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166: Embracing 'Lazy Marketing' for Business Growth with Guest Donna Dube · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for tuning back into another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, kendra Corman, and today I'm joined by Donna.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: She's a Certified Director of Operations, business Growth Strategist and host of the CEO Amplify podcast.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: She works with established online service-based business owners who are ready to make a bigger impact and maximize their profit.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Welcome, donna, thanks so much for joining me.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks, kendra, so happy to be here.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: So the first thing that we talked about before we started recording was the fact that you fought marketing and being a marketer for quite a while.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about that.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes for sure.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: So when I started my online business, I certainly had the belief that if I built it, they would come Right.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Then I quickly realized this is not working.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I've got something good here, but I'm not getting the visibility Right.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And so I started going to masterminds and talking to different people who are owning their business and talking about marketing, marketing, marketing.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: And I'm like but I'm an operator, I'm not a marketer, right, how do I do this?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: And so I did struggle for quite a bit in terms of how can I bring this into my business, how can I do it so that's aligned with me?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Because, as you and your listeners know, there are thousands of marketing ideas and ways we can market Right.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: But what strategies are going to work for my business?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: First of all, and align with me, something that I can continue doing week after week after week.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: And so I call myself now a lazy marketer, because I've sort of found a system that aligns with me.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I can do one strategy and then when that's, you know, running smoothly, I've got my systems and my processes going, then I can look on adding another strategy on top.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it was a fun journey, but certainly a struggle at times.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Can use to be a struggle for all of myself included, right?
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, we find we start working in our business so much and so long we run out of time to work on our business, right?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And so I think that that's the real struggle.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about some of these rinse and repeat strategies.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I love that you were bringing up and I think is, like, important to note is that you would put something in place once it was up and running.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Then you would move to the next thing, and I think that's so important that I just want to reemphasize that for all of our listeners.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You don't have to do everything all at once, and I think that's important to note.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, but tell us a little bit more about these strategies and your rinse and repeat and how you do that.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so in my operator brain, I look at marketing as three areas, and I call them all with C's so I can easily remember them.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: So it's captivate, which is attracting new people to our world.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Connecting, which is like engaging, getting their email or having a talk with them and then nurturing them through our email list, through podcast episodes, whatever that is, but getting to build and cultivate a relationship with them.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And so I think for many of us at least for me, when I first started, I was focusing just on the cultivating.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Well, that's great for the people you have, but you're not bringing in new people into your world.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And so what I did is I said, okay, systematically, I'm going to start with captivating, with bringing in new people into my audience.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: So how can I do that?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: What are the different strategies?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And so what I learned was okay, three main big buckets I can get in front of other people's audiences, like I'm doing now.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I can use SEO in what I put out there.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Right, it's a long game, but I can use it.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And then, third, if I have the capital, I can use paid marketing, whether that's ads or brochure or whatever that looks like for your business.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And so, out of those three buckets, I said, okay, I'm going to focus on one and I'm going to really focus on one strategy within those buckets for 90 days, and then I want to see the results right.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Again, I'm an operator, I'm very objective and I like to look at the data to tell me is this working or not?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Because, like everybody else, I've got unlimited time to spend, right, and so I have to be careful in what I'm doing in terms of the strategies within my business.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: So then I'm getting the highest return on investment from what I'm doing.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So I started with okay, let me be a guest on other people's podcasts, learn how to pitch, learn how to put myself out there.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: What topics would I bring?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: All this kind of thing and then do that concentrated for 90 days.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So every week I was pitching to more podcasts.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Every week I was trying to get on a couple of podcasts for that 90 days.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So, yes, it was intense in those 90 days, but then I gave it three months after that.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Let's see what the return was.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Was I bringing in people to my email list from my podcast guesting?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: If I could see that return on investment, then I'm like I know this is working for me and I know it's something I enjoy, I know it's something I can continue doing.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: So then that's my first strategy in that area.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Then I would move to the second connect.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: So how am I going to continue this relationship once people hear about me?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: So then I have a lead magnet or a freebie right, something that would draw their attention.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: They'd be willing to exchange their email address for my thing of value, right?
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Was that working?
