, use a picture of, wait for it, boots! Don’t use a photo of a tropical beach at sunset. It doesn’t help to make those connections and only confuses your readers.

Be on-brand

Another way to make sure your images are more effective and more engaging is to be on-brand. Decide on your brand’s image style and use that same style everywhere.

For example, Jenna Kutcher uses soft images of herself and the people she interviews on her Goaldigger podcast. Every image is a little different, but she’s using the same Instagram filter and the same basic color palette and tone to maintain brand consistency. You could adopt a similar strategy by using the same filter for all of your images.

Another great way to stay on-brand is to add your logo as a watermark on all of your images. When you do this you not only help people make the connection to your message but also to you and your brand.

Use words

Adding words on top of your images helps people understand right away what your post is about.

Working with a graphic designer doesn’t have to be a painful process. There are a few things you can do to make your project more successful and get better results from your designer.

For years I worked as a graphic designer and web designer at my creative agency, Focus 5 Design. I worked with scores of amazing clients and did everything from logo design to brochure design to website design and development.

I learned a lot about the creative process. I also developed pretty solid ideas on how to ensure a project’s success and make sure I was delivering the best results for my clients.

Today, I’ll share those thoughts with you!

How to get better results from your graphic designer

Start with a creative brief

A must for every creative project is to write up a creative brief and share it with your graphic designer. Your creative brief should include:

* Business name. Be sure to provide the exact business name you want used in your logo or website design.

* Business description. What do you do? Share a little about your business and your industry so they get a feel for what you’re all about. Your value proposition would work beautifully here.

* Target market. Who is this for? Who’s the ideal client or target market you’re trying to reach with this design work?

* Brand personality. What’s the personality you are trying to convey? You could share your brand voice as well as your brand archetype.

* Colors. If you have strong opinions on colors you’d like to use (or not use), be sure to include them in your creative brief.

* Images. Be sure to include a few sample images of what you are aiming for. This is incredibly helpful to designers. You can tell them what you like all day long, but when you can show them, that makes all the difference in the world. A mood board is a great way to share images and ideas with your designer.

Communicate clearly

Your creative brief will help communicate a lot of what you want from your design project but it can’t communicate everything. You also need to communicate the feelings and emotions you are trying to convey. Meet with your graphic designer, in person if possible, and discuss the entire project before any work begins. This will ensure you are all on the same page from the beginning.

And communication doesn’t stop once the project begins. You also need to communicate clearly throughout the design process.

Give specific feedback to help move the work in the right direction. Saying things like “I don’t like that”, or “show me something different” isn’t useful feedback. In contrast, statements like “Can you make that circle larger?”, or “I’d prefer that section’s background to be a darker blue” is awesome feedback.

Show them what you like

Show them a few examples of logos or websites you like and then communicate exactly what you like about them. “I like the colors of this logo, I like the way the top section of this homepage is laid out, I like the way these blog posts are organized.”

In order to create emotional connections with your customers, you need to clearly communicate how your brand can improve their life. They need to trust that you can help transform them from where they are now to where they want to be in the future.

People buy on emotion

Before you can begin to make more emotional connections with your customers, you need to understand a little bit about the psychology of buying.

People almost always make purchase decisions based on emotions. They may think they’re using logical facts to decide, but it’s really their emotions that are in charge.

Your customers feel something about the product or service they are about to buy. There are emotions and feelings connected with that purchase. There’s something about it, they’re hoping, that will make their life better.

For example, when I was training for the Flying Pig Marathon this year, I needed to get a new pair of running shoes. I didn’t start by looking at the features of the shoes I wanted like heel-to-toe drop, weight, or cushioning.

I wanted running shoes that would make me feel lighter, that would make me feel faster, and that would make me feel more comfortable after 20 miles of running.

I chose a pair from HOKA, a company that I connect with emotionally because they sponsor of all the pro ultrarunners. My emotions tell me that if I wear HOKAs, not only will I feel lighter, faster, and more comfortable, but I will feel like a pro ultrarunner too.

People buy outcomes

I want you to start thinking about how you can be making those kinds of emotional connections with your customers. If you can build stronger connections with them on an emotional level, it will be easier for them to make the decision to purchase from you.

The stronger the emotional connection, the more convicted they are that you have the solution they are looking for.

People don’t buy products or services, they buy outcomes.

The outcome I was buying when I got my new running shoes was the ability to run longer and easier because I would feel lighter, faster, and be more comfortable.

Instead of focusing on your products or services and their features, focus on the outcome your customer experiences when they do business with you.

Focus on the transformation

After purchasing from you, your customer’s lives should be changed in some way. They should experience some sort of transformation.

In order for you to create emotional connections with your customers, you need to be able to communicate that transformation. They need to see what that transformation could look like for them.

I’ve created a simple tool you can use to help you figure out how your customers might feel after experiencing your brand:

Print this out and answer these five simple questions:

* What do they have before and after purchasing from you?

* What don’t they have before and after your brand?

* What is their emotional state before and after? What are they feeling?

* What does their average day look like before and after they do business with you?

* What is their status before and after experiencing you and your brand?

Take some time to dig deep and answer these questions. This exercise will give you meaningful insights into how your customers are transformed by you and your brand.

You will use these answers in your marketing messages to clearly communicate how your customer’s lives can be better after their experience with you and your brand.

