EntreLeadership - #401: Using Stories to Market Your Business with Amy Porterfield

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

If your marketing strategy is all about showing off the features of your product or service, you might want to rethink it! Online marketing expert Amy Porterfield unpacks what makes businesses succeed at marketing—good storytelling. From posting on social media to starting an email list to building a lead magnet, Amy will show you how to nurture your customers over the invisible bridge. These tips will make your customers excited to pull out their wallets and buy your product or service—no matter what business you’re in.   entreleadership.com/podcast Amy Porterfield's website StoryBrand's website They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield podcast The EntreLeader's Guide to Delegation Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, has this happened in your business? Last month was a bad month. So this month, we're going to run a sale. A big promotion. We're going to email our list and say, buy now because dang it, we've got to get some cash in the door. That's not really a marketing plan. You know what that's called?

It's called Spray and Prey. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and my guest today is Amy Porterfield. She's a longtime friend of Andre leadership. She's also an online marketing expert.

She loves helping entrepreneurs and small business owners win. Amy's going to share with you why you have to have a plan for your marketing. And the good news is it doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, at the foundation, it's simple because marketing starts with just telling people's stories. So when you tell a story, especially about somebody else that you've served and you've helped, when you tell the story right, meaning you talk about the struggles and the challenges and the fears that they had, the wins and what that meant for them and what they've overcome, people can see themselves in those stories so much easier than you just saying, I've got this great product. It has amazing benefits and features. You need it. That's one thing. But also, when you sell, when you promote, no matter how much your audience loves you, they put up a wall, whether it be just a little wall or a really big wall. There's always a a little defense up there. And I know we're going to talk about it later, but I do webinars to sell my digital courses. And on a webinar, for the first 45 minutes, you are giving, giving, giving.

And so when you do ask for them to buy your product, their defenses aren't all the way up because you were giving and you were inviting them in in different ways and offering value. So the same thing with the story, when people see themselves in other people's stories and they can relate and resonate, those defenses come down and they say, I want a piece of that. If she can do it, I can do it too. And so I'm all about helping people put their guard down because it's a natural thing to put it up, especially when you're asking someone to spend money. So I noticed you said when you tell the story right.

Yeah. What's the right way to tell the story? Well, you had talked about Donald Miller when we were off camera and you had mentioned. And, you know, that man is, I've learned so much from story brand and how he tells his story. But if you can tell a story and somebody can literally put themselves in that story because they can relate to it, I feel as though the story is doing the work it was meant to do. And so to me, you have to have all those important elements that Donald Miller talks about in terms of putting a story together. in order for it to resonate.

And a lot of my students who are just getting started, they'll want to tell the story. But what they'll want to tell is I help so-and-so get X results. They were this way first, and now they're this way now, like they're before and after and done. But when I think about telling a good story, I want to talk about the richness of it.

And I have a student, her name is De Nira. She lives in Los Angeles. She's a single mom of three. Her mom lives with her. She was not making barely any money as a baker. and she knew she wanted a different life for her kids. And she was working two jobs, one at like a chucky cheese and one baking out of her kitchen. But then she realized how to create a digital course.

And she created her first digital course to create caramel candy apples. Who would have thought that a caramel candy apple digital course, how to do it, would be a huge success. But she made over $60,000 on her first launch. And then she did it again, had the same success. And when I asked her, De Nira, what does this mean for you? and she said, all I want to do is retire my mom. She cleans houses.

She supported me. She is an amazing support to her family. I want to help her retire. When she told me that, my heart burst open. But when I tell that story, I don't just say how much De Nira made and what digital course she created, but I talk about what it means to her. And I think people can relate to that part of the story more than anything. Yeah, I mean, just as you tell that story, I think everybody's going, whoa,

carameled apples. How did you do that? And how could I do something similar? And what are my carameled apples that I'm going to sell? And what did you do again? What did you teach her on that webinar? Like it just pulls you in when you tell a story like that. Yeah.

So what keeps us from telling the stories? You know, I think we probably cognitively, most business owners that have been around for a few years understand the power of story to some degree. I know some of us struggle with feeling like we're wasting our audience's time or we're belaborate. things or it's not worth it. Why do we hesitate when it comes to this powerful mechanism? You know, I could totally relate. When I first started telling stories, I would rush through them so quickly because I thought I was wasting my audience's time. Like, they wanted me to get to the point. And I often surround myself with great storytellers because I love a good story. And if you

really think about, let's say you're out with some friends, you're sitting around a fire, and you all are just having a good time and someone tells a story. And when they add more detail, when they add more layers to it, when they really pull you in, you're like, tell me more, I'm here, I'm fully there. So you love that when they add the details and they really bring it to life. So why would it be any different when you're telling your audience these really rich stories versus rushing to the punchline? It's the same kind of feeling they get on a webinar or at a camp,

fire. And so I realized I needed to slow down. So I did the exact thing that most of my students do. They want to rush through it because they think they should. And so that's one thing. Another part, and this is going to sound silly, and I've never really talked about this, but we had to make it a practice in our business to get the stories. Like if we didn't have a process in the company to get these stories in the most richest way possible with all the details, I wouldn't be able to tell the stories. So to back up a little bit, we put a process in place where people can send us in their wins, their results, their satisfaction with our product. And then we reach out to them on a Zoom and someone on my team will do an interview and just ask them tons of questions and record it

and transcribe it. And then we kind of bring it into a story. Well, my team then gives me all the details of that story. So what my point was going to be is that I had to practice these stories. If I want to add layers and richness to a story on a webinar or in a Facebook live or on a podcast, I need to practice it a little, meaning I can't just look at a bunch of bullets and tell the story well. So for my last launch, I had a huge stack of note cards that just at nighttime I just flipped through the note cards to really start understanding my student's stories, who they are, do they have kids, what did they do with their money, what was their biggest win, what was their biggest challenge, all of that. I needed to understand their story and I needed to practice a little before I got on live video to tell it. That's so good. Well, and I know that you do that. And for the listening audience, you can't see, you told me De Nira's story. You weren't looking down at notes. I mean, you had it in your mind. Here's this lady, single mom, carameled apples, helping her mind. You know, I mean, you know the details and the texture of that story. I think that's so important. Because if you just wait till that impulse in the moment when you're on a stage or you've got a microphone in front of you, or you've got a prospect that you're closing the deal with and you start fumbling through that story. You may feel inspired by the story, but if you forget some of those details, you kind of end up looking foolish. Yes. So I think that the practice makes perfect.

