Welcome to another episode of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
I’m really excited today because I want to talk about what’s working right now in marketing, and honestly, I want to have this conversation mostly because I think that there are a lot of people making a really good living off of telling you what worked five years ago or three years ago or a year ago, and it’s not necessarily what I’m seeing, not just in my business but in our Uncommonly More clients’ business. That’s one of the cool things about having the agency this year is I’m able to really share with you a larger perspective, and a variety of information than I have in a really long time.
We’re going to dig into three things that are 100% working right now, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the importance of paying attention to what’s working for you. That’s really what I want to start this conversation with. It’s really, really easy to, and this is a soapbox you’ve heard me climb on before, but it’s really easy to want to take the easy way out, there’s no way for me to soften thing, and like want to go the easy way and say, “This is working for so-and-so. I will just try on that same dress, and it will work for me; I’ll just slap on those same pair of boots, and those will work for me.” That’s not necessarily or even kind of a little the case.
That’s why we have to be paying attention to the questions that I ask all the time. We’ve talked about this on Instagram, we’ve talked about this on this podcast, we’ve talked about it on Facebook Lives, we’ve talked about it in the Backstage community, we talk about it at Backstage Live. It’s actually where we’re kicking off Backstage Live VIP, the 12-month program that I announced last week. Our workshop on November 21st, our kickoff call is literally these three questions, what are we selling, who are we selling it to, and that’s how we answered the third question, how are we selling it.
That’s really what’s going to happen over the course of those workshops throughout the year. But first, we have to answer those first two questions, who are we selling this to and what are we selling because those two things are going to dictate the how. Those two things are a filter you need to run any trend, idea, suggestion, whatever through before you go all in.
A great example is I know a couple of people who have in the years past, done really flipping well with webinars. It has been like an ATM cash machine, money in the bank, you’re good to go, we just run this webinar. In 2019, they’ve consistently struggled with getting people to sign up, to show up. When you can’t get people to sign up or show up, your percentages are going to hold, but because you’ve got a smaller audience, your end result number is going to be significantly smaller, whereas when we shifted some of that webinar content into podcast content or blog articles or video, we were able to distribute it at a much larger number. Guess what? We’re able to make up that other side.
But still, we all see the Facebook ads, we all see the program’s telling you that the only way to make money online are webinars, Here’s the reality of this. Let’s just be completely, brutally honest. In the course of my business, I would say webinars are one of the top five least effective ways for me to generate revenue. I have taken podcasts courses or, I’m sorry, webinar courses. I have tested webinars, I have tried on webinars, I have gone at them over and over and over and over and over again, and still, they remain one of the least reliable ways for me to generate revenue. It’s not because I’m bad at webinars. It’s because my audience doesn’t want to show up. My audience doesn’t want to watch. They will 100% show up and watch a training they paid money to go see, but they don’t tend to respond to a webinar.
Now, if I put that exact same content, and I know this because this is how this content exists, as a three-day challenge kind of structure or an on-demand video training structure, you will sign up, and you will take action, and you will convert because you signed up, and you took action, and you saw, “Oh, hey, this actually works.” For years now when webinars have been touted as the only answer, I have stood differently. I have seen a different result. Now. I could go, “Well, I suck. I’m just not doing this right,” and I could keep pouring money into something that didn’t work, or, or I could look at what does work, this podcast. There’s a reason we’ve done 460 plus episodes of this show because it works, my social media presence because it works, my going out and getting in front of audiences and speaking on stages because it works, my nurturing my relationships and being a value to the people I’m connected with because it works.
I want you to think about before we go into these three tactics, which we’re going to start in just a second, as I’m saying these things, I want you to run it through the filter of those two questions, who am I selling this to and what am I selling them. Because here’s the other side of it, we’ve talked a little bit about the who not being connected, but the what not being connected. It’s real hard to sell a $30,000 Mastermind off the back end of a webinar. I’m sure someone claims to do it. I’m absolutely positive of it, but it’s real hard, real, real hard. But, you might be totally able to sell a $200 program off the back end of a prerecorded webinar depending on who the audience is. But, that’s an example of where what you’re selling impacts how you’re going to sell it.
