Ep. 113: Black Friday | Breaking Free from Feast or Famine: Transform Your Business with Everyday Profit Habits

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:01.104
Welcome to Tiny Marketing.

00:00:01.104 --> 00:00:07.246
This is Sarah Norrell-Block, and this is a podcast that helps B2B service businesses do more with less.

00:00:07.246 --> 00:00:12.621
Learn lean, actionable, organic marketing strategies you can implement today.

00:00:12.621 --> 00:00:16.027
No fluff, just powerful growth tactics that work.

00:00:16.027 --> 00:00:17.871
Ready to scale smarter?

00:00:17.871 --> 00:00:21.649
Hit that subscribe button and start growing your business with Tiny Marketing.

00:00:21.649 --> 00:00:28.681
Growing your business with tiny marketing.

00:00:28.702 --> 00:00:36.804
Hello, gorgeous, I am coming at you from my garage right now, so it's going to be the weirdest video ever, but welcome to episode 113 of the tiny marketing show.

00:00:36.804 --> 00:00:49.302
I'm Sarah Noelle Block and we're renovating our house right now, so I'm out of my normal podcast cave and hanging out in our garage.

00:00:49.302 --> 00:00:55.963
I'm going to blur the background because it's like workout equipment and everything, but just trust me that it's not cute.

00:00:55.963 --> 00:01:09.584
All right, today I want to talk to you about the feast or famine cycle that so many businesses go through and how you can overcome it with a systematized approach.

00:01:09.584 --> 00:01:12.147
So shall we get into it?

00:01:12.147 --> 00:01:16.215
Okay, let's start off with a story.

00:01:16.215 --> 00:01:28.096
So when I started my business, almost five years ago now, I was running off of good vibes and referrals.

00:01:28.096 --> 00:01:35.573
I had a great network of people that would send clients my way because they were excited for me.

00:01:35.573 --> 00:01:48.822
I had just started a business and I'm sure that most of you have experienced the exact same thing, have experienced the exact same thing.

00:01:48.822 --> 00:01:51.186
You start a business and you get that first, like that initial oomph, from people.

00:01:51.186 --> 00:02:03.673
They want to support you, they want to see you thrive when you first begin, and almost every business owner I have talked to they do get a ton of referrals at first.

00:02:03.673 --> 00:02:13.054
I have talked to they do get a ton of referrals at first, or people who are willing to try them out Because maybe they've interacted with you in a corporate role and realized how amazing you are.

00:02:13.054 --> 00:02:36.115
But as you get deeper into your business, they go and support other smaller businesses and you end up in that messy middle where you're getting tons of leads at one time and then maybe you go months with no leads at all, and that's what my business looked like.

00:02:36.941 --> 00:02:43.435
I was crazy busy for years and completely booked out, to the point where I was burned out.

00:02:43.435 --> 00:02:45.879
I just couldn't sustain it anymore.

00:02:45.879 --> 00:03:07.520
I had started off like I'm going to freelance on the side, but it grew so fast and I had so many clients that I eventually, pretty much within a few months, moved to an agency model and I was managing a group of contractors that would support my clients.

00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:14.413
I would lead the strategy, they would do the execution, and it was great for a few years.

00:03:14.413 --> 00:03:17.348
But it became really exhausting.

00:03:17.348 --> 00:03:29.782
I ended up becoming a glorified project manager and I was dealing with more people issues than strategy the thing that I was in love with, the thing that I wanted to do.

00:03:29.782 --> 00:03:46.914
So I decided to restructure so I could be back in boots on the ground and working on the strategy and working one-on-one with clients again, because that's where I really got my groove.

00:03:46.914 --> 00:03:48.466
That's what I really loved.

00:03:48.466 --> 00:04:07.014
So about three years into my business, I switched to one-to-one projects and that allowed me to complete projects in intensives and then take a break when I needed to and then book more.

00:04:07.014 --> 00:04:13.853
While before I was in a retainer structure, I worked with the same clients over and over.

00:04:13.853 --> 00:04:22.375
That means I could close six sales a year and that would get me to multiple six figures.

00:04:22.375 --> 00:04:25.766
That's great, but I'm also working constantly.

00:04:25.766 --> 00:04:44.208
So when I hit that moment of burnout and switched to project-based work, I had a whole other thing that came up Like now I wasn't burning out on client work, I was burning out on sales work.

00:04:44.208 --> 00:04:58.636
I needed to be selling all the time and it was exhausting, but eventually I found my groove and I found a system that really worked.

00:04:59.517 --> 00:05:07.403
I call it my everyday profit habits, and it makes selling just an everyday part of my routine, the same as marketing has become.

