151. 151. If you hate marketing, look at your offers

9:51PM Nov 1, 2022

Speakers:

Brooke Monaghan

Keywords:

offers

marketing

talking

aligned

people

felt

business

selling

creating

work

content

brooke

clients

effective

business owners

sustainable

webinar

ultimately

dichotomy

clear

You're listening to transcend your dichotomy, the podcast where we break the rules that say we have to leave ourselves behind in pursuit of success. I'm Brooke Monaghan and I created the show for purpose driven business owners. Together, we'll talk about how to go for your goals have an impact, all while honoring yourself, your desires and your values.

I find

that lots of business owners hate marketing. Marketing is so often the thing that first burns folks out, or that has them on in this unsustainable kind of pattern that feels like it's going to burn them out. There's so much work that goes into creating content, there's so much work that goes into figuring out what to say, or creating the right opt in, or showing up consistently on whatever platforms you want to be present on are figuring out which platform that should be, and how to write the sales pages and all of that. And when I first started, I was really having a hard time with us. And actually, this was the thing that burnt me out. So if you were around in the very beginning, actually, if you go back and you look at the very beginning of this podcast, you'll notice that there's like a five month or so period where I just wasn't putting out consistent episodes. And that's because in the first few months of my business, I burned out, and it was the marketing that did that. I want to tell you a bit about what happened with me there and why it was so unsustainable. And why it ended up being the thing that kind of stopped me in my tracks for a while, and that I really needed to recover from. And it's a mistake that I have never made again. And that I won't make again. Because honestly, it was just very obvious. After after I kind of steered like, got back on course, it was very obvious to me that I was doing this and that it was part of the reason why things weren't working. And part of the reason why I was so exhausted. So when I first started running my business, I started as a consultant, and I really wasn't clear on exactly what I wanted to be doing. I was kind of taking like I was taking VA work, I was taking project management consulting work. And I was talking a lot about process improvement and operations and wanting to help people with their operations and their systems and all of that. Now,

at the time,

I was really, really interested in talking about what it actually took to get my business started because I had wanted to work for myself for so long. And I always felt like the content that was out there to help business owners was very like, people were talking about their experience years down the line and kind of telling their story in this really like edited, neatly packaged kind of way and leaving out all of the context and leaving out all of the nuance and leaving out all of the real, honest storytelling. And I felt like it was just kind of bullshit. Honestly, I felt like none of it had really helped me. And actually, the more that I unlearned things that I had learned from business school and from that that type of content, the better equipped I was to go out there and actually get myself started. So I wanted to tell the very real version of starting my business and talk about the deeper stuff and talk about the confidence stuff and talk about, you know, the reality, which is in the beginning, you just kind of have to try shit, figure it out as you go. So I was talking about that a good bit on the podcast. And I actually was talking about that a good bit on Instagram as well. And people were responding really well to it. And I had a newsletter at the time, and people were responding really well to it. But the thing that I was selling was this operations consulting and the project management, consulting and process improvement work. And so I knew that there was a disconnect, I knew that I needed to start making if I was going to be putting content out there, I needed to make that content relevant to the thing that I was selling in order for it to actually make me money, right. So it was kind of like I was producing all this content, but the content had nothing to do with what I was actually selling. And then it was no surprise that people weren't hiring me because people were finding me because they were interested in the stuff that I was talking about. But then they would go to buy something for me and it was like wait, but you sell systems and operations consulting and project management consulting. What like, what does that have to do with this stuff that you've been talking about in this content that I loved so much. So what I did was I tried to change my content and my messaging to align with what I was selling. And in theory That sounds great. The problem was that those offers, were not what I really wanted to be doing those offers were not what I was really interested in. And those offers were there. Because I felt like that was what I was qualified to do. That's what I thought people would take seriously and would invest in. That's what I thought I needed to do. And I was kind of telling myself that I couldn't do the things that I really wanted to do. And what happened was, when I started trying to align all of my marketing with my offers, everything that I was doing ended up misaligned. I actually did a webinar, my first ever webinar or my first ever, like live training that I did. In my first year of business, after I kind of recovered from that period of burnout and came back and finally decided, you know, what, I'm changing my offers, I'm leaving my marketing exactly as it was leaving my content exactly as it was, and I'm changing my offers to align with that marketing instead of what I was doing before, which was trying to talk about these offers that I didn't love. And I ended up with a wait list, like so quickly. And I ended up doing a training on that and talking about how I did that. And ultimately, what I ended up talking about in this training was I aligned my offers with the things that I really wanted to be talking about. And what happened was all of those people who had been hearing me talk about that who really connected with me over that now had are relevant thing to invest in. And, and were able to hire me for the things that they really wanted before. This was when I stopped telling people who wanted me to coach them, oh, no, I'm not a coach, you should actually go and hire this person and started just saying, You know what, a lot of people want me to coach them, I am going to coach people. And it turns out that making that shift, made a really big difference. So the reason I tell you this story is because I actually think that if you don't enjoy marketing, or if running your business is feeling unsustainable right now, or making money is feeling unsustainable, because of what a heavy lift the marketing is, I actually think that the place to start is by looking at your offers. So here's the thing.