While you are doing this, think about how you can help move them from the before state to the after state. How do you help them accomplish their transformation?

Example: Massage Therapist for Marathon Runners

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One of the most powerful ways of using email to grow your business is by creating a drip campaign. In this episode, I’ll walk you through a few different types of email series you can create and discuss five powerful benefits of using drip email.

What is drip email?

If you’ve ever signed up for anything on the internet, chances are you’ve seen an email drip campaign in action.

An email drip campaign is simply a series of emails dripped out over time.

Marketers have been using this tactic since the early days of the internet. The idea is to provide useful information to the people on your email list without deluging them all at once.

For example, it wouldn’t be a good idea to email them 30 articles you’ve written all on the same day. But you could send them one article a week, every week for the next six months. Now you’re providing value over time without being annoying.

You can slowly drip out all kinds of goodness, provide tons of value, and stay relevant in your audience’s eyes.

What kinds of drip email campaigns can you create?

You can get as creative as you like when coming up with ideas for your drip email campaigns. Just be thinking of how you can provide something that your ideal client or customer would find super helpful or valuable.

Here are a few ideas to consider:

Welcome series

This is the most basic type of email drip campaign. You create a series of emails that help to welcome your new subscriber. For example, you could set up a welcome series that people would get after they’ve downloaded your lead magnet. Your lead magnet might help them solve a particular problem, and your welcome series could help them further by providing more even information around that particular topic.

Follow-up series

Similar to a welcome series, a follow-up drip email campaign will serve to keep in touch after a subscription, transaction, or inquiry. Say you’re a consultant or coach and someone fills out a form on your website. You could follow-up with a series of emails providing information on how to schedule a session, how to prepare for their coaching call, and what it looks like to work with you.

Onboarding series

An onboarding series can be sent out after someone joins a group, a membership site, or signs up for a service plan. I recently upgraded my iPhone 6 to the new iPhone XS, and I also changed my Verizon plan at the same time. In the following days, I received a number of emails from Verizon. One email showed me how to login to my account and how to get support, another was showcasing accessories I could purchase, and another email even offered me 6 months of Apple music for free.

Educational series

You could create a series of emails around a particular topic to educate your audience. This is a fantastic way to showcase your expertise. For example, if you’re a physical therapist, you could send a series of emails around the topic of injury prevention. Give pointers on how to prevent injuries at home, at the gym, and at work.

Training series

This is a little more focused than a general education series. You can provide training on a very specific topic over the course of a few days or weeks. You could teach people how to get started knitting, or how to choose a great bottle of wine, or how to make the perfect pour-over coffee. Again, this is an amazing opportunity for you to share your expertise.

Course

You could create an entire course and send it out via email. I did this earlier this year with my 21 Days to Build a Better Brand course.

One of the most effective marketing channels in use today is email. Even with all the emphasis on social media, email is still the number one converting platform for marketing your business. That’s why capturing email addresses is perhaps your most important marketing task. The best way to capture email addresses? Create an irresistible lead magnet.

Email marketing by the numbers

* We send more than 74 trillion emails every year

* People send and receive 281 billion emails every day

* More than 3.8 billion people use email

* In the US alone, 85% of adults send or read email

* 78% of US teens consider email part of their everyday life

* 99% of us check email every day, some up to 20 times a day

* The average successful delivery rate of email is 98.3%

* Every dollar spent on email marketing brings in $38 in return

These numbers are astonishing. Here are my key takeaways:

* Email is not going anywhere. Most people still use it every day. In fact, consumers prefer email for communicating with the brands they’re connected with.

* Email is a very effective way to communicate directly with your audience. You send an email, they receive it, and then they have to do something with it. Either ignore it, read it, move it, delete it, or unsubscribe. This is in contrast to all those social media posts that are never even seen by most people.

* You need to build your email list. This is a non-negotiable. From the day you start your business, you should be capturing email addresses. The best way to do this is by offering an irresistible lead magnet.

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is basically something you offer your audience in return for their email address. Some people call it a freebie, an incentive, a giveaway, a free download, or an opt-in.

I like the term lead magnet because it describes both sides of the process.

The ‘lead’ is the person who is giving you their email address. They are opting in to receive more information from you. They want to hear from you.

The ‘magnet’ is the attractive item that you are offering in exchange. It’s important that this item is something irresistible, something worth the ‘payment’ of their email address.

Once you have their email address, you can start communicating with them in a more meaningful and more effective way. They’ll get to know, like, and trust you much faster via email than say, by following you on Instagram.

What makes an irresistible lead magnet?

Your lead magnet should be something your audience finds absolutely irresistible. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you want to create an irresistible lead magnet:

* Make sure it’s valuable. Think about the kinds of things you’d be willing to trade your email address for. Does your lead magnet provide some real value for your customer?

* Be very specific. Don’t try to give away everything you know in one document. Stick with one specific topic per lead magnet. You can always create more.

* Make it easy to understand. To be irresistible, it has to be easy to understand what your people are getting when they download this thing. Keep it simple and you’ll attract more people.

* Be sure it solves a problem. The big idea behind an irresistible lead magnet is that it solves a real problem for your ideal client or customer.

* Make it instantly available. This should be obvious but your lead magnet should be delivered as soon as they’ve submitted or confirmed their email address. Don’t make them wait.

* Showcase your expertise. The most important thing here is to create a lead magnet that shows off your amazing expertise.