You know, we're talking about marketing and how powerful this is for marketing. I think we've also found that there's this other benefit to story. And I'm curious if you've experienced this as well with the team internally. When you're telling these success stories and connecting back to the purpose of this is the breakthrough that we caused for the deniers of the world, that really fuels the passion of the team. You found that to be true? Oh, so glad you brought this up. Yes, yes, and yes.

And what we do is in each quarterly meeting, we have our community director tell us stories. We want to hear the stories that she just uncovered through all of her interviews. So internally, every quarter, she tells two or three stories on our quarterly meeting. And then in addition to that, we use Slack, which is a communication tool. And we have a Slack channel called WINS. And whenever we hear a new story, whether it be a huge win or a tiny win, like, I finally got my first subscriber on my email list, but here's what it means to me. We are constantly taking screen grabs of Facebook groups and emails we get and putting them in the win channel. So everybody on the team, every day, here's a new story from our students.

And you're right, it's what inspires them to keep going. Our motto in our business is to be an example of what is possible. And so every day when we're working and we're trying new things and we're experimenting, and then we see one of our students try it as well, we are realizing our mission. And so, yes, we tell our stories internally a lot. I love this. Okay, so we're talking about the power of story. We've established that we need to be telling these stories. We need to memorize them.

We need to be capturing them. When it comes to all the places we could be telling these stories, many small business owners feel flooded and overwhelmed by, okay, where do I start? Because I've got Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat and, you know, newsletters and a website. Now you're talking about webinars and courses and Amy. This space is just, it's massive and it's changing every day. How do I start telling these stories and actually do it in a way that's sustainable where I can get into this game and not just feel overwhelmed by the whole space? I work with a lot of first time online marketers, people that are building businesses, but they've never marketed online. And they're in all different.

areas, from accountants to bakers to quilters to therapists and everything in between. And so they're not jumping online thinking, oh, this is easy. I've got this. I'm all over everywhere I need to be. So to answer your question, this is something that comes up a lot. I always tell my students, I think social media is one of the greatest places to tell a story, but start with one platform. So if you're just getting started and you feel stretched too thin, I want you to choose Facebook

or Instagram or LinkedIn. YouTube to me feels a little bit different. You could do YouTube as well, but I'm looking for the engagement in the comments in the back and forth. And typically with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, you're going to get the most engagement. And so choose one.

And make it your mission to show up regularly a few times a week. And maybe once a week, tell a story. Whether it be your story, somebody's story on your team, or a customer story. But if you can make it your mission to once a week tell a story

and use real pictures if you get the permission of your students. One of the things we've noticed especially during COVID is that the real, raw, take a picture yourself kind of photos go so much farther than photo shoots. And I've done tons of photoshoots

and I'll post a picture from a photo shoot and I'll get a lot of likes or whatever. The next day, I'll have a selfie with my dog and yoga pants and a t-shirt, not my dog, but I take a selfie and then it blows up with my audience. And I think it's just because people are looking for the real, gritty, honest stuff because we know we're all, you know, living a different life than we were a year ago. So I think finding one social channel and telling stories on a regular basis, start simple. I'm not a big bells and whistles kind of girl.

I do things very simple and I just keep doing them consistently and I feel like that's one of my superpowers. It's an easy one, but it works. I really like this. As you're telling that story of just being simple and having one place and showing up consistently, I think back to, it was probably seven years ago with Andre leadership. And I was the VP of Entree leadership at the time, and we're trying to build our marketing presence. And I just, I have an idea every morning on the way to work. And I read a book or I see something on YouTube, and I just think, we should do that too. And we should do that too. And we should do that too. And I had basically created this problem for our team where I had tried to get us into every single platform. And I remember we were doing an offsite

with our friend Richard Linder at Digital Marketer. He came in and was doing some consulting with us. And he drew this illustration on a whiteboard. He said, let me show you what your marketing is doing right now. And he drew two blue lines. He said, this represents a river. And then he started drawing little bridges that went halfway across that river. And he said, you've got all these little bridges you've started building, and none of them go all the way across the river. And so you're not getting the benefit of nothing's getting through to the other side. If you would just stop and build one bridge all the way across and then add a few lanes to that bridge, and then add another bridge further up the river, and you can get momentum that way. And it was so

convicting, and we shut off several accounts, and we said, okay, we're going to build this bridge and we're going to get momentum and traction there. And now we're across the bridge on all this, or across the river, I guess, on all those other bridges. But it was just a really like, ah, slapping the fate. Like, what am I doing? You know, we've got to focus here. So once we get that bridge going, how do we know when it's time to maybe start turning on other platforms or hiring a team to do this?

How do we know that it's working, that we've proved the concept to get all the way across? Ooh, this is such a great question. So for me, in my business, specifically, when we start something, just like you said, when we are working on just one bridge, the point one, we set metrics, we set goals. And so we do not move on to the next big project until we've reached these goals and we feel really solid in understanding how we reach them and if we can duplicate that. Because for me, moving on to the next project means this project is going to continue to move

forward with not as much effort or focus that it took to get it going. And so once it's moving forward, not necessarily always fully automated, but definitely we've got it dialed in. We know the formula. We know how to make this work. And our numbers prove it. We've reached the goals. We like our conversions. Then we're ready to move on to something else.

And I'll give you an example. We have an evergreen funnel in my business with a course I have. And we put that out there. We set some goals. And it was just not working the way we wanted to. and we had to keep tweaking it and working on it. And something else came about. And of course, it was me that's like, we need to try this other thing, just like what happens

with you. We've got to do this. And what's really great is if you could have one person in your business, especially if you're the CEO, owner, visionary, whatever you call yourself, if you could have one person in your business to say, that's a great idea. But just so you know, we will not hit the goal or the revenue numbers with this thing if we switch gears now. That's so good.

