Sprinkle Your Marketing Glitter | Chantal Gerardy | Ep 192

Chantal Gerardy  00:00

Marketing is not about what you do that's the same as everyone else. It's what you do that's different. So they had not sprinkled their glitter into it, which means, when I'm now making a decision based on these three coffee bag providers, what am I going to choose? It On, empower yourself, I think is number one, because at the end of the day, like, invest in yourself, before you start investing in anything else.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:21

You don't need lots of people. You need people who are genuinely your people.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:35

Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I'm your host, Debra Chantry Taylor, and as you know, I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal lives by creating better businesses.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:54

I'm a certified EOS Implementer and FBA accredited family business advisor and a business owner myself with several business interests. I work with established business owners and their leadership teams to help them live their ideal entrepreneurial life using EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. Today's guest is a good friend of mine through a business networking group that we're both part of. She is an international award winning marketing strategist. She has got a holistic background and is an ex triathlete. She will openly admit that she's really more of an offline girl, which means she loves teaching people how to do online right, so they haven't got to do quite so much of it in their time. Her name is Chantal Gerardy. She's the founder and director of online business marketing. So welcome to the show. Chantal, how are you?

Chantal Gerardy  01:43

I'm amazing. Thanks so much for having me here today.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:46

Oh absolute pleasure. We've obviously met quite a few times in real life, and in my introduction, I mentioned, you know, you really are more of an in real life type person, but your specialty is around the online environment and how people can actually make most of that. Tell us a bit about your journey, because this wasn't your first gig, right?

Chantal Gerardy  02:03

Nah, completely fell. But first into it all, and I actually owned health wellness and fitness centres for 25 years. And when I was in South Africa, everyone knew who I was getting clients. Was really easy. You know, word of mouth, your mum and dad, you go to school, it's really easy. And then all of a sudden, I moved to Australia, and I didn't know anyone had no help. I had three daughters under the age of five years old, and I was going to stay home look after the children. And then my husband lost his job twice in the first four years. So when that happened, we're still paying away into the country, and there was no welfare, is Centrelink or anything. And I was like, Well, I can't get to networking groups. How do I meet people? How do I grow business? How do I get my brand out there? How do I communicate my point of difference, especially with three small kids running around.

And I started to play around on Facebook, and I did a lot of spammy, not so great things in the beginning, I have to be honest, but what I worked out was there, there was an easy and effective way for you to be able to go out onto social media and effectively communicate what you do without having to spend your life online. Because I am non techie. I If you go to my social media, you will see I spend most of my time offline. I'm a player. I love to play. I love to get out and about. I love to be offline. I love to be active. And I just want to be able to use online marketing without having to spend my life online. And that's literally how I fell into it, because I opened up a health monitor Fitness Centre in within about five years and turned it into a six figure business, without ads, without outsourcing, without really knowing what I was doing. But what I worked out was a lot of people were going, Well, how did you do that? Like, how? How if you, if you weren't experienced in this and didn't have any sort of studies in it, how did you do that? And I went well. I just based it on having strategies, skills and systems in place.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:03

Perfect. Okay, talk a little bit more about that, because I know that a lot of the clients that I work with, we always had the other main functions, the main accountabilities in EOS, and one of those main functions is sales and marketing. And I can argue from them being together, and I can argue from being apart, but they're often lumped in together, and often the person who kind of ends up with that seat is somebody who is very, very good at the sales side, but doesn't really understand the marketing side. And it's often they're like, you know, we just don't know what to do. So they'll outsource it. And outsourcing it is great. That gets rid of having to do it, but it doesn't always produce the results they expect. Fits. So tell us a bit about, you know, what? What happens in that situation?

Chantal Gerardy  04:39

Sure, I love it. I love it. I love everything that you said. I just got so excited. So a salesperson is very salesy, and when it comes to social media, social media is very much about social media. I always joke that that the only reason I was able to wing it was because I'm a social person. So I treated it like I wasn't a marketing person. It's about effective. Communication. But a couple of things there that you said is obviously having the right person in the right seat, so working on whether or not that sales person can be taught because they can, but they've just gotta learn how to effectively communicate, respecting the audience and respecting the platforms. They can actually be taught to do that role if they want to learn that, if they really want to learn it, if not, then 100% you know, you can outsource that to somebody else. But in outsourcing that, you're outsourcing your voice to someone.

So you I always say to everyone, you have to outsource something to them. You have to outsource them. What is your overall strategy? And when we talk about strategy, there's a content strategy, which is all about, know, like and trust, which is the ongoing, consistent content that you've gotta create. But the second part of that is the customer generation, which I like to call campaigns. And they don't need to be paid campaigns, but they need to be journeys, customer journeys, of where you're going out onto social media, you're going out and hooking those people and reeling them in and then taking them through a funnel to the F word. People get scared with the F word, but it's more just a process, just taking them on a journey of nurture, know, like and trust, through your website, through email marketing, so you can now turn those potential leads into customers. And that's that often a marketing manager they that's something they can't do. You can give them that strategy, if you've got the strategy in place, and if you've got that system in place, and if you have those processes in place, you can teach that to them, and they can manage and run with that. But often they don't have that. So it comes down to having that roadmap, having that strategy, having the overall plan, and then giving them the skills to be able to execute it, whether or not it's the salesperson or whether or not it's the marketing manager that they outsource it to.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:45

Sure, okay and so what's the biggest mistake people make? Do you reckon Chantal?