00:05:07.403 --> 00:05:18.081
So anybody who has listened to this show for a long period of time knows that I have my Monday morning marketing routine, where I do all of my marketing on Mondays, no matter what.

00:05:18.081 --> 00:05:23.444
As you can tell, since I'm recording this podcast episode from my garage, it's Monday, I'm doing it.

00:05:23.444 --> 00:05:28.101
I also do my social media posts, I do my emails.

00:05:28.101 --> 00:05:34.783
On that day I set up my events that I'm going to host within the next couple of weeks during that time.

00:05:34.783 --> 00:05:38.992
So Monday morning marketing, that's when I do my marketing.

00:05:38.992 --> 00:05:47.925
But then I have my everyday profit habits, which allows me to sell every single day without it feeling like it's taking over my life.

00:05:48.446 --> 00:06:00.735
So if you are a fractional, a consultant or a service provider who needs to sell more than you used to, you can't rely solely on referrals anymore.

00:06:00.735 --> 00:06:09.567
Maybe you got tired of doing retainers and working with the same people over and over again and you want some excitement in there.

00:06:09.567 --> 00:06:20.112
Or maybe you're tweaking your business model and you have to learn how to sell in a new way for the first time, then these strategies will help you.

00:06:20.112 --> 00:06:42.269
So this cycle happens with this feast or famine because you have a lack of systems, you don't know what you need to do, you don't have a repeatable process that you can do over and over and over again that consistently brings in leads that turn into clients.

00:06:42.269 --> 00:06:49.877
You have unclear messaging, turn into clients.

00:06:49.877 --> 00:06:50.499
You have unclear messaging.

00:06:50.499 --> 00:06:55.935
Maybe you're amazing at what you do, but it's not clear based on the way you talk about it publicly, the transformation that you provide for your clients.

00:06:55.935 --> 00:07:00.141
Or maybe you do reactive marketing.

00:07:00.961 --> 00:07:20.437
So you get into that famine mode, you are in panic mode and you do reactive marketing and it's like sell, sell, sell, promo post, promo post, promo post and that doesn't really engage your audience.

00:07:20.437 --> 00:07:34.595
You missed out on that no, like trust factor during the lifetime of your business, that when you're sending out these promo posts, people aren't reacting because you haven't earned their trust yet.

00:07:34.595 --> 00:07:43.134
You haven't earned them, even recognizing that you exist yet, and I mean this happens to a lot of people.

00:07:43.134 --> 00:07:49.644
You are not alone if you're listening to this right now and you're like, yeah, that's me, I've done all of that.

00:07:49.644 --> 00:07:57.079
I understand, because I'm talking to business owners every day that feel exactly the same way.

00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:09.812
You are stressed, your shoulders are boop up to your ears because you don't have any control over your cash flow.

00:08:09.812 --> 00:08:12.338
It's unpredictable.

00:08:12.338 --> 00:08:26.266
You're either burnt out because you are overworked and you have too many clients at once, or you're freaking out because you don't have a pipeline that's ready to go, ready to deploy.

00:08:26.266 --> 00:08:48.138
Maybe you're missing out on great opportunities because you haven't implemented any of these everyday profit habits that can really move the needle into consistency, where you can pick and choose the projects that you want to choose and you can work with the clients that you want to work with, because that's absolutely positive.

00:08:48.138 --> 00:08:51.365
You can do that, I promise you.

00:08:52.749 --> 00:09:22.481
So if this sounds like you, you are dealing with a feast or famine mode, you have a lack of systems, your messaging isn't clear, people aren't raising their hand and saying this offer is for me, or you're going into reactive mode and all of your marketing that you do eventually end up doing is pure promo and doesn't earn the trust of your audience Then you're going to want to hear this.

00:09:22.481 --> 00:09:28.066
So in the tiny marketing club, we have a three pillar.

00:09:28.066 --> 00:09:32.803
I say we, I, I have a three pillar approach.

00:09:32.803 --> 00:09:37.562
To break that cycle you don't have to be in feast or famine mode.

00:09:37.562 --> 00:09:44.883
Okay, so pillar one of the three Pillar one is the offer ecosystem.

00:09:48.634 --> 00:09:49.996
Of the three Pillar one is the offer ecosystem.

00:09:49.996 --> 00:09:55.427
So we look at your offers and we create offers that naturally upgrade clients to the next milestone.

00:09:55.427 --> 00:10:10.458
So oftentimes we'll go to a service provider or a consultant and we'll be like provider or a consultant and will be like what is it that you do?

00:10:10.458 --> 00:10:11.361
How can you help me solve this problem?