Most online business owners who are in the early stages of their business, and are still feeling like they're in that kind of struggle phase of trying to get consistent clients are spending more time marketing, and they're spending working with their clients. And if this is the position that you're finding yourself in, and you're hating that I have kind of bad news and good news. So the bad news is that you really can't avoid marketing, like it needs to happen in one form or another. It doesn't need to happen in the way that you're seeing people tell you it needs to happen necessarily. Marketing can take many forms, right? You can you can market in so many ways that are not just you know, producing Instagram content or getting on Tik Tok or dancing and videos like that is not that's not the case. But you do need to market yourself in some way. But the good news is you can make it easier and approach it differently, so that it's more effective, and more sustainable. And I think that while it might sound weird, the most important thing to do in order to to be able to approach your marketing differently, and in a more effective and sustainable way, is actually to make sure that your offers are aligned with what you really care about what you really want to be doing what you really want to be talking about who you really want to be helping and aligned ultimately with you and the work that you want to be doing in the world aligned with the very specific thing that you really care about helping people with. And here's why this is this is the place that I think we need to start. Because although it might seem like okay, but Brooke, we're talking about how to we're talking about how to make money. If you hate marketing, why are we now talking about offers? Well, your offer is where the actual value exchange happens in your business. So in the process improvement world, we talk about value streams, and value stream is basically everything that goes into creating the value. So ultimately, you creating value for your clients and then your clients creating value for you in exchange by paying you for it. Right. So your offer is where that happens. And with that in mind, every single other thing that happens in your business needs to be aligned with that offer, because the only reason it's happening is to facilitate that offer where that value exchange is happening right So in other words, the only reason that you're marketing is to get people into that offer so that you create value for them, and they pay you in return, you thus make money and that that creates this healthy business, right? So every moment that you spend marketing is ultimately in service of getting people into that offer. And in order for your marketing to be effective, your marketing needs to be in alignment with that offer. Right, like, like I was saying, Before, there was a problem before my business where my offers and my marketing were misaligned. If my marketing has nothing to do with my offers, then it doesn't matter how effective the content is, it's not going to get people into the offer, because the people that I'm attracting, are not being primed to buy that particular offer, or to work with me in that capacity. Right. So working with people in that offer is the ultimate goal of every single thing that you do in your business, and especially in your marketing. So when you get your offers aligned, every other thing in your business becomes easier. Because it too, is now aligning with something that you ultimately really care about and want to be doing. If you do not love your offers, then you're going to hate marketing them. If you don't love your offers, then you're not going to love doing the other things in your business that are required to facilitate getting people into those offers, and delivering on those offers and helping people in that way. Right. So when you get your offers, in alignment with what you really care about what you really want to be doing what you really want to be talking about what you really want to be helping people with, that makes it a lot easier to come into your marketing from a place of real like inspiration from a place of service, right? Get to get excited about your marketing. Because this now you get to talk about the things that you want to talk about, because this is the shit that you really want to do. Right. And this also opens the door for you to follow your intuition and try instead of trying to just say the right thing to people, this opens the door for you to start just telling the truth.

And that being really effective marketing. Because ultimately, the thing that you're talking about is the thing that you really deeply care about, and the thing that you really deeply want to help people with, and the thing that you are really fucking good at. So now when you show up in your marketing, it's a lot more natural. Right? It makes it a lot easier to stay on topic in your marketing. So when I was talking about earlier, like I would always be talking about, you know, the behind the scenes of my business and what I was going through, like as a new business owner, and then I was trying to sell this consulting work. Well, my I was kind of off topic, right? I wasn't talking about why people needed my consulting work. But if I had changed the offer to align with things that I really wanted to be talking about, then guess what I would have been on topic because right, that's the stuff that I naturally wanted to be talking about, it makes it a lot easier to show up authentically. It makes it a lot easier to market yourself because it doesn't feel as much like marketing, it feels more like an invitation into something that you want to be helping them with an invitation into a space that you're excited to work with people in and excited to deliver on. Right. Here are the other ways that getting your offers into alignment will make things a lot easier. So when I was talking earlier, or I guess not what I was talking earlier, but when I titled this episode how to make money, even if you hate marketing, ultimately what I had in mind was how do you make running your business just like easier, right? Like you need to be marketing, you need to be like consistently showing up to this business in order to make money. So how can we make that more sustainable for you? How can we make that more aligned for you. And marketing just so happens to be that like the biggest drain that I find on especially newer entrepreneurs. But really, this affects so many things in your business, when you look at your offers, which again, is that ultimate point where you are making the money and that everything else in your business to be effective is going to end up aligning with right in order to drive people into that place where the value is being created. So when you don't love working with clients, because you don't love your offers, you might not realize it but there is going to be resistance there that has you shying away from really selling in your marketing. So if you're selling a thing, and you don't love doing it, you might not realize that that kind of gray cloud that's hanging over your head is affecting the way that you're selling you are not going to sell effective Really, I have had so many clients. And I've also had the experience myself, where the moment that they realize that they're now really selling, they get this wave of like fear or Oh, fuck like, what if people actually say yes to this. And then it's like, Wait, is this really what I want to be doing right now, and that will happen if you don't love your offers. Now, sometimes it will happen even if you do love your offers, just for confidence reasons and whatever. But if you don't love your offers, if you don't love working with clients in the offers that you have, if you don't feel confident about, you know, showing up and really doing an amazing job in those offers, it will affect the way that you sell. And that is causing your marketing to not be very effective, because you're holding back whether you realize it or not, right, I want you to really want nothing more than to be there delivering for your clients to be excited about it. So that energetically there's space for folks to come in and work with you. I want you to be excited about the prospect of working with a new client, not just about the money hitting the bank account. Because you being excited about working with that client is what is going to ultimately motivate you to go out and get those clients without it being a oh, I have to do this, or I guess this is what I'm supposed to say or what do I have to say to convince someone, right, and it's much more of like an invitation and coming from much more of a place of inspiration.

