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Why trust beats tactics with Jennifer Elia · Christian Business Growth Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the Christian Business Growth Podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm Reverend Lyle.
• 0:04
  I'm here with Jennifer Elia.
• 0:06
  So Jennifer, tell us, how did God get you into your business?
• 0:10
  You know, it's a really interesting thing.
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  I grew up having this dream of writing and researching, living in a big farmhouse with lots of kids.
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  And at the time, the internet didn't exist and people thought that was crazy.
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  but I had got had this dream in my heart.
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  And over the years, I found out that you could actually do that.
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  The internet was invented.
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  And so that led me to just even starting a business, but also
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  As I started as a copywriter um and working through all of my content creation, I started to realize that there was this disconnect between what businesses were being taught or
• 0:51
  told to do and what was actually working behind the scenes or what would actually produce money.
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  um And I felt like in integrity, I couldn't keep selling something that wasn't necessarily working.
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  So I did a lot of studying on marketing and talked to people who were actually doing it.
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  um
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  And I realized that what I was called to do wasn't the content creation, everything that I thought I wanted to be doing.
• 1:15
  It was really helping businesses first navigate marketing, because it's kind of overwhelming in the 21st century, but also not get caught into the traps of trends and
• 1:27
  cycles and influencers telling them what to do, that they can actually market their business, make profit at it, and not spend all their day on social media or all of their
• 1:38
  energy and money on ads that they can have a plan that works for them and they don't have to wait until they can afford a $50,000 mastermind to do it.
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  And so that's really been the mission that God's put on my heart um in how to do all of this and who I should be serving.
• 1:57
  That's cool.
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  One the reasons I started my business is digital success advantage.
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  I started it to help the little guy be able to market like the big guy without using the big guy numbers.
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  That was my passion and my goal.
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  So I'm glad you said that because when people think of marketing nowadays, they think of social media.
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  But in reality, it's more holistic than that.
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  It's not just one thing.
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  Exactly.
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  And so what were you doing before you got into marketing?
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  um Well, since I needed to find a career, I went to college and I went to college again and then went back to college and became a college professor for a number of years until I
• 2:33
  finally found my dream of working at home with some kids and now I live in a big farmhouse em and get to do what I love.
• 2:43
  That's cool.
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  So what's God currently doing in your business?
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  I think that what he's doing is what, you know, I prayed for for a while.
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  You know, when you pray for things and you're like, oh, I guess I won't work and you move on and all of a it's like, remember that thing you were asking about.
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  He was definitely pulling me more into the local markets and working with smaller businesses that need that help, but also focusing on primarily on Christian businesses
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  that that
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  need the help but also need to be able to trust somebody that they're going to do stuff in integrity because that is what's so lacking in our world right now is integrity.
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  And I keep saying trust is currency and I really think it is because people have such little trust in so many things and that's what's reflected in a lot of the numbers and
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  data as far as how people are shopping and making decisions.
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  uh
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  So I feel that I need to step into some of these roles um and God's putting me in those places to make it happen.
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  That I can be with these people whose trust has been broken by many of these experts that just want to take their money and run um and that I can rebuild the trust, but also build
• 4:07
  the businesses, build the legacies and help them grow.
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  like that.
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  So talk a little bit more about that integrity.
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  You're talking about businesses aren't dealing with integrity.
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  What are you seeing people doing or not doing that you feel is kind of getting people out of the idea of marketing the correct way?
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  I feel like it's, and it's been a trend for a while.
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  I think the influencer world is starting to crumble, but in general, when by time someone tells you like there's a course that there's an influencer having a challenge or whatever
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  about, this is what you do in marketing.
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  That trend already doesn't work anymore.
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  And for the most part, they're making their money teaching you how to do this one thing that's going to completely change your business.
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  But I've been on the back end of many of those businesses, the high power coaches, influencers, the people that you're like, wow, I wish I could be like him.
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  And I can tell you that what they're selling isn't what they're doing.
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  They have a whole system.
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  They aren't doing one thing.
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  They aren't sending one email.
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  They aren't just on one platform.
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  They have a whole system that is working together.
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  And that's what most businesses don't realize.
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  And we all want to just find the easy way, right?
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  And we all want to, we think that these overnight successes just happened overnight.
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  And so it's really educating the public on what it takes to build a business.