Chantal Gerardy  06:50

Winging it? They wake up every day. They wake up every day, and they go, Oh my gosh, marketing, I don't know what to do, so I'm just going to spit out everything. Well, I'm going to do nothing, and I'll think about it tomorrow. So the number one mistake I'm going to say is it's not in their diary, like, and I know that with EOS, you know, you're so process driven or whatever, like, you need to have it in your diary. If it's not in your diary, it's not going to happen. So it's about taking it and going, when are we going to work on the marketing? When are we going to work in the marketing and having dedicated time to actually plan it so that you're not chasing your tail the whole time. And I'm going to say that that's the number one biggest mistake, is that people go, my marketing is not working, and I go show me that the time when you're actually working on it, when you're actually creating those strategies and creating those systems, and you're actually upskilling and delivering that marketing, and they're like, No, it's not there. And I'm like, not the marketing that's not working. It's you and your time management. So perfect.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:47

And you’re absolutely right. I mean, I think people just do ad hoc stuff and expect that it will actually happen. But we don't do that in any other area of our life, do we? It's not like, you know, in our business, we set up systems and processes in in terms of customer delivering as a customer journey. It's interesting. You mentioned the word funnel. You kind of went, Oh, you know, people don't like that. It is. It has been overused, right? But in reality, there's nothing fancy necessarily about a funnel. Is that. So what's your, what does a funnel mean in your in your language?

Chantal Gerardy  08:15

So funnels are fun, I you know, and, and I think, firstly, let me just get just handle the misconception here. When people think of funnels, they think of Click Funnels. And, I mean, this is great that Russell Brunson, you know, positioned himself like that. So they all think that they have to go buy this expensive software and learn how to use it and have this templated click funnel thing. And it isn't all it is, is it? It's the buyer's journey. That's all it is. And you can use the systems that you have within your business to create that, from the content marketing plan to where are we sending them to, which could be a website, a landing page, a sales page, a brochure, a quiz, a competition, and then from there, capturing that lead and taking them to the next step. So for those people who want meaningful marketing, which is the name of my podcast, the meaningful Marketing Podcast, it's all about your marketing being meaningful meaning. I want relevant conversations with people. I care about my potential customers. I care about the content that I put out there, and I care about the next steps that I'm going to take them through, which are the logical steps that they would take. Often people come to me and they go, I want them to do this, and then I want them to do that. Want them to do this, and I'm going, that's not logical for that person. You know, it has to be, it's gotta be good for you and work for you, but it needs to be logical for the customer as well. So we can take them through the logical steps, through the systems you already have, you don't need fancy Click Funnels, and then take them through that system of know, like and trust, continue to build that relationship, and then continue to re engage them and build it up so we can turn those leads into sales. And that really is a funnel. It's about having an ongoing conversation that's relevant and meaningful for both of us.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:53

And I’m pleased to hear you say that it doesn't have to be complicated. Doesn't have to be a completely separate system. It's just really about thinking about your. Your end customer, consumer, client, whatever you call them, and thinking about, how do we make sure? I always say, how do you make a lot of know, like and trust, but you kind of stay top of mind, because they're not always ready at that point in time, but we don't want to lose them in the noise out there in the meantime. So how do we actually keep nurturing them without being a pain in the ass? Because, of course, my biggest thing at the moment is this whole, you know, you join up with somebody on LinkedIn, and they immediately start sending you spam stuff about.

Chantal Gerardy  10:26

You know, this is who we are. This is what we do. Here's all of our work. And you kind of go, Hi, how are you? Where was the social side of it before we got straight into selling, yeah, 100% and that's exactly right. And you know, it is slightly more acceptable on LinkedIn to have the appointment setting DM strategy. But what happens is, people again, they just outsource it to someone who's got templated content, who's putting it in, and now it's not relevant. It's not it's not meaningful, it doesn't connect. And this is where we're losing people. So people are trying to do the quick fix thing, but we're losing people along the way.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:03

Because it's called Social Media for a reason, and that is because it is humans working with other humans, interacting with other humans in a social environment. The only difference is we're not actually physically in person. We're in an online environment. So it's funny how people seem to treat it quite differently, because you'd never do that in real life. Imagine if you kind of just walk down the street and kind of read it, but there's somebody who walked past you when stood up to me, hi, my name's Debra. How many US implemented? Here's our clients. And you know, would you like to have a conversation with me? You just wouldn't do it in real life, and yet somehow we feel like it's okay to do it in a social environment. So social media. Tell me what I mean. How do you because you thought about Facebook or about LinkedIn? What? What's your kind of what do you? How do you see social media playing a part?