I've got one person on my team where I've literally had to give her the permission. I said, you are allowed to come at me and say, that's a great idea. But we're not going to hit these numbers or this is not going to be. And I need, because as owners, when we hear that, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I really want this to work. We started that. Let's get it done. But it's so easy to move on to the next thing, especially if you love to be creative. That's just so important.

I have that person. I had to build that person into our team as well. because I'm the constant, let's just do more, more, more. And I didn't realize I was taxing the team with all these unintended tradeoffs. And they would say, yes, because, well, you're the leader and let's make the boss happy. You know, that power dynamic kind of kicks in. And they then go back and try to do all the work and stuff starts falling apart. I'm going to why stuff falling apart?

And they never felt like it was safe to say, hey, timeout. If we're going to start doing that, we're going to have to stop doing this over here. And that person, for me, it's like I love them and I don't like it when they say that. It's accountability. We have accountability as leaders. Go figure, right? It's so true. The woman on my team who is in this role, I'll tell her, I'm not always going to like it when you tell me this. And I might be a little frustrated with you in the moment, but I know that this is what we need. So I actually even had to have that conversation with her, like, I'm not going to pretend that you coming to me and telling me I can't do something is going to be all right with me. But I know it's for the greater of the business. So I want to drill on this more because I've experienced this. I bet you have to. Sometimes that person comes to me and I hear not that they're a bad person, not they have bad attitude, but I hear something that needs to be challenged. Maybe they're whining a little bit or maybe they're tired or they need some critical thinking to say, hey, look, we could solve it this way if we thought differently and we could still do the new idea in addition to everything else we've committed to. We can't make the assumption that there's always a tradeoff. And as leaders, I think our job is to push and challenge the way that we're doing things so that we kind of reinvent our processes and get more efficient, and we can actually get more done with some critical thinking sometimes. How do you decipher when you're having that conversation as a leader, when you

need to push for more and say, no, go back and go back to the drawing board and figure out how we are going to do this, what has to be true for us to pull this off and keep everything else going? And when is that time to go, yeah, you're right. We need to put this one on the shelf or agree that we're going to make a trade off. I think it's tricky, and you make such a great point that there have been many conversations where I got the information, okay, so if we do that, this is going to be an issue, we're not going to hit this goal or that goal. And when I need to as an owner make sure I really understand the big picture and understand the resources that we have. And I'll slow down and really listen to what, let's say, my right hand would tell me about that. And if I feel as though

we are thinking small, if I think that we're not being resourceful, which is one of our core values of the company, or if I feel as though there's, to me, there's always a way. That's the challenge with this push and pull I have with this one role in my business that I always think there's a way. So what will happen a lot of the times is I'll come back to her and say, okay, I hear you, but what if we made it work? What resources would we need? What would need to possibly change or tweak or how could we make this work if I wanted to implement it? And so my team, I have a leadership team, they'll go to the drawing board and they'll come up with some scenarios.

They're very resourceful and they'll come back to me. And if I like the plan and that sometimes means they need a few more resources or a little extra support or longer timeline. And if I feel good about that, all green light it and say, okay, let's do it. It might not be done exactly how I envisioned it to be done or as quickly as I wanted it to be done, but I don't like to be told that something can't be done. That's very, that conversations we typically don't have in the business. So you're right.

When she does come at me and say, here's what's going to happen. If I feel compelled, I will challenge that. And I get my team to come back to me with new solutions. And I think that makes us a better business. I agree. I agree. Well, and as leaders, we're wired the same way. When someone says no or we can't, it almost just makes you that much more like, I'm going

show you we can. And so many of our listeners are business owners, but if you're not an owner and you're hearing this right now, don't miss that if you want to get your leader bought into something, you've got to bring some options and be solution oriented. And so there's these two extremes where you say yes to everything blindly and you don't inform the leader that that could inadvertently be creating pain that they're going to hate later when they find out that everything's burning down. Or you say no to everything because you're worried about, well, I got to protect the team and our current pace that we're on and the resources and projects that we have dedicated right now. There's an art to coming in and going, let me make sure you remember our entire landscape here.

And I hear where you want to go. Here's some ways I think we could get there. Here's some options and solutions. And by the way, if we're going to do that, are we okay with shifting the timeline a little bit? But being solution-oriented is so key, isn't it? Oh, it's so key. And I love that you remind the person that doesn't own the company that, you know, So different options are like my favorite thing.

And I think that's very normal of an owner. And also I want to point out that when my right hand comes to me and says, that's a great idea, but here's what's going to be compromised. To be clear, she really comes to me and says, we can do that. So I think it's important that we as owners build a team that anything is possible. We can do that, but here's what that would mean. And I think it's just sometimes language makes a huge difference. Because you're right. If she came to me and said, we can't do that and here's why.

Literally, I come out of my skin because I'm like, what do you mean? We can do anything. So I think language plays a big part in how I communicate to my team and how my team communicates to me about new projects and boundaries and limitations or not. That's so good. So let's come back to the marketing side of this a little bit. We're talking about telling stories. We've talked about getting some traction on a bridge that goes all the way across the river. and we're doing this consistently. One thing that you're really good at, Amy, I think you're the best in the business, is getting people to understand

how to use content and tell stories in a way that adds value to their audience that turns into building a tribe that eventually becomes your customer base where you don't have to do a lot of other traditional marketing. You don't have to work from scratch every month to start with, how are we going to get some customers this month?

But you actually have this following, regardless of whether you're an online marketing company or you're an HVAC company in the middle of Kansas. This is the game that we can all play these days as business owners. How do we get into that game? And let's talk about if we're not already doing digital marketing and online content kind of stuff, why we should be, even if we aren't necessarily seeing ourselves as we're in that industry per se. So I am, as you said, a huge fan of content marketing. And the short answer to why you should start doing it in your business is that likely your competitors are not.