00:10:11.361 --> 00:10:17.437
And that's because you don't have an offer ecosystem that is moving people through your offers.

00:10:17.437 --> 00:10:24.830
So the first offer, the first two offers in this offer ecosystem are free offers.

00:10:24.830 --> 00:10:27.322
They are in the lead generation category.

00:10:27.322 --> 00:10:29.138
These are passive lead magnets.

00:10:29.138 --> 00:10:40.875
So these are things that people can download and enter your list and it should help them solve a problem about three steps before they'd be ready to work with you.

00:10:40.875 --> 00:10:45.160
And then the second offer that's free is an active lead generator.

00:10:45.160 --> 00:10:58.528
So these are time sensitive lead generators that promote a flood of people entering your list at one time and people are more likely to consume that content because it's time sensitive.

00:10:58.528 --> 00:11:00.778
They can only consume it during a certain period of time.

00:11:00.778 --> 00:11:05.984
The third in the offer ecosystem is your micro offer.

00:11:05.984 --> 00:11:17.452
So this is an offer that's $97 or less and it helps them at about two steps before they're ready to work with you.

00:11:17.452 --> 00:11:29.360
One to two steps, and you want them to complete something within a day within a day.

00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:33.488
So a micro offer could look like a mini course or it could look like a paid workshop, but a micro offer is paid $97 or less.

00:11:33.508 --> 00:11:36.955
Next up is the gateway offer, and this is very important.

00:11:36.955 --> 00:11:48.673
You want every single client to go through your gateway offer because what you produce during that phase of the offer ecosystem sets the foundation for your main offers.

00:11:48.673 --> 00:12:08.705
It's what makes sure that they all go perfectly, because you're setting up the strategy, you are understanding their goals, you are understanding their challenges and without that information and setting up a strategy and getting there okay ahead of time, you're not going to have a perfectly executed project or retainer.

00:12:08.705 --> 00:12:12.688
Next up is your main offer.

00:12:12.688 --> 00:12:17.251
So your main offer should follow your own framework.

00:12:17.251 --> 00:12:20.409
You might not even realize you have a framework, but you do.

00:12:20.409 --> 00:12:28.649
You are taking your clients through a journey and that journey is essentially a framework.

00:12:28.649 --> 00:12:38.164
So you just need to take a little bit of time to map out what it is you're doing with your clients, step by step, and that will make it a lot easier.

00:12:38.605 --> 00:12:52.989
From there we can create a downsell and an upsell that allows pretty much anybody, no matter what problems they're going through, to be able to go into a productized version of your offers.

00:12:52.989 --> 00:12:59.484
So whenever I say productized offer, people put their hands up.

00:12:59.484 --> 00:13:00.868
They're like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

00:13:00.868 --> 00:13:03.282
Not for my clients, they're very custom.

00:13:03.282 --> 00:13:07.892
But the thing is your productized offers can be super custom.

00:13:07.892 --> 00:13:08.633
Mine are.

00:13:08.633 --> 00:13:24.484
So during that gateway offer, that's when you're building the customization and truly understanding what your client needs, and then you can customize each of these productized offers based off of what they need.

00:13:24.484 --> 00:13:26.989
So it is very custom.

00:13:26.989 --> 00:13:33.529
But you make sure that it falls within one of those categories, so you're pricing it the same.

00:13:33.529 --> 00:13:35.921
It ends up being kind of a wash.

00:13:35.921 --> 00:13:40.732
If they need a little bit more than the main offer, then they go to the upgrade version.

00:13:40.732 --> 00:13:44.311
If they need a little bit less, then they move to the downsell version.

00:13:44.311 --> 00:13:49.842
A little bit less, then they move to the downsell version.

00:13:49.842 --> 00:13:52.328
But it should pretty much even out hours wise for you and profitability wise for you.

00:13:52.328 --> 00:13:55.701
But that's something that we will work on within the Tiny Marketing Club.

00:13:55.701 --> 00:14:11.647
We'll help you figure out exactly how to productize your offer, so it's easy to customize while still being able to say okay, you fall into this category, this is what you'll get, this is how much it costs, and you can forecast a lot easier.

00:14:11.647 --> 00:14:14.607
So that's the offer ecosystem.

00:14:15.461 --> 00:14:18.490
Next up is the dream client messaging pillar.

00:14:18.490 --> 00:14:19.421
Now.

00:14:19.421 --> 00:14:36.187
Your dream client messaging allows you to speak directly to your dream clients and know where they're spending their time, so you don't waste time on channels that don't matter and you're speaking to them about the challenges and the goals that they have.