Chantal Gerardy  11:46

Yeah, there’s a couple of “S” words that I use for this. So a couple of cheats when it comes to social media, so that you're not spammy or salesy, but rather building those relationships. And that is, share success stories. Share your own point of difference, share other people's points of differences, share statistics. What are the other S's? There are a few more other S's as well. I can't think of what they are right now, but yeah, there's a couple of s words, and if you just continue to that, especially storytelling. Storytelling is one of the I always say the biggest cheats in the world go out today because people go, I don't know what to put out there. Go out today and just tell the story of how you helped Mary with this problem. Get this result. Like, doesn't get easier than that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:34

It’s actually true when I was working with a video coach many, many years ago, and he taught us the art of that. It's like, actually really, really simple, but it it's very, very effective. And people, you know, we've grown up as humans with stories. We love stories, and we also love hearing how people have helped each other as well. So it's, yeah, definitely was. Well, okay, so share your success stories. Share your own point of difference, the other people's point of difference. So really, it is about sharing rather than selling as letters, like, don't just throw shit at people, but actually give them something that they want to engage in.

Chantal Gerardy  13:07

Yeah, 100%. Look, there is the social element, but a lot of people go wrong in this area. So sometimes, when you're over social, people don't actually know what you do, and they never take the next step, because you actually aren't leading them to the next step. So if you still sharing a story, you can still say to them, email me back, message me if you'd like more on this. If you'd like a blog on this, let me know, and I'll send you one. But put a next step that that just closes the gap. So it's not a hard sell, but it is a call to action. And when, when I say to people, call to action immediately their mind goes to hard sell, and it's not a buy. Now, it's more like a learn more. It's more like a let's keep the conversation going if you're interested, and as soon as you do that with your content, you're closing the gap between people just scrolling past you versus somebody taking action to the next step. Super important. It is also important to occasionally throw in some hard sell stuff. So we will sometimes just go in we have a webinar. This is what's in it for you. This is how you register. And I call that a hard sell one, but because we have all the other stuff supporting it, where we've got our testimonials and our success stories, and we've got all the other No, like and trust around it to back that up.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:22

Okay, so taking it into really simplistic things. So your strategy is about thinking about how you take a customer from first point of contact to as you say that no, what do you say, No, like and trust and keep Yep, and keep them engaged, and keep them there and giving them enough kind of sharing of information so they still feel like they're they want to learn more, occasionally asking for that next step and asking for the call to action, and sometimes just hard selling when it went or selling when it's appropriate, as opposed to just hard selling for no particular reason. So that really is all part of a strategy to nurture that customer before you go into because the second part you said was around the customer generation. Customer journeys. So the social creates, the like, if you like, and the wanting to find out more what happens next?

Chantal Gerardy  15:07

So we've got to be able to capture them. And this is why, when people say to me, You know what happens next, they go to the website, and the whole thing of a marketing strategist is end to end, and that's what I do. So I'll look at the social media, and then when they get to the website. And unfortunately, sometimes people have got websites that are outdated. So when people are talking about one thing on social media, they get to the website, and suddenly there's disconnect. So when they say, you know, learn more or have a look at this, or download this or buy here, there's disconnect between the two, because there's no congruency between it. So for me, it would be vital to make sure that wherever we're sending them to is logical and it actually keeps them on the path, and doesn't take them off the path, you know? And obviously you can monitor that by going into your website and having a look at your click through rates.

Chantal Gerardy  15:55

But once we've decided we're going to capture it, when they get to the website, there's two options, right? Or three, actually. Number one, they're going to do nothing, right? Number two, they're going to go, I'm interested in this. I'm not ready to buy, but I'm interested in it. So we've got to make sure that we capture those people. So for E commerce, it would might be just like, you know, download or subscribe here for, like, a discount or something. But for a service based business, it might be more along the lines of, you know, for B to B, it might be, download our brochure. For A, B to C, it might be, you know, join our weekly email list where we send out education tips. So you want a softer option to say, hey, you might not be ready to buy now, but you want to have that softer option to still capture them on the website. And then the last one is, maybe they're going to buy right now. Okay? And we've gotta make sure that, as I said, Wherever you send them to sometimes you've got too big a sales page, that when they go from social media, they've already said yes, and they now they get to the sales page and you actually unsell to them, they've actually changed their mind now. So we've just gotta make sure that, as I said, it's logical when they get there. So when we get them doing one of those three things, nothing, subscribing or buying from there, we've then got to make sure that we're now going to continue those relationships through email marketing. Now I hear this all the time. People go hate emails, and I gotta open emails and blah, blah, blah at the end of the day. Firstly, we all know that if we put in our email address, we're going to be email marketed too. So the goal is to make sure that they are sitting there waiting for your email to come in. Whatever you do on the website, whether or not it's making them subscribe, or whether or not they're buying you want them waiting for that email to come in and get so excited every time they get an email from you. And it's your responsibility as a as the business owner, as the marketing manager, to make sure that you are giving them that, that you are keeping them excited by your email so that they don't unsubscribe.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:48

And it isn't, it is interesting because you talk to me, you said to people, I'll go email. Don't like email marketing. I must admit, I get way too many emails. There's definitely some I unsubscribe from. But I've also got my favourites that you know, just keep coming in, and I don't put them to spam when I don't get rid of them. And I don't always read them completely, but they make me smile, or they make you think about something. And so I keep them there so it's not completely dead. And as you said, it's your responsibility to ensure that you're having them. Want to open those and want to actually read more?