And so a lot of people won't do this because it does take planning. It does take some focus. And you can batch your content, meaning do a bunch of content at once so you're not constantly on a hamster wheel. But one thing I learned working with Tony Robbins is he said, you never want to reinvent the wheel in your marketing. You want to figure out one, two, three things that work and then continue to do them over and over again really, really well. Or figure out who's doing it well, learn how they're doing it and you do it in your business. But starting from scratch every month or trying to create a promo really quickly because last month didn't do so well, that's what slows you down in your business.

And so with content marketing, if you get a system going that you know, okay, every other week we're creating a new blog post or podcast or new video and we know rain or shine, this is coming out, you get into a rhythm that makes it so much easier. But anytime I talk about this, the number one question I get asked is, what am I creating? What kind of content am I even putting out there? Do you tend to see that a lot too? Yes. And I think a lot of business owners that are more traditional businesses, I mean, you look at Tony Robbins or you look at Amy Porterfield or Dave Ramsey or Mike Hyatt and you go, their product is content. So they've got this content factory that's always generating all this content and they take pieces of that and they put it out there as stuff that goes into the marketing.

How do we a company that manufactures machines for the dental industry? What is our content? Because our product is actually this machinery. So I think sometimes that's the disconnect. I agree. So funny you were talking about bridges earlier. I have another metaphor with bridges, but it's a little bit different. And what I teach my students is that when you're creating content, I want you to think about

whatever it is you're going to sell. So that's the end game. Whatever it is on this side, let's say there's a bridge. On one side, somebody is not ready to buy from you. They're brand new into your world. They're doing their research. They're thinking about it, whatever it might be. And on the other side is your product that is perfect for them.

And in between there is an invisible bridge. And your customers or potential customers, your community, they must walk over this invisible bridge before they're ever ready to buy. And the content you create is helping them walk over an invisible bridge. So Marcus Sheridan is a friend of mine. And he's got this great book where he talks about content marketing. And I cannot think of the name of it. But in this book, he talks about he had a pool business.

And he sold pools. He manufactured or built pools for residents. And they always had the same questions. How much is it cost to build a pool? What kind of pool should I create? How do you know if your house is going to be a good fit for a pool? Like all these questions, he had like 10 that people asked over and over again. So those were the invisible bridge questions. They needed to walk over them before they would ever call them up and say, I want to talk to you about putting a pool. in my house. And so his content, he created blog post, just flat out answered the questions that his competitors likely didn't want to put out there. They wanted you to call them and maybe they could assess the situation and then maybe give you some information. But he thought, I'm just putting it out there. These are the 10 questions I get asked all the time about building a pool in your backyard. Here it is. And he became the go-to source because people were searching for the information and he told them the truth. He walked him over the invisible bridge so that they were. ready to give them a call and talk about that pool. That's the kind of content you create.

Yeah. It sounds like you're saying everyone's already having conversations with their customers. And if you would just start with what's going on in those conversations and see it as content, you do have the raw ingredients. Yes, exactly. That is the raw ingredients. And that's what you put out there. Now, it could be as simple as putting it out there in a video or a podcast or a written blog, but just you put it out there because that literally opens up so much trust. They're looking for answers and right there, there you are, giving exactly what they're looking for. That builds trust instantly with your audience.

So as we build trust, trust leads to better relationships and our audience becomes warmer, right? If you think of old school sales, you've got to get your cold prospects to become warm, warm to hot, hot to close. You know, there's kind of this funnel that people are going through over time where they're getting more familiar with your brand, when is the right time to then make the ask or how's the best way to do that, to just go from these blog posts that we're putting out, do we put a sale at the bottom ever, every proposed? I don't think that's it. But what's the best way to then eventually, we got to get the cash registered at ring, Amy. When do we actually do that?

So I'm a big fan of growing an email list. And let's say that because, and here's why, when you have an email list in your business, I look at that as one of the most important assets in your business. I always say the energy of your business, the revenue, the engagement, the relationships, the transactions, the energy of your business is directly tied to the strength of your email list. And the reason for that is if you have an email list and you really know how to engage your audience, they're excited to hear from you, they're opening up those emails, they are more likely to buy than anybody on social media. Also, if you build your business, you build your audience only on social media, you are building your business on rented land. At any time, Mark Zuckerberg

can change that algorithm and he has and your business now operates differently and likely not as well as it was before. And so for me, I always teach my students, let's use social media to attract an audience, but let's bring them into your world by offering a lead magnet, a freebie, some kind of giveaway. Now, it might be a PDF where it's the top 10 questions to ask before you install at HVAC, or it might be something like a cheat sheet to help people get quick results. I'm always looking for quick results, but easy to digest. But you want in, let's say, let me back up, we call it a content upgrade. You write a blog post, and in that blog post, you link to a freebie, a content upgrade. So you link to a cheat sheet, a checklist,

a quick video. People have to give their name and email to get this extra content. But when they do, now they're on your email list. And now you can create a relationship. And that is where you sell. You sell through your email list more than you ever sell through social media. And the email list, they're more loyal to you because you've been building a relationship and engaging with them. They're more likely to respond. I literally, would not have the business I have today without an email list. Yes, that's so good. Well, I love how you're talking about the relationship between what I would call the megaphone, which is your place that you go loud on social media or this podcast as an example. So people listening to this

podcast, we're adding value, we're teaching. We're not making an ask. I mean, you can listen to this podcast for free forever and we're going to be your friends and we're going to cheer for you if you never become a customer that pays us a dime. That's why we're here. We love helping business owners when, period. And you're going to hear an ad in a second. that says, hey, to get this great free resource about marketing and some things that we're doing with Amy, text in 33444, keyword. Well, what happens when they do that is they give us their email, and then our email team makes sure that we continue to add value. We give them the resource, and then eventually they're going to hear about one of our live events.

