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Whenever I find myself at a critical business juncture, I "get out of the building," not literally, especially during COVID, but in the spirit of stepping out of my element.

Get out of the building

I’ve done over 20 coaching calls in the past three weeks. While the topics of each call varied, one piece of advice came up more than any other.

The advice applied whether I was coaching someone just starting out or someone who already had a thriving business.

This advice is my go-to when it comes to getting clarity and confidence about business strategy, both for myself and my clients.

It’s a treasure trove of inspiration and validation.

It’s a simple piece of advice, and yet so many overlook it.

In the words of renowned entrepreneur and author, Steven Blank.

Get out of the building.

In other words, get out and have in-depth conversations with your intended market in which you ask them meaningful questions about their experience.

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The Hail Mary pass that changed my marketing game (and yours) forever

The Hail Mary pass that changed my marketing game (and yours) forever

My back was against the wall.

I’d paid $5000 to work with a world-class consultant, but I was totally unprepared for our phone call.

That’s when necessity (more like desperation) became the mother of innovation.

Little did I realize it, but I was about to stumble on a secret for creating consistent, compelling content that deeply resonates, engages in a way most content fails to do, and earns trust faster than I can devour a bag of Sour Patch Kids. All of that:

  • Without staring at the dreaded blinking cursor on the blank page
  • Without wrestling with the demon of perfectionism
  • Without desperately coming up with a half-baked, mostly boring idea because it’d been weeks since you published something
  • Without being boring and sounding like everyone else in the echo chamber
  • Without spending twice the time and energy you’d planned just to end up with something you still don’t feel great about

“What have you got for me?,” my sales coach asked as we connected over Zoom.

You see, I was supposed to have written several emails to review with her, but with everything going on (and let’s be honest, due to a healthy dose of perfectionism mixed with a bit of impostorism), I’d put it off until it was too late. Read more

rule of marketing

The #1 Rule of Marketing

 

Always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind.” — Robert Collier

 

Earlier this week I was at dinner with friends where a variety of conversations were taking place at the table. My attention was suddenly pulled to a conversation about yoga.

Now, the truth is that yoga as a topic would not normally grab my attention. I think yoga’s great, but it’s not really a top-of-mind interest for me. Normally, my mind would have filtered this conversation out and my focus would have remained on the interaction I was already a part of.

However, this yoga conversation was different. My friend was recounting a recent experience where she ran a workshop for veterans to help them process trauma stored in their bodies through restorative yoga. She explained how one participant had a big emotional release at the end of the workshop as her body let go of anxiety and tension that had long been stored in her muscles.

That got my attention.

I immediately switched my focus to her story. Ever since I read The Body Keeps the Score last year, processing trauma through movement has been at the top of my mind as something that could help me and others close to me to improve mental health. Read more

The Only 3 Ways to Grow Your Income and Impact

How can you know what to focus on in your business in order to produce the greatest new growth?

It can be hard to decide where to invest your limited resources with so many options available to you. As a result, we easily end up overwhelmed, spread too thin, or focused on the wrong areas.

The best way to make your growth strategy clearer, more focused, and more effective is to first realize that there are only three ways to grow your revenue and deliver greater value to your audience: attract more leads, convert more leads, or boost lifetime customer value.

There is a myriad of tactics and strategies you can adopt, but all of them fall into one of these three areas. It’s important to first know which of these three is most important at a given moment based on the stage your business is in and your current goals.

Let’s take a closer look at these three areas and when it’s best to prioritize each one.

1) Attract More Leads

Typically this means building your email list of prospective customers and loyal audience members.

We often think of branding and visibility for growing our business, but these are only effective if they start people on a customer journey with your brand (i.e. they become a targeted lead). This is the first place to focus on a new business that doesn’t yet have a steady flow of leads.

Attracting more leads consists of launching new content marketing channels, putting into place paid ad campaigns, organic SEO, and PR to name a few. Read more