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Again, it took a little bit of tweaking and adjusting, because sometimes I put something out there and it wasn't really resonating with my audience may have to tweak it or adjust it.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: But again, once I see, okay, I've got that it's converting, when I put a social post about it, people are actually taking action and downloading the freebie and giving me their email address in return.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: So then I have a strategy for that level.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And then I moved to the third nurturing, or how am I going to cultivate this relationship with them once I have them on my email list?
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And so for me, originally I was doing blog posts, so I was mentioning about the blog post every week in my emails.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I've now switched to podcasting, but same thing I'm letting my audience know there's a new podcast episode.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: This is what it's about.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Check it out.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I love that and I love the focus.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And then I like the measurement.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: But I like how you gave it an extra three months to really take a look to see, because you don't see results the same day you do something.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: So, just for you all listening, it's January happy new year but we're recording this in November, right, because I record in advance things like that.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't see results for this in your first 90 days because it might not fall in those 90 days, right?
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So you do have to give it time.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And the other thing that I really like is the fact that you're objective.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: You're taking emotion out of it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Now, there's some things that you might like to do.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: That's fine.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: You can do those because you like them, right.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So that's part of being able to do what you like to do.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's part of why we started our businesses, right, 100%.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: You need to take the emotion out of it.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Just because you hear someone else is having success with something doesn't mean that's what your audience is going to resonate with, and I think that that's really important to take a look and see where your business is coming from.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: We're at the beginning of the year, so this is a great time to objectively look at where did your business come from last year and if you have a new business that you just started, congratulations.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: But go ahead and you have to do something for 90 days and focus on that because you're right, it is intense when you make a concentrated effort to be a guest on someone's podcast or to engage a lot on social media or whatever it happens to be.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: It's pretty intense because you have to be always thinking about that and identifying time to do that.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Now, one of the things that you talk about are habits and routines, right, and so, from the operating perspective which I love, because that is not who I am I'm definitely a marketer.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about habits, routines and how that can help people become more successful, because marketing should be part of their habits and routines.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: So a couple of things.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: One is and I think you touched on this we have to build time into our weekly schedule for these activities, and it's not just once on a Tuesday when we feel creative that we want to make a bunch of posts or put out a bunch of things.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: It has to be a weekly routine that every week we're hitting what we need to do.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: So what I like to do is look at the whole task as a big picture and lay out each of the steps that would be needed to bring that to fruition.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: So, for example, a podcast episode right, I'm meeting with Kendra.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Obviously we're recording now, right, but there's other things that have to go on before this episode gets in front of your listeners ears.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Right, someone edits it, and then you may have some post-production that you're doing.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: You have social media posts, you may have an email, and so all of that needs to be put together behind the scenes before it's ready to be released.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: But what I question is as the visionary, as the leader of the business, do you need to be doing all of those things?
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: And the answer is no.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, you need to be there as the voice of the podcast, because you are the expert, it is your podcast.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: You can't substitute a team member to come in and do this recording with me, but you more than can delegate this afterwards, all of the other pieces to team members.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And so really looking at, okay, this is a big task that I wanna do week after week, but what pieces do I need to do as CEO, as leader, and what pieces can I delegate to someone on my team and then having a system in process for that, so that both you know and your team members know exactly what's coming each week, right?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: So, if it's one podcast episode every week, or if it's batching, three or four, whatever that looks like, but they're clear on what they need to do each and every week to get the podcast ready, and you are also clear what you need to do and you have time in your schedule to do that, because if you commit to doing a strategy, you have to have time during the week to make it happen.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: You don't wanna be getting to Friday and saying, oh, but I didn't report a podcast episode for next week, right, consistency is key.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And then I have a t-shirt.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Oh no, the sun needs to go out tomorrow.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: That's why I batch now.