And that might turn into a lead that they talk to a sales advisor and they come to an event, always serving all the way through, not being slimy about it, not being manipulative. But it's so important that we're adding value all along the way. You talked about people putting up their wall, and we're bringing down that wall, not so we can sucker punch them, but we can continue to serve them. So how do we make sure the pacing, you know, as a business owner, you're thinking, like, how far is too far and too fast to make an ask? How do we know when they're ready? If we're pulling them on these journeys from social media to an email, then what? Is the next month in the email, do we make the ask, or do we have to wait a full year?

How do we kind of sort that stuff out? The first thing you want to do is, like you just said, how do you sort that out? I would love for you to get on a whiteboard. And I want to see you really map it out. Somebody comes into your world from social media. And on social media, they hear that you have a blog post telling them how to get started with XYZ. They go to your blog.

From there, reading the blog, getting so much value, you've got this freebie, this lead magnet that they're like, oh, that's exactly what I've been looking for. They opt in. now they're on your email list. Now, from there, how many more times do you want to communicate with them before you make an offer? What offer would you make from somebody coming in from, let's say, a blog or from social media? And what needs to happen? Where else do they need to cross that invisible bridge? Like, what else do they need to know, be aware of, understand before they're ever ready to say, yes, I want to talk about buying from you, whatever that might mean? So I'm going to repeat that

question one more time because it's important when you're creating free content, you're nurturing your audience, you're sending emails, you want to ask the question, what does my ideal customer need to know, understand, be aware of, or believe before they're ever ready to take out their wallet and spend money with me? It might be a mindset shift, a strategy they need to understand, a step they need to take, whatever that might be. But usually it's a few different pieces of content, a blog, a video, a few different podcast episodes before you're ever offering something in terms of what they could buy. So there is more than just social media, read a blog, opt-in, sell. There's got to be some nurture time in there, whether it be two to three emails, maybe it's a video you send them,

but you do need to nurture them. And that's where you need to decide what needs to happen there. I will tell you it's not six months down the road. It probably isn't three months down the road. Just think, how can I get them past that invisible bridge before I make an offer? You said something in there that I want to make sure we don't miss. And it was kind of nested in that question, my ideal customer. Yes. Had you asked me 10 years ago, what's the ideal customer for Entree leadership? I would have kind of had that golden retriever head tilt look like, what do you mean by that? Leaders everywhere. No business owners. No business owners and leaders and pastors. And it was just anybody who will buy. And so. And that is so normal, right? We see.

that in the beginning, it's confusing. So why is it important and how do we figure out who our ideal customer is? Yes. So it's important because when you're creating content, when you're building your email list, when you're putting together your offers, you must know who you're talking to. And when you know who you're talking to, what I mean by that is you're thinking of your ideal customer. You must know what they want, what they need, what their challenges are, their pain points, their desires. You really do need to know your office. audience inside and out. Now, I say that, and anyone just starting out, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, how would I even figure that out? The challenge here is it takes some time.

It takes years to really dial it in, although right now you could make some assumptions, some educated guesses based on what you know about your audience from engaging with them. So you just start. That's what you do. When you're developing your ideal customer, you just start. What we do is we just start with bullet points. Like who do we think they are? And we just start kind of naming this person or kind of shaping them into a real person. And then from there, we kind of experiment and say, okay, if we think this person, like for me, if I think my ideal customer is somebody who has expertise, knowledge, and know-how,

and they want to stop going from one-on-one customers to one to many, meaning create a digital course, if I think that's who my audience is and I think they're still in corporate, then I might put out some lead magnets, some blog posts, some podcast about how to move from corporate into your own world and see how it's received. So your content will help you shape who it is your marketing to. There's a little bit of trial and air here. But first, just sit down and think, who do I want to serve? Who do I have access to? Who is my ideal customer? And then from there, things start to take shape. I want you to say more about the fear that comes up when we choose to focus and the fear of drawing the box too narrowly.

So in Entree leadership, our ideal customer is business owners between two and 200 employees. And back in the day, when we didn't have that clearly defined, we had big customers sending us big checks from companies with thousands of employees. And so you can imagine the tension in the room when we start saying, okay, we're going to define this as two to 200, but what about these big companies, you know, or what about the companies that don't have employees yet? And there's this fear that you're going to miss out on the opportunity if you get really specific on this is who our customer is because it means everybody else maybe is not that customer. Yes.

My students really struggle with this one because they want to serve everybody. They have the hugest hearts and they're like, I don't want to leave anybody out. And here's what happens. When you want to serve everybody and you don't dial it into who specifically you serve, you're casting this huge wide net with big whole. in it. So you're literally not really landing anywhere with that. You're not grabbing anybody's attention because it's watered down. It's way too big so people cannot resonate with your messaging or who you actually are serving. And so they believe, oh, well, she's not for me because they can't even see themselves in your marketing. So for me and my business, about, I don't know, seven,

eight years ago, I made the decision to say that I serve coaches, consultants, teachers, educators who want to create a digital course. Because my business, like I said, is very simple. I don't have a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of moving parts. I teach people how to grow an email list, how to create a digital course, and how to launch online. And so from there, like, let's say you have a mom-and-pop shop, a t-shirt shop in a seaside town, and you want to get more people in your door. I know how to help those people, but I needed to narrow down who I serve with my products. So I'm not necessarily what I sell in my business a perfect fit for them. And I had to be okay with that, but here's why I finally got behind it.

I knew that my business would grow, my audience would grow when people could see themselves in my messaging and in my stories. That's the magic that I think people, it's a hard thing to wrap your head around, that you actually, you go smaller, your business gets bigger. Well, and you become known as the person in that space who is for those people and those people hang out with those types of people. And so you get this viral word of mouth thing going on when people go, hey, this is our tribe leader. This is our person because they're being the champion of the things that we deal with.

And what we found, Amy, I'm sure you found this too. The people who are one degree outside of your target still show up and get value. They still become customers. So it's not necessarily you have to cut all that off. But when you don't focus with your marketing, like you said, the stories you're telling are all over the place and nobody can relate to it. Exactly. Say more about, you know, creating a course and having an offer online. I think about some people that are in B2B and the sales are big, multimillion dollar and complex over time.

