Running an efficient online business takes both a good tech stack and the strategy to use your tools well. Listen in as I dive through the changes I’ve made in my software and tools over the last year–and how I’m saving money with better automation along the way.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Why different software, tools, and platforms are better for different kinds of people

* The importance of your tech stack playing well together

* Why starting an online business appears easy on the budget–until it doesn’t

* The transition from one-time business costs to subscription business costs

* I go over one case study of a set of tools I used to run my funnels last year

* Why choosing one piece of tech matters so much to me (and anyone else committing to anti-racism)

* How your platform should allow you to interact with your audience in an authentic way

* What platform-agnostic means

* Choosing the right tech stack for your authentic, automated marketing

QUOTABLES:

“Just like your offers need to play well with others, your tech stack needs to play well with others.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Tools allow us to run our business. They save us time, our most precious asset.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“You’re going to pay in either time or money, and usually both. Your choice of tech will balance these–and lower them–as best possible.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“The online marketing world can feel akin to a used car salesman sometimes.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Saving $70/mo on a system but failing to gain new traffic isn’t doing you any favors!” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* FG Funnels

* MemberVault

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Business growth advisor Bill Flynn talks about how “regular” business owners can use the concept of the big, hairy, audacious goal to build their brands.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* We start off with Bill talking about why the Big, Hairy Audacious Goal is more of a consequence than a goal

* A goal has a tangible plan and path, and BHAGs often don’t

* Why you’ll regret decisions if you’re just growing for growth’s sake

* The two beacons that can ground you as your business grows

* Bill shares some “small giants” stories of companies that make the deliberate decision to stay small

* The 5 things your BHAG entails: purpose and passion, your core customer, your profit per X factor, and your core competencies

* Bill’s take on defining a great leader

* The effect of writing your vision down on your business’s success

* Why you should share your vision with as many people as possible

* Getting to the root of what your clients and employees really want–and why not enough leaders focus on this

* Why asking your customer what they want won’t always give you real answers

* Bill closes with the four kinds of BHAGs

QUOTABLES:

“One of the reasons many people don’t set a BHAG is because it’s scary. It’s audacious. You don’t know how you’re going to get there when you set it.” – @whfjrClick To Tweet

“If you do things that get growth but you don’t enjoy, over time when things get tough you’re more likely to quit or slack off.” – @whfjrClick To Tweet

“When you write your vision as if you’ve already made it, it’ll give you a lot of fodder for what your big, hairy, audacious goal will be.” – @whfjrClick To Tweet

“Everything else becomes harder when you don’t have some sort of vision written down because it’s much easier to work backward than it is forward. Most businesses are working forwards in increments, and that’s why most businesses…Click To Tweet

“When you share your vision, you’d be amazed at how relationships change with greater bonds and greater trust.

It wasn’t all dumpster fire–there are a lot of good things that came out of 2020, too, and here are a few we can all learn from as we move into 2021 and meet the new minimum to build up your know, like, and trust factor.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Taking a moment of reflection to talk about the things that we gained this year, not just the things we lost

* I talk about my favorite menu from a local restaurant, how it led to a great discussion, and how it inspires my naming and copywriting moving forward

* What my whiskey habits have to do with building your know, like, and trust factor

* Adding stats to your communication as a way to build trust

* Drawing a line as your new baseline for product/service quality

* Remembering we inspire others all the time

QUOTABLES:

“Finding a way to enchant your clients with how you describe things makes you memorable and that’s ALWAYS important.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“We’re not talking about putting out a good product, that’s the baseline. The minimum.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“How are you setting yourself apart so well that your clients (and sometimes not even clients yet!) turn into evangelists?” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“You’d be surprised who’s looking at you for inspiration.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* The Westgate menu

* Adding Delight Into Your Business #117

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TO BUILD YOUR BRAND:

Branding professional Nadda Adamjee shares her love of brand storytelling, overcoming her own content struggles, and using cultural experience as a storytelling connection.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* How Nadda came upon a strategy that works for telling your brand story and it quickly became her best content

* Why following someone else’s formula–even if they’re successful–might not be the right path for you

* Nadda’s own “post for the sake of posting” content struggles led to something great

* The difference between macro stories and micro-stories

* Why the most “normalized” things of your life are often the easiest ways to connect on social media

* How Nadda uses shared cultural experiences to add depth to her brand story

* Nadda uses the early-morning wakeup story as an example of relating a farm life to a power-CEO