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I record.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I have one, maybe two recording days a month that I'll do, depending on schedules and things like that.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, batching is extremely important to me because I know I never wanna be in the what am I gonna do tomorrow?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to go out and start recording at 7 pm.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: That's not fun, so.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: But yes, consistency is key because people expect to get two podcast episodes for me a week One, which is an imperfect marketing brief that's just a super quick, less than five minutes tip our marketing insight and trend.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, these episodes that are longer and meant to be more conversational and hopefully learning from a lot of other people and not just my voice on a regular basis, which I think is good.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about this delegation piece.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So, some small businesses they just don't have the revenue to outsource a lot of things.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: But I think it's about looking to see where your time could be spent and what revenue generating things you could be doing, right, While outsourcing the things that you might not be a part of, Even if it's only a couple hours a week, right.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I agree with you that we don't have to go into it with the mindset that I need a full-time employee.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: No, you can hire someone for two or three five hours a week, right.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: But if you think about it, if you get five hours a week off your plate, if you're intentional about those five hours, that's now five hours you can spend doing what I call CEO level work, right.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: So I like to think of all the tasks that happen in my business can be put into two big containers One is maintenance and the other one is growth.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: So things in the maintenance container are like your admin work, your customer service invoicing, your bookkeeping, changing something on a landing page, setting up emails in your email service provider right, Making Canva graphics all those things that need to be done day in and day out, but not by you.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: And then the growth level task is where you, as CEO, wanna be spending most of your time, right.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: So these are things like partnerships, JV connections, doing webinars or training for your audience if that's part of your deal, sales calls, if that's part of what you do in your business.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: So, really, that higher level task that you couldn't just delegate to another team member, right, Doing your podcast interviews, guesting and speaking in other people's audiences, and so you wanna make sure that you have dedicated time each week in your calendar for those growth level tasks, and so I like to follow a little simple mechanism called the CEO score, and so, inside my group program, I show you how to do that.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: So, basically, each week, you're monitoring what you're doing, not minute by minute, because that gets tedious, but big picture what did I do today?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: And giving yourself a score based on how much time you were able to spend in the growth level tasks.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: And the way it works is, the higher the revenue goal you have for the year, the more time you need to be spending in growth level tasks.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Right, and this makes sense if we take a step back, if we think about really big businesses Microsoft or Nike, I mean the CEO is not in the day-to-day tasks, right, they're far removed from that.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Of course, they have a big team to support them, right?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So I understand that part's a little bit different, but you wanna work towards that.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: You wanna keep your eye on that in terms of make sure this week I've got time to do those higher level tasks, because that's what really moves the needle forward in your business.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It's so important and I think that we don't give it enough emphasis.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: So just to give you an idea, so for me I use my full focus planner.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I'm in love with it.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: They are 12 week, 90 day increments, so it allows me to focus on those quarterly goals.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But the thing that it does is it has me take a look at each week and how I'm going to move my goals forward and then each day, right.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So what are three things I can do today to move my goals forward?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm always making sure that at least two out of my 30 initiatives for every week are for my business and then are going to move me closer to achieving my goals for my business, not just getting client worked on.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I think that that's so important.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And then I think you know again, treat time that you can block on your calendar for working on your business as if it's a meeting with another client, because you are just as important as anybody else on your calendar, right?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And you know again, times are uncertain, so things are going to add been flow, referrals are going to come and go.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: You know things like that are going to happen and I think it's just so important.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: If you're not preparing for some of those eventualities by building your brand and spending time on your marketing efforts, you're not going to be quite as successful as you probably want to be.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, I totally agree, and I call this like the feast or famine cycle, right?
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: So we're in a spot where I need to get clients, and so we're busy doing the marketing activities.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Then we start to get a pipeline, clients start to come in, and then we focus more on delivering what we promised them, right.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: And so we're focused in that area and we might drop the ball on that lead generation, on bringing in more people, and so we finish up that client work.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Now it's like okay, now what?