There's really a lot of value to adding a line of business, a new revenue stream of here's what we know. If we're consultants in the space, for example, we can have a course that serves as kind of a tripwire that gets us some people that buy that course. So we got a little bit of revenue. But now we also have a whole lot more warmer leads. If they've bought this course, they've essentially raised their hand and said, we may be interested in you consulting with us at a much bigger level. I think a lot of people opt out of the course thing because they think, well, we're not really teachers. We're not really educators. But there are so many businesses that could be creating courses for a lot of benefits, not just revenue. It's so true. One of the things that a digital course can do for your business is just like you said, it invites people in to start thinking in a new way, getting value while also learning from you. So seeing how you work and how you do things because people buy from people, meaning they don't want to buy from a brand. And so digital courses allow people to get to know you and your team more so than almost any other marketing vehicle out there. And so, it's more personal, it's more approachable, and so incredibly valuable. Now, if you were to create a

digital course in your business, you don't have to actually even sell it. Or like you said, you could do a tripwire situation where, I don't know, it's $20, $30 to take this course, but it might bring in a little revenue, but more importantly, like you said, warmer leads. People that go through digital courses are more, are they're paying attention, they're focusing, they're in it more. One of my students, she created a digital course and gave it away for free. And she's in the weight loss sector. And she teaches her three basics of losing weight. And it's a free course.

She's had over 300,000 people go through this course. And she's seen her revenue skyrocket into her bigger program. She's a membership experience because people got to know her at a really easy, no-barrier level. And I think that's another way to look at a digital course. I really like that. The concept of a tripwire, if you're not familiar with this, when people pull out their wallet for the first time, that's a huge threshold. And so if you can get someone to pull out their wallet and say, I trust you with a small amount, let's say it's $10 for this course. Making up stuff, probably more than that. But later you're going to ask me to pay you a thousand dollars. Well, now, at the $1,000 point, I still need to believe there's enough value and trust you and feel like all the benefits are going to address my pain point. etc. All that still has to be true, but it's not the first time I've pulled out my wallet. It's not the first time that I've given you money and then exchange that for a valuable experience. Say more about the psychology of, you know, why it's important to get people to purchase

its smaller amounts on the way to a bigger offer. Yeah, because there is so much less commitment there. It's an easy yes. So in marketing, especially for when you're marketing online, we're always looking for these opportunities to give our potential customers an easy yes, a no-brainer offer or opportunity. And so with a tripwire type situation, it's just they don't even need to think twice, like, ooh, this looks valuable. It's 10 bucks. No brainer.

Let's do this. But now they're in your world. They literally have given you money. They are a customer. And when people pay, they pay attention. And although, let's say if they pay $1,000 versus $10, that's a different. level of commitment, I understand. But when there's money in the game, they feel as though they're going to show up in a different way because they invested in this. We all know, and this

has happened to so many of us, someone's given us something for free, whether it be my friends who have digital courses and they're like, hearing me, you could take my course for free, or you can have this experience for free. And a lot of the times, we just don't even partake in that because we think, oh, I'll get to it, I'll get to it. It was free, no big deal. It's like a free book. You hardly ever read a free book because it just feels like it's not as valuable. It's so true. When people I do not know, mail me their book, I am so less invested in that versus I went on Amazon.

I want this book. And it's $10, but I bought it. I want it. So they're making a decision. They're saying, Amy, I want this and I'm going to prove it to you. So now it's in their court versus you just pushing different content at them without them having a buy-in. So we're building trust. we're telling stories. We've got our megaphone things pointing to our email list. Our email list

launches a course at some point. Yes. And the idea of a launch is really important because I experience this with Andre leadership. It's like we're always just available, you know, especially for our membership program. You know, you can buy it now, you can buy it later. There was never urgency to get in. There was never a reason to really talk about it in a big way. I want to say more or have you say more rather about the idea of a launch versus just this omnipresent offer. And there's some really cool things that go on there when you're launching something. Yes. Okay. So first, let's kind of define what a launch is. And in my world, and you can tell me if you're thinking differently, in my world, you have a start date and an end date where people

can buy and then they can't buy. So we call it cart open and cart close for internal purposes. And like you said, this idea of scarcity or urgency is important because it's, you know, human nature for people to think, you know, if it's always available, I'll just get it later. I'll just get it later. My life is crazy right now. My kids are in all these sports. I've got so much going on. I'll get it. And they never get it. And when you believe in what you have to sell, when you know you can get people the results they're looking for, I feel as marketers, it's our duty to say, no, now is the time because I know what you're looking for is literally on the other end of this product I'm selling you. You can get those results now.

So with that, I think having a launch is so important because you can then plan. And we haven't talked a lot about planning today. And I think planning is an important part of building this marketing structure in your business. You can plan when you're going to go big with a specific campaign. So if you look at your calendar and you say, okay, twice a year, we're going to do a campaign around this product or this service. Then you're working toward it. So when I launch my team for two to three months, they're focusing to you. time on getting ready to open the doors, welcome a bunch of new people into it, and then create

the scarcity and the urgency and the content and the webinar and all of that, and then we close the doors. And what that means internally is we can take a breath. So if you're always go, go, go, go, you're going to burn out. But if you plan, okay, this is our specific campaign slash launches, you know when you can take a breath or when it's going to be your busy season and you're in it. So it really creates a rhythm in your business as well. Yeah, I really like that. You know, it's not normal these days for people to pause and do something at a certain point in time. And I really love the idea of an event. Because when somebody announces they're getting married, we do still stop and we show up.