Chantal Gerardy  18:16

Yeah, we actually, we encourage unsubscribes. So I say push the envelope with who you are and what it is that you do, because we're still clear so that you're qualifying and disqualifying your ideal client. So therefore those that are not your ideal client will actually unsubscribe. And what we want is those that who, who are your ideal client you've effectively communicated what you do for who? And they go, Yes, that's me. And they stay, and they love it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:43

It is interesting. You know that I obviously, we're on a podcast right now. So my podcast has been going for, gosh, I think it's been almost four years now, and in the beginning it, you know, it took a little while to kind of pick up. We got to about episode 190 something, I think it is, and it's slowly, slowly picked up. But nothing like I was expecting. I always assumed that podcast would get 1000s of listeners in a heartbeat. Doesn't quite happen like that. And I used to beat myself up and go, what's wrong? Am I not doing things right? What I've actually realised is I have a very solid group of people who come back on a regular basis, who enjoy the content, who are listening in, and I meet people and they say, I love your podcast, and it's not huge numbers, but that's okay, because they're actually people who are genuinely interested, people who want, you know, who, who are the right people, if you like, and the same, you know, with the email marketing database, whenever somebody unsubscribe, I take it personally. They go, my goodness, you know, what have I done wrong? Why have they unsubscribe? But it's like, actually, you're right. You don't, you don't need lots of people. You need, people who are genuinely your people.

Chantal Gerardy  19:43

Oh, that's so good. I love that. Yeah. And, you know, one of the strategies we do is the whole podcast marketing strategy as well, and, and podcast marketing is just absolutely amazing, because you can take that content and put it out there and 100% capture your ideal audience, exactly like you said. And what's. Really awesome is that I get people now who in Facebook groups. They might be looking for help. And they'll come to me, and they'll go, Look, I'm a I'm just a startup. I don't really have the money to invest in working with a marketing strategy right now. And I'll say to them, Well, what are you struggling with? And they'll say, I'm struggling with this. And I'll just send them one of my podcast episodes. And you know what? They will leave me a review. They will continue to read my the my continue to read all my email marketing that goes out. They will actually tag me in Facebook groups, just based on that little help that I've, that I've done

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:31

That's the abundance mindset. I love it. I always sort of say that nothing that I teach is actually not able to be found anywhere, like you can just do you can learn it. You can do TED Talks. You can read books, whatever it is. And so I give it all away, because, actually, you're right. It's like, you help somebody like that, and they become your, your what do you call it? The people who go, you know, your advocates, the raving fans that just kind of go out there and talk, and also you just never know. I mean, at some point I've had customers who've list, literally been in contact. I've heard nothing from them for two years, and then two years later, I get an email, kind of going, ready now, ready for what? Who did it start working with you? What? Where did it come from? And that's really part of that whole, you know, customer journey, isn't it? Is making sure that they're even though they may not be, they might not be there knocking on your door, wanting to with you straight away. At some point they may well want to.                       

Chantal Gerardy  21:21

Yeah, so we don't want to forget about them, you know, we want to continue. And I think this is what happens. They people hop onto leads, and then they leave them. They hop into to more leads and more leads and more leads. And the whole purpose of email marketing is to have a look at the leads and look at those people who are warm, and make sure that we're looking after those warm leads, because they are so much easier to convert than it is to actually go generate new leads and bring them in. Again, you know, by simply giving them the type of content that they need to further support them, those value ads, and again, just making sure you do have the next steps for them, should they wish to take it?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:54

Love it, okay. it's probably some people sitting here listening in, kind of going, oh yeah. This works for consultants, and this works for this and this and this work, but work for our business, because our business is different. I hear all the time when I'm working with the EOS with clients, it's like, yeah, but our business is different. It's like, yeah, it absolutely is, and I respect that, but there is some fundamentals that just work, because whether we like it or not, we're all humans dealing with humans.

Chantal Gerardy  22:16

Yeah, 100% so I think the number one thing for me is branding. I think there's a big misconception around branding, because everyone's like, my logo, my colours, my fonts, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's all great, you know, when it comes to so when it comes to social media and email marketing and websites and blah, blah, blah. But the reality is, we have so much flash past our eyes on a daily basis that the reality is, what's more important is your key messages, your mission statements, so your content plan. When it's got the same words that you're continually using those key messages, they become your tone, your voice, your branding, so that you become known in that space and so many businesses like you said, the fundamentals, the foundational stuff, whatever business it is, you've gotta know what those I call it your glitter. What is your glitter that you're going to be sprinkling out all the time in social media so that you become like McDonald's Big M. So when people scrolling past McDonald's Big M, they see it, and it'll be more powerful than your logo, more powerful than your branding or your colours, those words that you're consistently putting out, those key messages, those mission statements, that tone, that voice, that will be memorable when it comes to social media and email marketing. So most businesses don't have that clearly defined or for their marketing managers or sales team.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:26