00:14:36.187 --> 00:14:38.047
What is it that they really want?

00:14:38.047 --> 00:14:45.389
Make sure that it's weaved throughout your messaging on your website, on social, on emails, on all of the things.

00:14:45.389 --> 00:14:46.893
So that's pillar two.

00:14:46.893 --> 00:14:50.948
Pillar three is the discoverability factor.

00:14:50.948 --> 00:14:59.648
So you want to build visibility and earn that know like trust factor with your dream clients, and you don't have to be everywhere to do that.

00:15:00.220 --> 00:15:01.466
I use two tracks for that.

00:15:01.466 --> 00:15:05.240
So track one is a hybrid actively generator.

00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:16.110
We are collaborating with someone who shares the same audience as us, and we're doing it in a way that it's gated, so someone needs to submit their email in order to access it.

00:15:16.110 --> 00:15:29.065
Could look like a roundtable, a panel, a webinar, something like that, but it's always in a collaboration, so we're borrowing someone else's audience and we're growing so much faster than if we were just doing it on our own.

00:15:29.065 --> 00:15:30.548
That's track one.

00:15:30.548 --> 00:15:34.248
That's for the newbies, people who are just starting their content marketing journey.

00:15:36.140 --> 00:15:41.472
Track two is a signature series, something like my podcast that you're listening to right now.

00:15:41.472 --> 00:15:50.595
But a signature series is such a great way to be able to have a stage that you're offering other people.

00:15:50.595 --> 00:16:01.452
So it's a biz dev opportunity, it's an authority building opportunity and it is a great core content that allows you to repurpose it into so many different ways.

00:16:01.452 --> 00:16:05.562
You can create all kinds of content babies with a signature series.

00:16:05.562 --> 00:16:08.206
You can create all kinds of content babies with a signature series.

00:16:08.206 --> 00:16:12.549
So that is the three-pillar system that gets you out of the feast or famine cycle.

00:16:12.549 --> 00:16:19.216
I like to layer that with my everyday profit habits and we can get into that another time.

00:16:23.408 --> 00:16:25.720
There is a podcast episode on that.

00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:37.855
I hope you enjoyed this episode and I just want to remind you that we are in the trenches of the Black Friday deal, so you can join the Tiny Marketing Club for three months as a trial.

00:16:37.855 --> 00:16:42.687
It is $2,500 as opposed to the annual price.

00:16:42.687 --> 00:17:03.562
And if at the end of those three months you don't want to continue with the tiny marketing club, where you get courses, you get one-to-one time with me, you get coaching, you can get DM access to me, you get feedback, you get a content strategy that's done for you all sorts of goodies.

00:17:03.562 --> 00:17:10.705
If at the end of those three months you're like not for me, that's totally fine and you do not need to continue.

00:17:11.386 --> 00:17:21.740
So if you are interested in grabbing that Black Friday deal, which is only good until December 14th, go to the show notes page because it is right there.

00:17:21.740 --> 00:17:38.750
You could either sign up for a sales call if you have questions, or you can go straight to it and get early access to our one-on-one strategic spark where I will build out your lean marketing engine blueprint for you, and you can also get early access to some of the courses.

00:17:38.750 --> 00:17:46.383
Then the rest of the time, like the full tiny marketing club experience, is from January to March for this Black Friday deal.

00:17:46.383 --> 00:17:49.462
But you get that one-on-one strategy early.

00:17:49.462 --> 00:17:54.673
You get access to some of those classes early, so it's a good time.

00:17:54.673 --> 00:17:58.631
The earlier you get in, the longer you have access to everything.

00:17:59.881 --> 00:18:02.611
All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

00:18:02.611 --> 00:18:05.980
Remember, head down to the show notes page I love you, I love you.

00:18:05.980 --> 00:18:06.702
I love you.

00:18:06.702 --> 00:18:09.728
Sorry for this ugly video this week.

00:18:09.728 --> 00:18:12.854
Next week I'll have my office back, my podcast cave.

00:18:12.854 --> 00:18:20.721
All right, goodbye.

00:18:20.721 --> 00:18:21.142
You love all things.

00:18:21.142 --> 00:18:36.643
Tiny marketing Head down to the show notes page and sign up for the wait list to join the tiny marketing club, where you get to work one-on-one with me with trainings, feedback and pop-up coaching that will help you scale your marketing as a B2B service business.

00:18:36.643 --> 00:18:38.224
So I'll see you over in the club.

Ep. 113: Black Friday | Breaking Free from Feast or Famine: Transform Your Business with Everyday Profit Habits

Listen On

Recent Episodes