And we all come together on that day. Or when somebody's having a birthday party and all the psychology that goes into anticipating the party, planning the party, I mean, both sides, the people planning the party, the people attending, the catering. there's just all these things that come together in a moment and time that our brains are wired to you know like feel the energy of that and it culminates with something and there's just something that is energetic about that than just this constant anytime you want you can come over and we'll party with you you know it just has a different feel when you send out an invitation it makes it special exactly and so and it also allows you to be creative and think okay if i've got let's say 10 days

to do a specific promotion, what are all the things I want to do? And when am I going to do them? When you get more intentional about planning your campaigns and your launches, you actually show up in such a bigger way. Imagine if in your calendar for 2021, you have three or four specific campaigns. You have the dates. You know exactly when they're happening versus, holy cow, this month, we are short. We better hurry up and scramble because next month we've got to make up for it. It's a whole different experience as a business owner and as a team as a whole. Yeah, that's amazing. Another thing we found, this probably isn't true for every business, but when we shifted our membership program, Entree Leadership Elite, away from just always available to being open four times a year, we got this

whole other added benefit in the mastermind groups, because when business owners are coming into elite, they're joining a mastermind group that's their cohort that they walk with. And it's Almost like a fall semester is, you know, the courses are open and fall semester starts on this date. And then you and all of your fellow students are going through the semester together at the same time. And you build community that way. You build consistency. And what we were having is it was just always available. And so you could have a mastermind group that was going really well, eight to ten people.

And then we got a new person that would parachute in because they bought yesterday. And we're going, hey, we're going to shove them in your group, if that's okay. And they're like, hey, we don't, who's the new guy? or people would come and go and they would leave. And, you know, so the idea of a group that's going to walk together is kind of how our customer model is set up. And that was another advantage of kind of doing this open, closed. And it gives you this sense of start, stop. So some businesses have that component.

You should be thinking about how could this better serve your customers if you created a rhythm for them and how they experience your service? Yes, that. I love that, too. You create a rhythm within your business for your internal team and a rhythm for you. for your customers as well. People like to know what's coming down the pipeline. They like to know what to expect in the future. And I think that planning your calendar as such really does add value to your customers as much as to your internal team. You've mentioned planning a few times. I know this is really important. I struggle to plan. I'm the idea person and then I launch and

leave and everybody's like, wait, we don't have a plan. What are we going to do? It's a discipline. And to do this well, we really do have to have a plan. We have to look at the calendar. and all the aspects of the campaign. Let's talk about the importance of planning and then also as business owners who are really busy, why it's so hard to do and maybe what we can do about it. Yes. Okay, so I'm a natural planner. I could plan for 10 days in a row because I love it so much.

I kind of have to take myself out of the planning. You're so weird. Right? So weird for sure. I envy it. But so here's the thing why I love to plan. I really do like to know what. is coming down the pipeline and how we're going to approach it in order to get the best results.

And a lot of the times, in my early days, I didn't know how to plan anything and I didn't plan. And I literally worried the whole time. What are we going to do? When are we going to do it? How are we going to do it? And that worry in my head literally took me out of the game. I was less creative. I was stressed out all the time. And I really didn't know how we were going to make money consistently. And so when we started to plan, and let's talk a little bit about what that might look like, then I could kind of breathe and say, okay, we've got a plan. And when the plan didn't work out, then I could pivot and make tweaks knowing that everything else for the rest of the year has been planned out. So maybe we want to tweak it a little bit, but we're never starting

from scratch. So to me, it's so important to plan your entire year. Now, you don't have to have every single date in the calendar and be incredibly rigid. But like we said, plan. out your promotions is a really great thing for the entire year to know how to space them, what they might look like. Now, here's a great thing. When you plan your promotions, you're also planning the revenue that's going to come with those promotions and the expenses that you're expecting. In the beginning, you're just taking educated guesses.

But now you can start to see, okay, what can we predict for the year if we've got these promotions in place? One of the challenges we did this year is we kept our biggest promotion. to the end of the year. I just finished it. And I did not like that because I thought, if this promotion doesn't work, I don't have very long to make up the revenue for it to hit our goal. And so one thing that's great about planning, you do it, you know what you liked about it, what you didn't like about it. You can bet that I've got a promo planned in March for next year so that I'm not keeping everything until September and October. So you learn what works

and what doesn't work in your business if you plan and then you take note about what you liked about it. But if you're not planning, then you're never debriefing about how the year went because everything felt loosey-goosey. And I think that makes a huge difference. I'm all about how I feel as a business owner and I want to feel more secure. Yeah, that's so good. Well, and you get more power. I learned to become a planner because I realized that if I will plan and embrace that discipline, it gives me power I didn't realize I had to do things that I didn't feel like could be done. And all of a sudden you go, oh, we've got another gear if we'll just put some intentional planning into this stuff. So true. So if I'm a business owner listening to this and I'm going, okay, I need to

start telling stories. I need to build these bridges one at a time, not too fast, email list, courses. This is a lot of work. Now I've got to plan all this stuff. Maybe I just need to hire somebody to do this. And maybe that's the case if you don't have a dedicated marketer on your team. What are the key pieces as the owner, the founder, the visionary that you can't just throw over the fence? We have a responsibility to make sure that we're plugged in at someone. level. And where's that line when we can start delegating to free up our time? Yeah, that's a great question. So as the owner and as the leader, I think the high level strategy, I always want to be involved at the high level strategy. And part of that is actually

planning out the whole year. So my marketing team will come to me and say, okay, here's what we're thinking, but I want to be involved in, okay, what does this mean for that if we put it here and what about this and to me that's incredibly important that I'm part of the whole strategic planning for the year. In addition to that, I think it's also important to be a part of the conversations that shape your marketing. And so that means that these might be initial meetings and then you can step out, but what is the story we're trying to tell? Who is it that we are serving and what are we providing for these people? So I think it's, and also one more thing, why are we doing what we're doing. I think you need to be involved in those initial kind of visionary conversations.