Yeah, and it's all part so it's part of your marketing strategy, but it's also about part of your voice and part of the I suppose, what you want to be known for. I'm in the middle of writing a book at the moment. I did a book writing workshop with a couple of people complaining this the other day, and, yeah, one of the things that they said was you've got to know your audience like you can't be everything to everybody you need to just be very specific about who you're trying to talk to. And I think that probably the biggest mistake a lot of my clients make is they, you know, you ask them, because we ask for an EOS, we have a version of a marketing strategy. What it really is who is your ideal client, and what are they looking for from you? So that's what we all we get to and it's really about they go, Oh, well, you know everybody, well, you can't be everything to everybody. You can't. It's like, there must be, what's your ideal client. If I ask you to list your you know, how many clients you've got? Which ones would you suck in a heartbeat? Which ones would you love to have more of? Because there will always be certain clients that we don't necessarily want more of them, and other clients we absolutely do want more of them. So it comes down to, yeah, thinking very clearly about who is it you're going after, and then making sure your messaging is appropriate for those people. Is that right?

Chantal Gerardy  24:33

Oh, 100%, I always say it's like dating. If you were dating and you went on a date with somebody, and he was a piano player, player, and then you went on a date with someone else, and he was an AFL player. You don't want to be talking to the AFL, GABA piano, and you don't want to be talking to the piano, garba, AFL, you're probably not going to get another date.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:54

That’s so true. Okay, so from an overarching point of view, people sitting here listening and saying this, oh, wait, Perth. Sense. But where do I get started? So if you haven't got a marketing strategy, and you really are just doing that ad hoc stuff, or maybe not even doing anything at all, because I think a lot of people, it's so overwhelming, they think, Oh, well, we just won't, we won't go there. It's too hard. Yeah, where do they get started?

Chantal Gerardy  25:14

I definitely think you need to have that time in your diary for you to meet with your marketing manager, so your marketing and sales team and they really should be in the same room together for this meeting, because you want to make sure that they're using the same language. You don't want the sales person, the marketing person using different language. Heard about this last week. Actually, somebody got in. Actually, it was one of our friends. Actually, he was talking about how the marketing was. Go have a look at his post. I'll give you another clue. And he said something around we shared the Philippines. We sat on the beach in the Philippines drinking coconuts together. Now you know who it is, go and have a look at his post. But he said something about the marketing person. Just the marketing got him so good, so good, so good, got to the salesperson or whatever. And there was complete disconnect. Just like complete, like wrong sort of thing. So you want to make sure that the marketing and the sales process that everyone's using the same language and this, it's congruent. But I would say to the business owner, you need to sit down and ask your business you need to ask your marketing and sales managers who is our audience, and sit there and listen, ask them, what are their pain their pain points, their needs, their aspirations. Then ask them to effectively communicate the outcomes of what you're selling. Because I can tell you right now that when I sit down and I do VA training, and I train VAs in marketing management and handing over the strategy and marketing plan and make sure that they, you know, get it right. And the amount of times when, when you go in and you ask them, they've got no idea they got, actually no idea what they're selling. They don't know how to communicate it. They don't know who the audience is. So you need to be asking or having these conversations and making sure that they truly do know who that audience and what your offer is, making sure you get the right people in the right seats, making sure that they're upskilled in that area. As long as they've got the attitude to learn, like they've got the right attitude, you can upskill them. As I said, they can't usually create the strategy or the plan. You need to give them that strategy and plan.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:17

And I think you made an interesting point that outsourcing, when outsourcing is becoming very popular these days. It's certainly great because it means you can get a whole lot more work done, often for less investment. But the reality is, the people that you're employing, whether they be VAs or EAS, Philippines or other places, they're not going to be able to cut with a strategy. They're very, very good at execution, but only good at execution. Execution is only as good as the brief, right? So you can put stuff out there, but if it's not the right stuff, it's kind of wrong. So tell me about the work that you do there with those, those people. I'm really interested to sort of see how you manage that, because I must admit, I've got some frustrations around sometimes with the VAs that's like, don't we want? They're beautiful. They get they do what you ask of them. But like I said, shit and shit at often, my brief isn't very great, and so of course, the stuff that comes out is not that great either. That's it.

Chantal Gerardy  28:07

So again, there needs to be time in your diary. So for me, it's on a Monday, we sit down and we look at all their all their tasks for the week, and I see how competent they feel in it, and how well they understand the task. And then on a Friday, we do a review session. So we look at data, and we look at, we review what's been done, what they struggled with, and we in we, you know, because issues is part of the EOS thing. We encourage problem solving thing, problem solving strategies. So it's around, if you want to come to me, I want you to come to me and ask me questions. But then I was getting bothered all the time, which was a nightmare. Then I was like, come to me with three possible solutions. And now I've come to me hardly ever, because I'm encouraging problem solving things. But of course, you've also gotta make sure that you have systems and processes in place. So do you have training like in your diary each week? So for us, there's a Monday meeting, there's a Friday meeting, and then there's a training session with each of my VAs each week. So I have that allocated time in my diary where they can come in, they can ask me questions. I have more control over that now that's their time that they can ask me any questions, or I can support them in that role. I also get them then to support each other in that role too. So and I completely again, fell into this. So during before covid, I was really about empowering business owners and the marketing managers was, which was usually the daughters and the wives, and it was the business owner. Then covid happened, and then outsourcing became a massive thing. And everybody had this problem where they were hiring and firing and rehiring and firing and hiring and it was an absolute nightmare. They were wasting so much time, and it was so frustrating for all of them. And they were going, I really like this person, but they're just not doing every anything. And then I'd have a meeting with them, and the VA is going, I'm sitting here, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do. You know, I want to do it, but I don't know what to do. And the business goes, owner's going, I'm so busy, but I just want you to do stuff. And I'm like, oh my god, me. So let's just get, just take some time out. Let's get the strategy. Let's get the content plan. Let me train them on it so that they can just get on with it. And I can even hold them accountable if you want me to, you know. So it's just about putting a structure in place.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:14

