Marketing Magic

Say goodbye to all the notions and experiences you’ve had with goal-setting in the past. Today, we’re starting fresh and I’m going to introduce a two-part goal-setting framework that will make your BIG goals seem easier to accomplish than ever.

You’ve already gotten clarity around what went well for you last year and what you need to tweak, and where you kind of want to go.

Now we’re going to take it the next step further and put boundaries and some life into your goal for the next year.

In the midst of our busy world where every channel seems to be saturated, and every marketing trick ruled a gimmick, how DOES one get in front of their best leads and actually grow a business?

Pull up a seat because today we're going to dive into some old-school marketing methods that still work today that you need to try.

Goals and I are best friends. The setting them part. The always crossing them off victoriously? Depends. I know what you were missing all those times you set goals for yourself personally, or professionally, and didn't hit them. It's a simple 5 step process that will transform how and what goals you set next.

Email Marketing is H-O-T. If you don’t have a list, you don’t have a business. So today's guest, email copywriter Sarah Anderson and I dive into the burning questions you have surrounding how to keep up with email marketing and make it work for you, even if you never email your list.

Are sales funnels truly dead? Can they be used in every business? How in the world do you build one that works without selling your soul or becoming a robot? Find all this and more on episode 028.

Everyone wants more leads for their business so they can close more deals, make more money and change their family's life. Here's two ways to use inbound marketing to get free leads for your business.

A favorite new term of mine to describe where most of my ideal clients live is: the messy middle, a place where they're straddling two platforms of growth afraid to leap to the unknown on one side and afraid to let go of what's comfortable on the other side and being literally stuck right where things are hard.

So many entrepreneurs (especially ones focused primarily on the online space) like to set lofty goals like hit six or seven figures instantly -- without any clear idea of how in the world to actually get there.

What I've found with my clients in this messy middle, is that there is a pattern of growth that most businesses go through, and no one tells you it's going to happen.

Year 1 is all about focusing on #allthethings all. the. time. There is a such a steep learning curve that it's hard to figure out what to even focus on for any length of time. It's like drinking water a fire hose and trying not to drown. If I could sum up the first year of your business it would be: you're consuming a ridiculous amount of information and exhausted

Characteristics of the first year: 
• everything feels exciting and new
• you have way more energy than you thought possible
• you work a ridiculous amount of hours and don't mind
• you know exactly what you want to focus on

Year 2 - 5(ish) is what I call the messy middle. You're no longer in complete learning mode. You've learned a bit about what's working, you're making money and traction, but scaling it beyond what you can handle 1:1 or completely on your own is getting to be difficult. The problem comes when we stay too long in the learning stage and get lost in our own businesses.

"It's the idea that you're forgetting why you started your business in the first place because you're listening and trying to do #allthethings you see working for everyone else."

Characteristics of the messy middle years: 
• you feel exhausted trying #allthethings
• you begin to resent your business and doubt what you're doing
• you wonder about pivoting your business and doing a complete 180
• your voice is not the predominant one in your head you listen to

If you are stuck in the messy middle and struggling to see true growth in your business, and you wonder if you're ever going to "arrive" here are some suggestions:

Tap into why you started your business in the first place and what goals you are setting.
(hint: they can't just be money goals or your business will spiral downhill and you'll hate it) 

Figuring out those things above lets you shut out all the loud voices around you that are driving you bonkers. It allows you to set boundaries for how YOU want to run YOUR business and find clarity to move forward at a fast pace.

The ticket out of the messy middle is to shift from consuming to being a focused action-taker.

To find out about my not-so-secret #girlboss Mastermind, book a chat with me here. It is for messy middle entrepreneurs who are ready to be action-takers and significantly change the revenue and profit in their business in 2019. I'm only taking 10 women (and I'm being pretty picky about who I let in -- so book a call before all spots are filled if you are curious about the details)

or go to malloryschlabach.com/connect 

The difference between successful businesses and those that well, fail, is not what you think it is.

It's NOT that someone else is smarter than you.
It's NOT because they've been around longer than you.
It's NOT because they have more money to invest than you do.