Why are we doing what we're doing? Who are we serving? How are we serving them? And then, of course, what is that going to look like throughout the next year? And so I like to be involved in those high-level conversations. And to me, that makes a huge difference. And from there, those are the things that, and like you said, then I'm always, I always free myself up to kind of dream and see what other people are doing and see how I might want to do that. So throughout the year, I'm always coming up with ideas that we can try. I see that as a visionary. I see that as my role. Yeah. So good. In a second, I'm going to ask you what I believe is the most important question of this entire conversation. I'm nervous. You're going to do great. But first, I want

people to hear where they can find out more about you. Your podcast, online marketing made easy. It sounds like a great resource to start if people are wanting to get into the space more and learn more about how they can do this. It is. Thank you for mentioning that. It's all about list building and where to start with your online marketing and really how to make sure you're spending your time in the right places. So if you're just getting started with marketing, I think online marketing made easy, the podcast is a great resource. Lots of fun. I know our marketing team listens to it. I hear get talked about quite a bit and it's a great place to get started. So definitely check that out. Okay, Amy, 2020 has been a really rough year for a lot of business owners.

I want you to take off your marketing expert hat for a second. And I just want you to talk as a business owner to your fellow business owners out there who have been facing a lot of challenges. A lot of us are tired. A lot of us have, you know, we're talking about just getting scrappy and having to pivot and make adaptations, change our business models. A lot of people have had to lay off people that they didn't want to lay off just because of cash flow restrictions.

And it's crazy. What can you say to encourage their hearts, their minds, things that you're that you've learned this year about tenacity and pushing forward in the face of adversity because that's what it's all about in business. It truly is. What I would say to anyone listening right now who definitely is feeling it, like you mentioned, I'd say that we were made for these times as entrepreneurs and business owners. This is where we truly can shine.

We can show up and show ourselves, show our team members, show our community what we're made of. And it's not too late. If you've shown up in a way that you're not so impressed with yourself, you've struggled, you've stumbled, right now, right this minute, you can make a change and say, I'm going to show up as my best self. I'm going to be nimble. I'm going to make the pivots I need to make. I'm going to make the hard decisions I don't want to make, but I know that I am capable of making, and I'm going to show up as my best self. I didn't know that I was such a strong leader, and this is true, until COVID happened. Because for me, I realize my students were struggling. They were, you know, really struggling financially. And I thought, I have to show up in the biggest way possible. And so think about who you want to show up for and how you want to show up. It's not too late. We're in this for the long haul. And I really do believe this is the time that you show yourself what you're made of. I love it. I'm inspired just hearing that. I can tell your passion is there. It's real. I can tell you've been showing up for your people this year. And thank you for showing up in this conversation today for the

hundreds of thousands of business owners out there listening. Amy, you've been a friend of entree leadership for many years. Guys, if you're listening to this and you're wondering, is this just some lady that we found who's good at, no, listen, she has helped us build entre leadership and probably more ways than you realize, but our marketing team has been dialed into your stuff, your workshops, your formulas, your courses, we've consumed it all, we've used it all, and we get to help business owners win because you've helped us win. So thank you for who you are and what you've done. And you guys got to check her out. Amy Porterfield, the webinar queen, the online marketing queen.

She knows her stuff, people. So be sure to go check out her podcast. And what's the website if people want to find that as well? Amy Porterfield.com. And thank you so much. I'm a huge fan of everything you all do. So your words mean the world to me. Thanks again.

Thanks, Amy. All right, guys, incredible conversation about marketing. I know there's a lot of practical information in there. A lot of things that you can just build a to-do list and say, we're going to start doing that and start doing that and line up some projects. But if you didn't get anything, I hope you got this. And that is, if you have a company, if you have a business, you have a story. And if you have a story, you have content. Now, I've talked with thousands of business owners and many of them would say, we're not a content company. That's not our thing. We're not a media company. Look, I get it. But you have to think of yourself as a content company if you want to maximize your marketing. You have a story. You have customers. There's conversations happening all the time. So it takes a little bit of creative, work, it takes a little bit of intentionality, some creativity maybe to say, we're going to take

that stuff and we're going to publish it in a way that makes it easy to share and makes it fun for potential customers to learn about us. That's how simple this is. So this week, here's your homework. Sit down, look around and go, what are the conversations that are happening that we can turn into a story and then take that story and put it online or put it on Instagram and just share the story. It doesn't have to be this world-class production. It just has to be you and it has to be real. Do that stuff and you're going to be on your way to becoming a content production organization where leads are generated and they're coming at you and they're already hot and they're excited and they want to get involved. That's what it's all about. Also, you guys know that if you want to

have a marketing team or any kind of team for that matter, you've got to get really good at delegating. We talk about this a lot in Entree leadership. If you want to build a team, what's the point of having a team if you can't delegate. Delegation's hard. It's scary sometimes. I've done it wrong. I've done it right. I've made a lot of mistakes. Dave and our entire team here, well, we've learned a lot about delegation. And we've also worked with thousands of business owners in our coaching team about how to delegate more effectively so you, the business owner, can get more time to work on the business, not just in it. That's why our coaching team has built a free guide just for you specifically about delegation.

It's the Entree Leaders Guide to Delegation. To get this free guide, just text the word Delegate to 33444. Again, text Delegate to 33444 or just click on the link in the show notes. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership Podcast. Hey, do you know somebody that would enjoy this episode? Well, if you do, we'd love it if you would send them a link and share this episode with them. You're the reason this podcast grows. You guys share it with your friends, your family, other business people,

Thank you for doing that. That's how we get the word out. That's how we help more business owners win. Also, you can follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. You can follow me on Instagram at Daniel Tarty. And for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, you can review this episode by clicking the link in the show notes. This episode was produced by Tim Hull.

It was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty. And on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thank you for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like The Christy Wright Show. Hey, y'all, I'm Christy Wright. You know, it's so easy to feel stuck. You live life, just going through the motions, doing dishes, doing laundry, carpool lines, and a whole list of commitments that bring you no joy. We say yes to what everyone expects of us, and we have no energy or time for what we want. And let's be honest, most of the time, we don't even know what we want. Why do we live like that? certainly never called us to. You know, I believe that the life God has for us is bigger and more

amazing than any of us realize. That's why I want you to check out the Christy Wright Show. Every week, we will fire you up to break through what's holding you back and inspire you to create a life you love and are proud of. Each episode will help you build confidence in yourself and the God that created you. To hear full episodes, just search Christy Wright wherever you listen to podcasts or go to ramsysolutions.com slash shows.