But it's about having a plan. And this is the, this is the thing, if you think about it's what EOS is all about, is that most of the business I work with have been around for a long, long time, like often 25-30 years, and they know what they do. They know how they do it, but they don't actually have a long-term plan in terms of what they're trying to achieve. And I always talk about it's my favourite quote in Alice in Wonderland, is when Alice arrives, whether Cheshire Crats at the fork in the road, and she asked which road she should take, and he asked her where she's going. It's like she doesn't know. And so if you don't know where you're going, anyway, we'll get you there. And that's the thinking that has to come into it. And then once you've got that plan, then you can start to make sure. But again, you wouldn't employ somebody locally, and just expect, you know, here's the plan. Off. You go, go do it. You're going to spend time training them. And yet, for some reason, we seem to think outsourcing that we don't have to do that, and it's just not true.

Chantal Gerardy  31:03

Now, it's this quick. It's a quick thing. It's a quick fix mentality, and it's a magic pill mentality, you know? So then people are like, Oh, why must a paper use Chantal to come in and like, do the strategy and the plan and upskill the VA and I go, Oh, you can just carry on hiring and firing and rehiring and for you, and still have no strategy and have no plan, right? So the other issue we have is that often with virtual assistants, they might get somebody in a dedicated role, so I'll use in the one that I've got at the moment. So it's an accountant. So they specifically needed a virtual assistant that is skilled in accounting. So they're hired an accountant, okay, like an accounting VA, they have it for 40 hours a week, but she's only utilised for 20 hours of that week. But they don't want to lose her, because they love her, and they want her to stay in that role, but then they're like, We really need to be you to be doing something else in the other 20 hours. So we asked her, do you want to learn how to do the marketing and send emails? And she's like, Yes, I'm happy to learn. So that accounting firm is like, well, we've got no time to train her. We've got no idea what she's supposed to do or what she can do, you know? So then they're just like, Chantal, you do it. I'm like, sure I'll do, Okay.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:20

Perfect, I’ve got some really good tips there. So I mean, this really is about everything. Comes back to making sure we've got that strategy in place first, and then working through what we're going to deliver on, that how we're going to deliver it, and giving the people the right tools, the right training and the right accountability too. I mean, it's just all like EOS at the end of the day, if you don't measure it, because I'm going to get done. Give them a little plan you're going to get there. It's really just about the same thing applies to your marketing as it does to your business. What is the plan to get to? Where you need to get to? And I'm guessing there is also it needs to adjust, which is why we get together every 90 days. Is because actually things change, and you need to better take advantage of that change, but you need to have a focus for that 90 days. I'm assuming things change a lot in marketing as well.

Chantal Gerardy  33:00

Yeah, 100%. So I always say it's got to be seasonal and it's got to be relevant, and your audience changes. So, you know, November last year, you know, with the looming financial issues in Australia, the whole buying persona changed. Everyone was more slow and more steady. So we had to change words. When we said buy now, people would freak out. But if we said, Learn More or explore here, people were more likely to go to the next place. So we've got to meet people where they're at with what they're going through. So you have to continue to be looking at your customer and going, it's changed for them right now. If they're a little bit scared about the financial, you know, financial problems right now in the country and that, you know, what is that going to make them do? Well, then they're not going to want to click buttons and book calls, but if you say, choose a time to chat, they're more likely to do it. So we you have to constantly be reviewing the words that we're using and the process that we're taking them through. You have to make sure that it's still relevant for them, because you cannot just, you know, keep spitting out the same thing and hope it's going to work. Like you said, you're looking at the data if suddenly, like that, lead magnet was working so well, and you were getting all these inquiries and all these conversions. Now it's not working anymore. Well, don't wake up and go and do the same thing expecting a different result. Look at where in the pipe is it? Where in the pipe is it slowing down? And what can we do to change that?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:24

Perfect, as one of the questions I actually had written down here was around measurement. So I think this is one of the things that I certainly fail. I'm a marketer from way back, right? So I know all this stuff. It doesn't mean I do it very particularly well. And one of the things we don't do particularly well is actually measure. So, you know, there's, there's no other part of the business that I would not have data to ensure we're getting the right results. But in marketing, it's kind of full of it by the wayside, and I think it's because it feels overwhelming, like with all the different channels and things we have these days, I just don't know. I mean, not that I would have to do, but I just don't even know where to start in terms of looking at the data and going, What can I do with this?