Also, when you get clear on what you actually want to be offering, or the specific things that you do want to do, sorry, there's cars, I have my window open. So if you hear that honking. If you get clear on what you want to be offering and the specific things that you do want to do and what you don't want to do, your offer actually gets a lot more specific, and you end up niching down without even quite realizing it. So when people talk about niching down, you have to niche down I think that sometimes people feel very boxed in by that. But actually, if you go about things this way, where you start to clarify what you really want to be doing and what you really want to be helping with and what you actually care about, you naturally end up niching down without it being something that you're doing just because you think that you're supposed to write this is the way to get into a niche without it boxing you in. Because once you start to say, Okay, this is what I do want to do this is what I don't want to do this is who I do want to work with, this is who I don't want to work with, okay, I want to help these people with this, but I actually only want to help them with this very specific thing, you naturally end up niching down. And it does make things more effective, when you are crystal clear on what you are there to help people with. That allows you to get even more clear on the specific person that you really want to be working with, which makes it even more specific, because now you're like, Okay, I want to help them with this very specific thing. And I want to help this kind of person with this very specific thing. And this is how much I need to charge for it. And so that further narrows down your your ideal client because guess what, like, your ideal client is only your ideal your ideal client if you are within the range of what they can afford. So that allows you to get even more specific, and that allows you to get really clear on who you are talking to in your marketing. And that makes your marketing a lot more effective, for reasons that you probably have already learned about. But this is a much more, this is a way to move toward that without forcing yourself to get it right. And instead by getting into alignment, which makes marketing a lot more sustainable. So when you in other words, when you get really clear on what you really want to do who you really want to be helping this specific problem that you want to be solving, that allows you to get very clear on who your person is. And that allows you to talk directly to that person in your marketing, which is what is going to make your marketing effective. And you don't need to do it in a way where you're now trying to force yourself to get your marketing, right, you're actually doing it much more naturally, because you're just opening the door for yourself to do the things that you actually want to be doing and talking about the things that you actually want to be talking about, because now you're selling the thing that you actually want to be selling. So I actually just made a split second decision while I was recording to send out that webinar, again, the one that he did a couple of years ago where I was talking about how I created that waitlist for the first time by getting my offers in alignment. And here's what I'm going to do. I am starting a waitlist for a brand new offer that I'm working on. I'm going to make it available in the middle of December. So we have some time, but I'm going to make it available for beta testers. So that means you'll get it at a lower price. It's already going to be the most accessible thing that I offer. It's going to be a digital product so it's not a huge investment. And if you want to be on the waitlist for beta test thing that I will send you the webinar that I had recorded a couple of years ago, I'll send that to you right when you sign up so that you can take a look at it, watch it, see what you get from it and maybe even get started. So go to bit.li/aligned business portal and you can join the waitlist, I'll send you that webinar. And then you will hear from me in the middle of December ish or leading up to that when the portal is ready. And that portal is actually going to be a course of sorts. A manageable one, though relatively short one that's going to walk you through creating your offer, really aligned offer to clarifying your messaging and then through creating a really sustainable and aligned practice for you to show up to your marketing in a way that is consistent and sustainable for you. So that is bit.li/aligned business portal, you can get on that waitlist, and I will also send you that webinar and I will talk to you in the next episode we are going to be diving into offers marketing, all of that over the next several weeks.

Transcend your dichotomy is a production of passion and process collaborative LLC. The show was produced by me Brooke Monaghan with production and marketing support from Julia pink crunch Ron Johnny creates blog posts from some of our episodes, which you can find on the episode page at Brooke dash monaghan.com/podcast along with a transcript of today's episode and any other resources I shared today. If you're ready to put this work into action, head to Brooke dash monahan.com To learn more about transcend your dichotomy training camp and coaching with me. Love you. I'll see you next week.