* Why Nadda offers a brand identity challenge

* Nadda’s test for cultural appropriation

QUOTABLES:

“The hero’s journey is a great tool, but it doesn’t work for everyone.” – @NaddaSalimClick To Tweet

“These [business] formulas are there to help you, but they’re not the only thing. You can think outside of them.” – @NaddaSalimClick To Tweet

“How you bring your stories back to what you do, that’s the creative part of it.” – @NaddaSalimClick To Tweet

“We think our life is mundane, but really mundane things can be connectors if you use the right words to explain it or the right image to talk for you.” – @NaddaSalimClick To Tweet

“When it’s your experience and your story, no one can take that away from you.” – @NaddaSalimClick To Tweet

MORE ON NADDA:

Website | Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* Nadda’s Facebook group, Branding For Creative Entrepreneurs

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How to look at all the separate pieces of your business from a holistic point of view and create an authentic, automated marketing plan.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* The concept of holism applied to an online business

* Thinking about your business from a 30,000 foot view

* What happens when a piece of your marketing “dead ends” a potential client

* Two easy ways to connect your freebies or lead magnets to other areas of your business

* Why sometimes you join a program even if you already know the content within

* How shiny object syndrome can make your marketing less effective

* The warning that should come with any business

QUOTABLES:

“Authentic, automated marketing is within your reach.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“A marketing strategist is able to look at your whole business and see how each part works together, alongside, and against the other pieces.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“We don’t want different pieces of your marketing to stop. We want them to flow into other pieces.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Moving from offer to offer, tactic to tactic… it’s just another form of shiny object syndrome.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“If your audience of potential clients aren’t buying into your offer, it’s because you haven’t made the connection for them.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* How to Create a Freebie That Doesn’t Suck

* Biz GPS

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Raul Hernandez Ochoa of Do Good Work dives into growing your brand culture with your business as you scale. We cover the pitfalls on both the team level and the product level as well as how to incorporate your core values into the daily minutiae of

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Raul talks about scaling with a holistic approach and taking into account more than just profit

* Why culture and brand go hand in hand together

* Thinking of a brand and branding as a living thing

* What to pay attention to as you expand your team

* How you treat employees and freelancers is both the same and different than how you treat vendors

* The most-common hiccups as you grow a business from a product or offer experience

* How to hire people that align with your brand and work for the common good

* Separating your quality of output as a leader from your team’s output quality as you’re training them

* We each talk about personal stories about enjoying an incredible brand culture

* How to incorporate core values into daily minutiae

* The value of a 1-page standard operating procedure

QUOTABLES:

“You can’t just focus on one area of the company and expect for everything else to be okay.” – Raul Hernandez OchoaClick To Tweet

“Branding work is never really done. It’s always going to be sustained and evolve as you tie the brand to specific actions.” – Raul Hernandez OchoaClick To Tweet

[Tweet ““There’s only a select number of feelings that humans experience. Whatever you’re delivering has to be aligned with the brand feeling.” – Raul Hernandez Ochoa]

[Tweet ““You might do some heavy lifting when you bring people on, but it’s just a season. Once you have that heavy lifting is done you can enjoy the benefits after.” – Raul Hernandez Ochoa]

[Tweet ““The leadership team is everything–maintaining it so that your strategies and your values are simple to remember and easy to communicate.” – Raul Hernandez Ochoa]

MORE ON RAUL:

Website | Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* Raul’s book, Productive Profits

* MemberVault

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As we enter the close of 2020, it’s time to take a look at companies that are doing an excellent job of delighting their clients–and how the online business industry can take lessons from without entering a “keeping up with the Joneses” war.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Why delight should be your focus when it comes to building relationships as an online business

* Swag and welcome gifts are not the only way to add delight–and how they can hurt you if not used strategically

* How the Red Cross went from being the most annoying thing in my life to a little lift in my step throughout the blood donation process

* Acknowledging where your clients are in their learning journey with you encourages them and helps them feel part of the process

* The benefits of treating your clients like people over numbers

* Taking a commodity–tea–and turning it into a buying experience

* Using a sale to increase VIP status

* The seasonal joys of Hallmark movies, and how they apply to your branding strategy as an online business

QUOTABLES:

“Content is one of the easiest ways to help your audience feel like they are your people.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“I would do a good service regardless, but it’s so much more fun for me when I know how I’m actually contributing.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“If you spend a little time learning what your tools can do for you, you can add perceived value in the client experience, thus adding testimonial opportunities.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“How can you acknowledge your clients, shout them out in a way that makes them feel special?” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“How can you add a little FOMO into your business, like “Hey, I want to be a part of this great thing?”” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* MemberVault – a learning management system for online businesses