"Successful business owners have clarity in their business and that is what makes all the difference. " - Mallory Schlabach

How do you get to put your business in the success category?

Clarity is not a spark of genius you had one day. That's vision.

The difference between successful businesses and those that I would bet anything they aren't going to survive next year is that successful businesses know what to focus on and drive towards it with everything they have.

Beginning Entrepreneur Clarity

Clarity looks different depending on your stage of business though. For newish businesses looking to have SOME income coming in, what you need to focus on is: "What in the world am I actually doing?" 

So many entrepreneurs are driven by the end-goal and plan to the nth degree the future. It's not a bad thing to want to know where you are going. The problem is that if you get too hyper-focused, you become paralyzed by this plan and this single-minded vision of where we are going that we sometimes don't' care if it's working, we don't see it's not working or we haven't tested it enough to see if it can work.

Just try something. Put it out there before you figure it all out. Success loves speed and you'll never know what you're truly capable of until you try.

You also have to have conversations with real-life people to figure out what's going to work. What offer they're interested in, what pain points hits home the hardest, what descriptor they're using to talk about themselves... all strokes of genius for marketing your business.

Messy Middle Clarity

In the messy middle, clarity = how do I expand what I'm already doing?
If you're service-based, you're already doing a lot of 1:1, which is hard to scale once you max out the physical hours you can work in a week. Clarity becomes important when you're thinking about new models to adopt for your business, how do you expand without giving up any of the quality or personalization of your work?

Your market is going to tell you everything you need to know about being awesome in your business.

Why I'm harping on clarity

Here's what clarity does for your business: 
>>> When you can zone in on what exactly it is that you're doing, it allows you to put up blinders so that you only focus on the things that drive your business forward.

>>> Getting clarity about what's important to growth in your business, allows you to shift how you spend your time so that you're focusing on revenue-producing tasks. The majority of business owners spend 20% on income tasks and 80% on busy work -- things that seem important but aren't actually moving the needle forward at all.

>>> Have the freedom and bandwidth to focus on your zone of genius and get into your creative zone faster

>>> Charge more for your services and step into the expert role

>>> Cut back on what you're offering by seeing what to focus on what's actually making you money

Three Questions to Find Clarity

1. Am I making aw much revenue in my business as I would like to?  Yes or No?
- If no, look at pricing and your offer. Boost the revenue producing tasks in your business because you're not doing enough if you're not making enough.

2. Am I closing enough conversations to make sales? Yes or No?
- If no, you need to focus on sales conversations and your offers. Those things need to improve because it's not jiving with your audience. Listen to episode #024 with Renee Hribar on sales conversations to get started. 

3. Do I have enough traffic coming into my business that I can have conversations with? Yes or No?
- If no, you need to focus on where your people are hanging out, what are YOU doing to promote your stuff? How are you telling the world you exist?

4. If you answered no to all the questions above, let's have a conversation about how to close these gaps above ☝️☝️to map it out into a plan of action that you can just take and run with to make sure you're attracting the right people into your business, that you have the right offer, and pricing and copy to close the deal with clients you're dying to work with.

Schedule a quick conversation with me today. 

The two most important things you have to get right to have a successful business are marketing + sales. 

Today's podcast guest is one my favorite people, and a personal mentor of mine, Renee Hribar.

I like to say that sales and marketing are two step-sisters that get along really well. There's nothing to be afraid of and neither one is going to start throwing punches. But as women, we've been in too many situations where we've been "sold to" and it leaves us feeling icky and desperate not to make anyone feel that way in our own businesses.

Here are the highlights I took away from our conversation about how to take the pressure off of yourself for sales, and actually make revenue:

1. Be curious. Be yourself. Start a conversation.

2. Get really good at asking questions. The better questions you ask, the more you know about how to guide and help your potential client to accept an offer that's perfect for them and a no-brainer for you.

3. Set a timeframe for your call when you hop on. It sets boundaries for you and for your guest.

4. When you hop on a consulting call, fitting call, coffee chat, whatever you want to call it, you DO NOT NEED TO GIVE ADVICE.