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  And that's where integrity gets broken because there's too many people who are really good at sales and don't really have the intention of marketing or don't even have the skills of
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  marketing.
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  Taking advantages of businesses that just want to make it work either they need this business for their family They've always wanted to start this business.
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  They feel like there's this mission that they've been given by God and They're easy prey because they don't know what they're doing and all of us when we started business are
• 5:59
  there we just think that there's people that automatically know how to do it and so the the loss of integrity is a is a problem because
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  It's something that's going to need to be rebuilt, but there are businesses that work in integrity and those are the ones that I collaborate with and love to get to know.
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  Like I know your business is one of integrity and I think that we need those that are working integrity need to stick it out um and probably be a little bit bolder and a little
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  bit louder to drown out the noise um because the businesses that we conserve need that and they're dependent on um
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  of showing up in integrity.
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  I love that you said that, know, the drone out the noise aspect.
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  I was looking at a program recently and it was all about selling webinars and how webinars can run your whole business.
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  They all be done this one system.
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  And then when I went to their webinar, it wasn't being run on their system.
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  And I'm like, that's a mix match right there.
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  That doesn't fit.
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  And you see people doing all these gurus come out and say, I want to do XYZ.
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  Well, then they move to the next XYZ and the next XYZ and the next XYZ.
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  it's like the Facebook ads that say, ooh, come to this, whatever, sign up for this and learn how to skyrocket your business without Facebook ads.
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  And it's like, you're running Facebook ads to find your people.
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  So why aren't you?
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  I've written to them a few times.
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  They always delete my comment, but I'm like, well, why aren't you working your system?
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  If it works so well, why are you doing Facebook ads?
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  But because I don't have a system.
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  So what would you tell a small business owner they're they're stuck and they're trying they've tried as they tried the social media they're just so busy being busy.
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  What would you tell them that what would you tell them to start the first thing they should do to come back to center?
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  I would say really know your customer, um, deeply, not in the demographics, like the ads demographics, they're 25 to 45, you know, they eat cornflakes for breakfast, but really
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  know like what's keeping them up at night.
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  Um, what are the questions they're afraid to ask and then reverse engineer that.
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  How can you connect with them in that way?
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  Like how can you educate them?
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  How can you share that information?
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  How can you start those conversations?
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  because the conversations and education is where it's at.
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  Like that's really what marketing is.
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  It's about meeting people, taking them by the hand, having a conversation.
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  And that's what leads to sales.
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  doesn't, it's not the dancing on TikTok.
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  It's not the fancy Instagrams.
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  It's not any of those trends.
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  They help maybe get you visible.
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  But when everybody's doing the same thing, people just see the same thing over and over again, right?
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  Attention marketing.
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  It gives you attention, but it doesn't necessarily give you qualified leads.
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  And so I would say focus on how can you have those conversations.
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  And if it means that you have five people commenting on your post or you start a group of a hundred people, that is so much better than trying to get 20,000 and half of them are
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  bots and the other half are never going to buy from you anyway.
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  So that would be my biggest suggestion.
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  And if you're spending more than an hour or two a day on marketing,
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  That's like as much as you should be doing.
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  em I know it's easy to get sucked into all of that, but when you're doing that, you're not leaving time to make money, to serve your clients, or to have the conversations that lead
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  to making money.
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  That's a good point.
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  Thank you for sharing that.
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  I love that you're talking about knowing your customers deeply and then having those conversations with them.
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  podcast we did last week, she was talking about how relationships are so important and how she's had customers for the last 40 years.
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  They've come back to her.
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  She's a real estate agent.
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  She's seen this customer all through the ages because she's kept that relationship built with them.
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  She didn't just serve them and leave them.
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  And I see so many people doing that.
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  One of my new customers that I got, they found me on Chat GPT.
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  And he said, I want somebody who's got a long term.
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  thinking on the way that we do a business.
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  He wanted somebody that's going to go through the consistently and be with them for the long haul, not just somebody who's going to build a website and run away.
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  He wants somebody who's like, what's that next step?
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  What's it look like?
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  How can I build this right?
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  I love that.
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  So we're in our business growth module now.
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  What are some business growth tips you would give a person in business on how they can help grow their business?
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  And we are currently in 2026.
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  Yes.
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  So the first thing is what you were saying about people being there for the long haul.