Chantal Gerardy  34:59

Sure happy to answer that. Here we go. Data so good. So as I said, I do the Friday session with my VAs, and that's part of you know, what has worked this week. What hasn't worked? What do we need to replicate? What do we need to work harder on? And why do you think that happens? So encouraging problem solving skills. But part of that is looking at, you know, which of our content this week worked the best on each of the channels. So you can go into Instagram, you can go into LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, any of your channels, uh, even your Google, my business listing. You can look at the performance, the insights. I'm just trying to think of all the words that they use in reporting. You can look at all of those areas every single week, and you can look at the last seven days, and you can go, which contents done, done well, which content hasn't done well? Was it video? Was it carousels? Was it reels?

Chantal Gerardy  35:49

Was it stories? And we just ask ourselves, because we we don't actually know why. I'll tell you that right now. We don't know why. All we can do is speculate and go, I think it was the day and time. You know, we can look at the demographics and go, are we hitting our right audience? Because I'm working with somebody else that you'll know as well. And she's like, oh, yeah, we get so many hits on Instagram, like views all across everywhere. And the thing is, is that she's super hot, okay, super hot. So she's getting heaps of views, but no conversions. Her ideal clients are actually females, and they're females, you know, it late 30s, 40s, 50s. So actually, on Facebook, she's more she might get less views, hits or anything, but you'll get more conversions because they're more serious about following up. So I always say ego metrics. You've also gotta ask yourself, you know, yeah, why am I not converting? Well, I'm, you know, men are checking me out. That's what's happening here. So it's, you know, my ideal audience is actually female. So potentially, I need to be looking at tapping more into Facebook, because that's where I'm going to get more conversions, you know. So you've got to ask yourself, why? What's working, not working when it comes to your website, you need to be looking at Google Analytics or clarity on Microsoft Office. You need to have a look at who's clicking on what and why, and is that congruent with what you've been doing with your social media, which is the traffic generator to the website.

Then we have to be looking at subscribers. I always look at, how many subscribers Am I getting every week? How many unsubscribers am I getting? Then I look at our email marketing campaigns, and I go, I always ask, who's clicking on our links. I want to know my link my my link clickers, my link clickers are hot. And I always ask myself, what can we do with those hotties? You know, what are they showing interest in? If they constantly looking at something the whole time, can I send them a personal email and go, Hey, would you like to just chat about that? So I did this once, and you can't do it. You can't say I saw you checking me out. Some people freak out. Those who understand how email marketing works, is fine, but now I just say, you know, our system is, is, is showing that you may be interested in this product, yeah, so, or we just send it to them and go, have been thinking about you, or, you know, if you've seen if you've known them. It's been a while since we've chatted. Just wondering if you want to chat again. What are you struggling with? How can I help? Do you have any questions? Can I send you a resource? Just showing interest, genuine interest, like you said, if you ran into someone that you haven't seen in a while, how would you greet them? What would you say? What's, what would be relevant?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:17

Perfect. Just you mentioned 211, more thing, which also brought up another thought for me, so Google, my business really underutilised, right? So, I mean, that is, I know I'm a big Google My Business fan, so I've got a lot of stuff on there, but it's interesting. It's not really well utilised. And of course, when people Google for certain things, particularly services, but also products, the first thing that's going to come up is your sponsored ads, and then your listings of the people in the area, and then some more sponsor ads, and then some other stuff. So it's actually quite important that you have a good presence on Google My Business to be found.

Chantal Gerardy  38:47

Oh, 100% so many people don't even you know realise that you know that their Google My Business listing is an actual social media platform, and it needs to be monitored so we can actually, I have, I have, recently on the meaningful Marketing Podcast, posted what exactly to do for Google at this current point in time, but it is a social media platform, so does require certain things that are unpaid. You do not have to pay for ads. You don't have to pay for ads, you just have to treat it like a platform. Go, respect that platform, respect the audience by using the words that they would use to search for you. People go SEO, big, scary word. It's just the words that they would be using to search for you. So if you understand what words they'll be searching their words just drip glitter those words into your content on Google, my business respect the platform, and you can be found on Google. And of course, Google links to your socials. It links to your website. You can get people to leave reviews on there. It's the number one platform. Why wouldn't you?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:45

Yeah, absolutely most of it is free. So it makes absolute perfect sense. Okay, the last question I had, and this is just kind of arisen from talking to you and thinking chat, GPT, or actually, any kind of AI at the moment, you know, I think people think that it is this kind of magic sort of bullet. It will just take away a lot of the stuff that we have to do. And let's face it, it is brilliant. It has some really great uses. But what's it doing to marketing?

Chantal Gerardy  40:07

Oh my gosh. I mean, we all know when someone is using ChatGPT, right? If I hear another digital landscape marketing efforts transform your unlock, unlock the like. Okay. So the rule is, if it sniffs like chat GPT, your audience is going to know. So I always say you've got to put the HI into the AI, and the HI is the human intelligence. What is the human intelligence? It is the strategy. It is the plan. So, by all means, and this is something that I train business owners and virtual assistants and marketing managers. This is what I train them in. This is how you actually use ChatGPT. This is how you prompted. This is how you train it in your marketing strategy, so that it now produces content that's going to be closer to your brand, your audience, and it's going to be more authentic. And then, guess what? Don't be a lazy bum. You still have to go in and do one final edit and make sure that you're respecting your audience before you just go and spit it out there and go, I couldn't be bothered ChatGPT create content for me. Spit it all out.