"The pressure you put on yourself to give someone a quick win and show off your knowledge and skill is what crushing most women in their abilities to make sales. I would never call up my doctor and ask him, hey doc, can you give me a quick win buddy, so I know you're the doc. He's going to say no, you need to come into the office for an eval, I have a few more questions." - Renee Hribar

5. If you're trying to run an entirely passive business from the start, you'll be lucky to hit your revenue goals. #micdrop

6. If you have 100 new people on your list and only 5 buy, don't follow the online guru's advice and go spend $1,000 getting 100 more people. Work with the 95 who apparently liked you but weren't ready for that offer, and figure out what to do next.

7. Treat people like people. Be human. Send personal emails. Reach out on social. Engage with things that light you up. Your conversion rates will soar because most people try to automate the crap out of their business and lose the personal touch that makes you unique.

8. If you don't know how to have sales conversations and sell to real people, for the love of baby Jesus, do NOT RUN ads to your stuff. It's throwing your money into the toilet.

9. Take the pressure off yourself to always close a deal by believing you'll probably see this person again in the world or online, and to end the conversation, no matter what, in kindness.

10. Want to sell out your offers? Talk to people and listen deeply. They'll tell you everything you need to know about how to sell to them and what they need most.

Want to learn how to do sales even if you've never had a great sales call? Grab Renee's free training WHILE IT"S STILL FREE: Zero to Sales by Renee Hribar 

Connect with Renee

Website
Zero to Sales

Renee Hribar has been a sales professional since 1994 in New York. She has sold millions of dollars in products and services and trained thousands to sell for the first time. She is known in her industry as a fun, energetic executive sales coach who leads with heart. A TedX speaker who offers training sessions at global conferences, boardrooms and most recently through virtual programs, she skillfully breaks down her decades of sales expertise with a flair that makes listening to her a joy and if you take action, extremely profitable. With her one-of-a-kind "laugh & learn" teaching style, you will certainly walk away with a new view on the "softer side of sales."

Watch her weekly LIVE show and in 10 minutes or LESS to gain sales GOLD that will increase your profit and your mood!!

The “S” Word LIVE (making sales simple & fun)

12:30 pm EDT Wednesday at www.facebook.com/renee.hribar

Emily Franks is my on-air guest this week and she runs Ivory Ink Designs, a custom invitation, and stationery design studio, focusing on wedding branding.

She works full-time and has been building up your custom design business on the side, but it's always been her goal to transition to this full time. On our call today, we talk about how to focus #alltheideas into practical to-do items since she has limited time to work on the business, and still wants to have a personal life.

She kills it on organic search traffic for wedding invitations in Cleveland, Ohio, where she's based and she can close 100% of leads that come into her design studio in her home. Right now only 25% of her clients are not local.

We talk about:

• how to tighten up her sales conversations in her design studio and how she walks clients through the consultation, and how to use those conversations to show up as the expert in her field and close the sale even if she's not talking to them in person.
• how to prioritize her client base so she's not chasing too small of fish, and what she can do to stop attracting the price bargainers
• how to treat her business like a business and take charge of her finances
• how to visually see the tasks you need to accomplish each week as the CEO (see screenshot below for how I time block on Google Calendar with colors)

"It's an evolution, not a revolution. It's always going to be changing and I'm going to be adapting." - Emily Franks

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Layne Booth at The Project Booth for product-based business metrics so you start turning a profit

Connect with Emily

Facebook: facebook.com/ivoryinkdesignco/
Insta : @ivoryinkdesignco
Website: ivoryink.com

Emily owns Ivory Ink, ivoryink.com, a custom wedding invitation & stationery design studio that personalizes a couple's wedding day as uniquely their own. She's spent nearly a decade doing the wedding design business as a side hustle while she held numerous positions for a major greeting card organization.

She is mom of 2 sweet girls, Brookylnn and Lillian, and wife to my crazy supportive husband.  They love doing art together, boating and lake life any free second they get.