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  I think that we're kind of trained and we think that we always need more more leads, but we don't necessarily need more.
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  We need to nurture the ones that we have and we need to keep the relationships going with the people who have come into our ecosystem, whether it's that they're just a big fan or
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  they've actually bought with us.
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  That's really where more of the money is than constantly bringing in cold leads.
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  So that would be the first thing is that if you aren't nurturing your leads, if you aren't continually having conversations with the people that you served five or 10 years ago or
• 11:01
  nurturing the clients you have to turn them into either referral partners or repeat clients, then uh you're missing the boat and you're draining your resources very quickly
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  for leads that are going to be less likely to buy because they're cold.
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  uh
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  The second thing is definitely find a way to build trust with your audience.
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  As I said before, trust is so important right now.
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  And in this attention marketing algorithm that we're in on all the platforms, people feel that getting more attention is what will build your business.
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  And on some level, that's true.
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  But for a lot of it, it's attention that isn't going to build your business.
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  And so instead of seeking attention, seek attention from the right people.
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  and then build trust with them.
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  Because like I said before, it's better to have less people that are the right fit than more who aren't.
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  And I really think that in 2026, building strong networks, particularly locally, no matter what kind of business you have, we've kind of gotten away from the traditional like local
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  network, networking events, shaking hands with people, having coffee chats.
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  And we've thought that that can be replaced by social media webinars.
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  And while social media webinars aren't going anywhere, they have their place just like ads in marketing.
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  People are craving the connection.
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  They're craving knowing that someone can be trusted and that they're a real person and they are who they say they are.
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  And so I think that the businesses that are going to thrive this year are the ones that are going to tap into that, not the ones that are going to go.
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  chasing the trends more so this year than other years, I really believe in what I'm seeing and what I talk to a lot of people.
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  I interview people in all different businesses and levels of business just to get their ideas of what's going on.
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  And that's my prediction.
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  And I would say as far as ads, people are struggling with ads and
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  knowing what to do.
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  If you can't do get something to work manually or organically, then don't throw money at it because all the money as far as ads or any of these paid um subscriptions to different
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  apps that can skyrocket your business, all it does is skyrocket what's already happening.
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  And if what's happening, is it not working or are you not getting the right people?
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  then you're just going to get more of the same.
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  So you need to have a process that you can document, that you can analyze the data, that you can repeat, and then you pour money into the other stuff.
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  That's a good point.
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  You always tell people if they're going to run ads, you know, if you can't win on a $2 ad, then $100 ad is not going to do you any good.
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  You know, you got to build it up.
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  So let's go back to nurturing leads because a lot of people, they use that term nurturing leads, but practically, what does that look like for a small business owner?
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  Because it sounds like an hour a day would be almost, I'd be on the phone call, they call on those people.
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  What does that look like to you?
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  How do you see that working?
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  Well, what's important is that yes, you need to be following up with people regularly.
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  em But if you have systems to do that, then you don't want to automate everything that then you're completely hands off.
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  But the systems help to keep people from falling into holes.
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  So you're not spending eight hours a day on the phone.
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  Maybe you spend half an hour with the people that you most need to speak to at a certain stage of the process.
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  And everybody else is getting
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  a gentle reminder such as email or a text message or a follow up on social media if that's where you've been having conversations.
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  And what's important is having a system and knowing where you need to have those touch points that are personal or those touch points that are just reminders and having the
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  system not feel like they're dealing with AI.
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  em So nurturing can look in lots of different ways depending on what business you have.
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  But the biggest thing is that you need to have some sort of automation to follow up with the people that either say, I'm interested or bought two weeks ago, six months ago, two
• 15:03
  years ago to get them to come back.
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  This way you can love, you've already spent time, money and energy getting those people to buy.
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  You need to leverage that and have them come back again.
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  And I think we overcomplicate nurturing.
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  It isn't.
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  It isn't a Broadway show.
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  If you think of the people that you've built relationships with, it really is that that conversation and just, you know, sending them a text message every once in a while.
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  I mean, think of what you would want somebody to do when you were building a relationship, either personal, like a friendship or a dating relationship or anything like that.
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  What would you want someone to do?
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  You would want every once in while for them to send you a text message or if they see something online that
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  you might be interested in that they share the link or call, set up a time to actually talk, uh find a way to make yourself available without burning yourself out, right?