Guess what? I was actually on a coffee I'm on a coffee emailing list for because I've got a camper van and I go to my camper van. I love these drip coffee bags, right? So I'm on about three or four different sites, and I they always email market to me, choose Bob. I get this email that comes through literally in the same week. And it's like, I can tell that all of them have gone into ChatGPT and said, create an email about our drip coffee bags, and every single one of them was the same. And what did I say about marketing? Marketing is not about what you do that that's the same as everyone else. It's what you do that's different. So they had not sprinkled their glitter into it, which means, when I'm now making a decision based on these three coffee bag. Providers, what am I going to choose it on price? I'm not going to choose it on anything other than price, because you've given me the same here's my coffee bag. Buy this. Here's my coffee bag, but here's my coffee bag. Buy I'm now not going to choose. I mean, guess what? My loyalty is not going to stay with you. Because the next one who sends me an email, those who put their glitter and they make it more personable, and they showed a little bit more interest in me. I'm going to remain loyal to them, and I'm going to continue to buy from that. We cannot be lazy with the HR into the AI.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:30

I think you have to see what you're commoditising your product or service. If you just, if you just keep taking it straight from chat GPT, I have D2, D2 is my kind of train Jack ChatGPT, and I don't know, I've obviously not quite doing things right, because she still spells everything with American English, no matter how many times I don't want to. But in general terms, yet.

Chantal Gerardy  42:47

No one's got that right yet. So I'm just letting you know it's not just you. No one is, Oh, good, yeah, there is a trick for that. There is a trick. I just want to solve your problem right now. At the moment, as I said, Whatever I'm saying right now is relevant now you can when you put it into a Word document. For example, put into Word document the top right hand is a search bar, and you can just put in the Z, and on the document, it'll highlight everywhere there's A, Z, so you can just go change it to an S.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:14

Well, that and missing news as well. I mean, colour are things like, anyway, we're not going to go there, but, but the But, the interesting thing is that you're absolutely right. I mean, you could it does some sometimes, once it's been trained to be more like you, it does talk like it's fantastic. It's definitely a detour, but it You still can't take exactly what they spit out. You've still got to actually look at it and go, is this? Is this the way that I would say? And as you said, is it relevant for my target audience? Is it going to speak to them? So I think it has huge potential, but it certainly isn't that magic silver bullet and yes, be careful how you shit and shit out, right?

Chantal Gerardy  43:47

People, people know that in that they know now.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:50

So you forgot about unlock. Yes, I see that unlocked in but you unlock, unlock your potential and unlock.

Chantal Gerardy  43:54

Yeah, that's just like.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:59

We could probably talk all day. We could probably talk all day. We might get you back off another show. Might another one. All about AI. But in the meantime, three top tips, or tools. Chantal, what would you say? What are the three things people can walk away from and go, I'm going to go do that right now.

Chantal Gerardy  44:14

Empower yourself. Empower yourself, I think is number one, because at the end of the day, like, invest in yourself before you start investing in anything else. I think too quick we want to go and invest in something else. We should be empowering ourselves. Empowering ourselves. There are certain things we live in a world right now. They go, if you don't like it, outsource it. I'm like, Hold on a sec. There's a certain level of empowerment that you have to do first. So please, please, please, please, empower yourself and apply. Empower your team. Empower your team as well.

Number two is probably communication. Make sure that and communication is threefold. Make sure that your communication with yourself is good. So when you talk to yourself, it's positive and it's kind. Make sure that when you communicate with your staff, it's thorough. It is thorough, and it's in their language. Okay, in their language. So you know, if you want to talk about. Sort of like just profiling or things like that. You want to just make sure that you're talking in their language, okay, how they would want to be spoken to. So that's communication.

Then the third one for communication is make sure that when you talk to your audience, it's in their language, it's in their language. So that's really, really important. And the third thing is make sure that you have the strategy and the plan, that you're not just winging it, and you're not expecting someone else to wing it. If you want to totally stand out for your competitors online, you have to do what the others aren't going to do in order to get the customer. Now, some of you might just be happy, like where you are right now, cruising along, stressing day in, day out, or whatever. You might just be happy with that. But if you truly want to have a business that's meaningful for you, meaningful for your customers, you want to have a strategy. You want to have a plan so that you can just pass that on and happily manage it so much easier for everyone else.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  45:53

And of course it ties in perfectly the work that I do around EOS. It's like, actually, we wouldn't, we wouldn't try and run a business without a plan. You shouldn't try and run your marketing without a plan. You need that stuff to make sure that you're doing the right thing. Hey, look, thank you so much for your time. Really, really appreciate it fun. As always. If people want to get hold of you all, make sure we have your contact details and things in the show notes Chantal. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Chantal Gerardy  46:14

Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. It's been a blast.