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: But it's dried up.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Now I need more clients again, right.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: And so I've certainly found, if I can be consistent and do this week after week instead of having these up and down hills, it's much, much easier on my revenue but also my sanity, to be honest with you.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: So when I was starting out and I mean I think I had literally had one client right when I was starting out, it was one week I would be like, oh, I don't have any meeting.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I got to get meetings set up the next week.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I'd be in so many meetings with people talking to them about what I do and what they do and how I might be able to help them.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't have enough time to make it meetings for the next week.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: And then I'd have no meetings and then I would set them up.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So it was like it was literally every other week was packed with meetings.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: But, yes, it's about that consistency.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It's about not overbooking your calendar to a point that it's crazy and sane, right, but I think it.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I think that the insight there is key.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: It's about that consistency, but I think it's also about picking what you're going to be consistent with.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Again, don't try and sign up to do seven different social media platforms all at once.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Pick one and then grow from there.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I had a marketing strategist as a guest on the podcast not too long ago.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: She'll need is on LinkedIn.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: She's a marketer.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I would think marketers would be on more platforms because we sort of feel obligated that we have to be there.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: We don't have enough time, yes, and a small business owners and agency owners to do all of that and to engage and to be at the level we need to be.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: So picking one is not a bad thing.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I remember working with a client and her target audience were people who had recently graduated from university so young people in her mind and she had a social media assistant already and was thinking, oh, I need another one because this social media assistant is probably at capacity and I can't.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: I want to do more, okay.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: So I said, okay, before we look at hiring another social media assistant, let's look at what the data is showing.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: So when in Google Analytics, she was on a lot of channels, but the truth is, when we looked at the data, facebook and Instagram were the biggest in terms of bringing people into her audience and actually conversions was on Facebook.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: The Instagram was just oh hi, I'm here, kind of thing.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I'm known.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: But really her Facebook posts were the ones that people were actually converting TikTok, youtube.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: The rest of them Hardly a difference for her right, and it was such an eye-opening experience for her to know that, because then she's like, oh, I don't actually need to hire someone else right now, I just need to let go of these other things that I think I need to be doing and focus and double down on what's really working for my business.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I think again, it's about looking to see where your business is coming from.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: This is a great time of year to take a look back at 2023, see where your business came from and then identify where that opportunity is.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I think that that's huge, so let's go ahead and talk a little bit about some practical steps for creating a weekly road map.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: You talked about blocking time.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: You talked about making sure that you've got time to do these things on a consistent basis, but again, most of us have longer term business goals.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: We want a 10X our business, 5X our business.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Whatever that happens to be, how do we create a road map that's going to help us get there?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: So I like to focus on it from a strategic perspective.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: So it doesn't matter where you are in the year, set what you're going to look at for your 12 month goals.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Now it's perfect because we're just starting the new year, but if you're listening to this at a different time, it still applies.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: And so set what your 12 month goals are, but don't stop there.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: From there, break it down into 90 day goals and then from there down into monthly goals.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And the reason for doing that is because so many of us make big, lofty goals for our 12 month goals, which is good, right, it's good to dream big, it's good to see where I want to go.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: But then, if we do that in January, by March or April we've lost track of it.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Other shiny objects have come in, distracted us, our attention is somewhere else and most of us can't even remember what our goals were.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Or we started on the goal, but it was so big and so lofty that we just got overwhelmed and then we dropped it.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: So let's say, your goal is to write a book.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Well, this is a big goal.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: It's not going to happen in the next 90 days, right?