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  Because we have to have boundaries.
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  And I think that's important in business.
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  We're still dealing with people and we need to treat them like people.
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  Yeah, and a lot of people are getting really complicated.
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  There's a book, think it's, I think his last name is Gerard, and he had a little index cards, and he put all of his leads on these index cards, and he would just rotate them.
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  He would contact that person and put it in the back and contact the next person.
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  And so whenever he had time, he would contact them.
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  That was a super simple system, but he became the greatest salesperson at that time.
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  He was doing, I think, cars or something, but he kept up with the people.
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  And he remembered people.
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  He remembered birthdays.
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  He remembered some guy had his kid went to a soccer game, and was like, hey, how'd your kid's soccer game go?
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  It's just those personal touches.
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  That's what AI can't do.
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  And I know a of people will use AI and AI helps you get started, but AI, you've got to humanize it.
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  You've got to make it your own and everything.
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  Do you use a lot of AI in your business?
• 16:50
  I do use it for certain things.
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  em I think AI has a place.
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  It's a great research tool as far as getting to know your customers, doing a virtual focus group.
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  Because let's be honest, people are less em open to discuss what they're thinking and their problems than maybe they were another time because they realize that
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  A lot of these businesses have taken advantage of their data.
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  So when you look at AI, it is analyzing everything that people are putting into Google, everything that people are searching or doing online.
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  And so it can bring together a profile for your ideal customer that would take you months or take you a lot of investment to actually get people in a room and then hope that
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  they're actually going to be open and honest with you.
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  because we are more willing to type something into Google than we are to say it out loud most of the time.
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  So that's a key thing is doing market research in there.
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  em I also think that AI can help you in refining your processes, but you need to know what that process is.
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  You need to know where it's heading.
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  em It can help you with repurposing content or refining content or creating
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  new content based on something you already did, but you need to know how to make content that people want to read.
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  And I think too many people are falling back on, can just have AI do it.
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  But if you don't have it work through all that, you know, like you haven't fallen off the bike and scraped your knee and stuff and figured out how to balance.
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  AI is just going to keep you going with something generic and it isn't going to lead you somewhere.
• 18:31
  One of the biggest things people need to realize is always going to tell you it's a great idea.
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  Unless you tell AI, be ruthless, pick this apart, tell me the absolute worst version of this, then it's always going to say, that's a great idea.
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  And people think AI telling them it's a great idea means it's actually a great idea.
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  And sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
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  If you don't have any data, if you haven't actually done it, then there's no way you can evaluate if it is a great idea.
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  I think we need both.
• 19:04
  You you still need to get your hands dirty.
• 19:07
  I love that you said that the script, your knee concept, because I think people are using AI as a replacement.
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  But if you and your competition are both using AI, you're competing apples to apples.
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  You've got to that personality.
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  You've got to add that unique voice that only your business has that only you have and setting down with somebody and have a conversation, shaking their hand, like you said,
• 19:26
  talking to them one-on-one that that's so much more powerful than an AI message that was sent three times last week.
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  know?
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  Yes, I agree.
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  AI is a tool.
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  I love that.
• 19:37
  concept.
• 19:37
  So how can people get in touch with you and then as you share that, share real quickly one little bit of wisdom you want to leave us with today.
• 19:47
  One little bit of wisdom.
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  I would say that in the world of AI, you need to know how it works and you need to be willing to accept it as a tool because everyone is using it.
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  However, AI will never replace the human connection no matter how refined they make it.
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  And at the end of the day,
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  That's what humans want.
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  You we were created in relationship or created for relationship and we need relationship.
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  So we can't let that go away.
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  Relationship marketing is always going to be a thing.
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  No matter how advanced AI gets.
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  That would be my, my tidbit for 2026.
• 20:29
  as far as getting in touch with me, I, can find me at leadfunnelscale.com and I'm on Facebook.
• 20:38
  Jennifer Analeah, and then I'm also on LinkedIn.
• 20:41
  you put in, linkedin.com slash Jenniferaleah, I believe.
• 20:47
  uh But I can give you the links to put in there.
• 20:49
  But if you look up my name, you can generally find me most places.
• 20:53
  And I love to have coffee chats with people and get to know about more businesses.
• 20:58
  So you're welcome.
• 21:02
  Thank you.