Tamika Auwai, owner of Orisha Creative, talks about the coach’s big content problem and how to prioritize nurture content by tying it to filling your programs in advance.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* How Tamika moved on from a lackluster business to the content agency she now runs

* The big gap of content creation that Tamika noticed in a 7-figure coach’s business

* Why Tamika first created her content structure

* Even though Tamika knew the value of nurture content, she had to find a way to tie it to gaining clients before her clients could prioritize it

* Tamika’s take on editorial content versus nurture content

* Why giving people a few tips is actually a disservice to them, and what that means to their ability to hire you

* The difference between viral content and paradigm-shifting content

* Why “brain explosion” content is the cornerstone of The Nurture Matrix, but it also includes content to bring in space and levity

* The biggest surprise Tamika saw after starting her agency

* How the evergreen content has led to a compound effect for Tamika’s clients

QUOTABLES:

“I got a bird’s eye view on some the gaps in [a coaching business] and no matter how hard we tried, we could never get ahead of the curve when it came to creating content.” – Tamika AuwaiClick To Tweet

“We need to know where our leads are coming from, we need to know how to turn them into clients, but what about the middle?” – Tamika AuwaiClick To Tweet

“When you narrow down the focus of your content creation, you provide more value to your audience than you ever could sharing tips every day of the week.” – Tamika AuwaiClick To Tweet

“The post that goes semi-viral is not going to be the one that books your calendar.” – Tamika AuwaiClick To Tweet

“We’ve got to get to the point where our nurture content is earning its keep.” – Tamika AuwaiClick To Tweet

MORE ON TAMIKA:

 

The money formula you need to know as an online service business owner, especially in a year where new entrepreneurs are flooding the online business world.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Why being in a different niche doesn’t necessarily mean you have different problems

* The need for more nurturing in today’s marketing climate

* Why the things you WANT to be known for aren’t necessarily going to bring in the right clients

* Systematizing and automating your marketing is a must for online businesses

* Why generic content ideas are not just lazy, but can actually hurt your business and your ability to create content that would move you forward

* The three steps to building visibility that actually gets you clients: getting their attention, building your KLT with them, and offering the right thing at the right time

* Why this visibility formula is platform agnostic

* Which visibility steps are dependant on your content

* What Content Lab is and who it is for

* The three “how” questions you need to ask if you truly want an online business

QUOTABLES:

“Visibility isn’t optional. It’s about you making money.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“A visibility plan—putting your content strategy into action—gets you clients.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Authentic, automated marketing IS within your reach.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Nobody CAN copy something that comes from your unique brain.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“When your best client isn’t seeing or hearing your content and immediately making the connection that you can help them, it’s because you didn’t make that connection for them.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“How are you going to use “smart content” to turn on the right clients…and subtly turn off the rest?” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

Stace, a writer by training and background, talks about how to build trust and why every brand from solopreneur to large corporation needs to operate with caring and emotion.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Stace gives an overview of the different components of trust, alignment of interest, credibility, a track record, and caring

* How to transition from being a caring person to building a caring business that embraces vulnerability

* Trust can increase the speed of decisions

* Why trust can be such a conversation killer and deep topic

* What decision friction does to your buyer process and how you can overcome it

* The benefits of encouraging your clients to take ownership of your brand

* What happens when people go from buyer to believer

* Why you should never say it takes too long to build trust

* Stace talks about the ease of building credibility and caring

* We talk about major brands building trust amongst their employees and customers

* How small and solopreneur businesses can look at branding lessons from large corporations and apply them at a smaller scale

* Why brands should operate as emotional creatures like people are

QUOTABLES:

“You can’t have trust between two parties unless there’s some equilibrium in power.” – @trustdeepagencyClick To Tweet

“It takes courage and curiosity to step out of what you’re doing right now and ask, ‘Are we doing the right thing?'” – @trustdeepagencyClick To Tweet

“One of the great benefits of building trust is that you allow people to take ownership of your brand; consumers feel like they’re part of the brand.” – @trustdeepagencyClick To Tweet

“Simon Sinek always talks about finding your why and I love that, but find someone else’s why and if it doesn’t correlate with yours, they’re not your customer.” – @trustdeepagencyClick To Tweet

“Caring should be a part of waking up and breathing.” – @trustdeepagencyClick To Tweet