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: But if we take that goal and we break it down into smaller chunks.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: That's more manageable.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Then we can say, okay, for 90 days I'm going to work on making my outline, I'm going to work on researching different areas, different angles that I want to take on this book.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Whatever your goal is, but breaking it down into smaller, manageable pieces is much easier to work with, right.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: So we have our 90 day goals and then from there into monthly goals, and then what we do is, week after week, we have what I like to call a CEO power hour.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: So it's really a date with ourselves to review, reflect and to set what our top three priorities for the week ahead are going to be.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: And those top three priorities come from what our monthly goals are right.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: So I have a monthly goal to accomplish.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Maybe I want to get on 10 podcast episodes as a guest this month, and so I'm going to have to pitch, you know, maybe 20 or 30 of them, and then I'm going to have to have a booking system to make sure I have time in my calendar to have those there.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: So each week I know how many I need to do, I know how many I need to pitch, I know how many recordings I need to do, and so by having it measurable and having it in a smaller piece, we can then see where we are.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: At the end of that month we can evaluate how did I do?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, 10 podcasts a month, that was too many, I couldn't keep up.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I need to, you know, lower that to a more realistic Number for the capacity that I have, or that was great.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: I got a lot of attraction out of doing this.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna continue doing that right, so that evaluating at the end of the month helps us stay on track and Helps us, if we're falling a little bit behind, to tweak and change, or if we're doing great, to double up on what is working Right.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: So then we don't get it halfway through the year and we're like, oh, I'm nowhere near my goals Right, because we weren't even looking at them.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: You have to look at them every day.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I look at my goals every day.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I have a workday startup ritual that has things like checking social media and getting down to inbox is zero, which I didn't get down to today or yesterday, you know, getting through some of those things and then looking at my goals to make sure that they're top of mind, because otherwise they get lost and you have no idea what you're trying to achieve.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not good, because I remember when I was trying to grow the podcast, one of the things that I wasn't doing was telling people when their episode was going live.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I would forget that piece of communication, I wouldn't give them assets to share and things like that.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't give you things to do to promote my podcast.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: My listens aren't gonna be going up because I'm not promoting it right.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just promoting it to the same people that have been hearing and listening to it all along, which isn't bad, but it's not gonna grow it, and it wasn't gonna grow it to the level that I wanted it to, and and that's where the impact came from was really creating some of those processes around notifications and alerts and Making it easy, serving it on a silver platter so that it's easy for you to do.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes sure.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: It's important, and if I didn't remember that growing my podcast downloads every week was a goal of mine, well, then I wouldn't have remembered that I needed to tell someone that their podcast will go on live next week.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Right, we're on Thursday, or whatever it happened to be, and I think, again, that's hugely important to stay in front of it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And then I think, again, cutting down your goals, taking them from Annual to quarterly, to monthly, it makes it seem more reasonable.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, it's not like this big, huge number that you've got plenty of time to reach in March, and then it's also not this Enormous number that now you have no time because you've done nothing to achieve it.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Right, when it comes to October, right.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, and I mean, for those listening, kendra and I are here saying this because we've been there, right?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: It's not that we are perfect by any means.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: It's that we're learning from our mistakes and saying, okay, how can I make this an opportunity?
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I?
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Think, yeah, that's.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're all.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: We're both giving examples from all the things that we've done wrong.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: So, hundred percent things that we've learned.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Don't repeat our mistakes.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Be better than we are.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, all right, so don't up.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: This has been an amazing conversation.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping that all of you listening are getting energized to really take a look to see where your marketing efforts need to be Focused on and how you're gonna grow and focus again on working on your business not just in it throughout 2024 and beyond.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: But before I let you go, donna, there is a question that I ask all of my guests.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: As you and I both know, marketing is anything but a perfect science.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: What has been your biggest marketing lesson learned?
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, how much time do we have?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I know the list is long.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: All right, yes, I would say in general, really finding something that works for my business but also is aligned with me, right.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: So I'm not one to go on TikTok dancing, I'm not one to do a bunch of lives, it's just not my thing.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: But I'm happy and comfortable in the sense that Other people can do that, that's perfectly fine.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna do what aligns with me and what resonates with my audience right and generally those two, you know, coincide, they match right.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: So I think that's been my biggest.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: My biggest learning Hopsicle really, was that I don't have to do everything and I have to find something that aligns with me so that I can continue doing it.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I think that that's hugely important, because if you dread doing it every day, you're not gonna want to do it.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I had a VIP day with with a client early in 2023 and she's like okay, well, when we start working on our tactics, she goes I know I need to do more cold calls.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: She's like but I hate them, so I don't do them.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I'm like them, we're not gonna put them in the plan.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: There's other ways to do things.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: That isn't necessarily a cold call, right, and so we were able to create a plan that she had no issue with and she wasn't dreading doing her marketing every day.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: There are always ways around any tactic that you think you want or don't want to do, so keep that in mind.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Again, there are a million and a half channels out there.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: It feels like there is a way for you to grow your business Without doing things that you don't like to do and that you put off to the point where you're not getting it done.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I think that's really important.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, donna.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I appreciate all of you who are listening or watching on YouTube, tuning in, and I really appreciate it If you would do me a great favor and if you learned something today if you would rate and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: That would be a huge help to me.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you again so much for tuning in to another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I will see you next time.