Generally speaking for me, my higher end stuff, so agency services, even this new VIP offering, where you’re going to be spending 12 months with me, it’s a $500 a month investment for 12 months and that’s at our early bird price. After October 18th, that goes up to our regular price of 800 per month and realistically this is the first year we’re running it. This is a beta test pricing. I can’t say that this rate will be the same if and when we run it again, but it’s still, it’s an investment. It’s a real investment that you need to consider. I’m not going to try to sell it to you off the back end of a webinar.
The people who are converting the quickest, the people who are the most interested, the earliest are going to be the people who have been through Backstage Live before, who are already in Hit the Mic Backstage and the Membership Community, people who have been listening to this show for a long time, people in my network, referrals from people in my network. Because I’m asking you, let’s set aside the money, I’m asking you to spend a year hanging out with me. I don’t know about you, but I’m real conscientious about who I’m going to commit to spending a year with. It’s a long time. Contrary to owning a business, having a child and being married, I’m a real commitment-phobic. Okay? That’s a long amount of my energy that I have to have tied up with somebody.
I want to know they don’t suck, and so I’m not going to get that from a 30-minute webinar, I’m not going to get that from one Facebook ad, I’m not going to get that from a single email. Where am I going to get that from is experiencing them through the course of a little training or a smaller purchase or a series of emails or for following them for a while or for bingeing a bunch of their podcasts episodes. Who and what are so, so critical for you to consider first. All right, I’m going to put that soapbox away. It was a little longer than I expected, but we’re going to put it away now.
I want to talk about these three things. These are the three things I am seeing working right now in my business, in our client’s businesses, people in my network, other marketers I talk to. These are the things that are working really, really well right now.
Podcasts WORK
I’m really excited about the first one because it’s my favorite, and that’s direct sales from the podcast. Probably more this year than any of the four years before this year, because we’ve been doing the show for five years, have I seen sales show up in our cart without somebody having ever been on my email list and in a couple cases, having never followed me via social. They literally just listen to the podcast. I had no idea they were consuming. They showed up, they bought, and they were in it to win it. They’ve been great. They’ve been absolutely ideal, wonderful customers. I’ve seen that a little bit over the entire lifespan of this podcast, but never ever at the frequency in which I’ve seen it this year.
It’s interesting because I went into this year, and I think I talked about this maybe on a conversation I had on Tara Newman’s podcast, or I don’t know. I’ve had this conversation somewhere, but I went into this year really not sure what I wanted to happen with the show because I was like, “I have been doing this a long time. We’ve done over 400 episodes. I feel like I’ve said all the things I want to say. What is next for the show?” Like an answer from the heavens, all of the sudden, out of nowhere, I was getting clients showing up who have no other connection to me, but this show.
I started getting emails from people who said, “I’ve been listening to the show since the beginning. Thank you so much for what … like out of freaking nowhere. I have seen this podcast audience get so much more vocal this year, both like verbally, like through a message or whatever, but also with your dollar bills, investing in what was next for you. We’ve seen that across our clients. We’ve seen that … I’m seeing that in my friends with my Mastermind and things like that who have podcasts. They are seeing dollar, dollar bills show up directly as a result and solely as a result of their podcast content.
Now again, run this through the filter. Maybe it’s not a podcast for you, maybe it’s a video series, maybe it’s a blog, whatever it is. Where I would like to say semi-universally I’d like you to take advantage of this, and this is a caveat that I didn’t actually intend to include, but I’m going to, you can generate the same kind of experience without having your own show. This is 100% something you can do through guesting. Here’s the v sort of asterisk on that though, it means treating your process of getting and showing up on other people’s podcasts as seriously as you would if it was your show. That means having the right equipment, that means setting yourself up to be a five-star guest, that means really giving a time commitment to showing up and consistently being in front of podcast hosts. I’m choosing my words here a little bit because I don’t want this to be about harassing podcast hosts just blindly, but it means taking it as seriously, really actually researching shows.
I get dozens of pitches per month of people who want to be on the show, but because you listen to the show every week, you know I don’t very often have guests on this show. If you listen to the episodes where I do have guests, you’ll hear me say, “So-and-so is a client, so-and-so was invited here because.” I can’t think of anybody we’ve had on the show in the last year who isn’t a client either through the agency or who’s attended Backstage Live or who was inside of Backstage. I can’t think of a single one. That’s something really, really important for you to realize. If you’re going to take advantage of this technique, tactic tool, whatever via guesting and not having your own show, you need to be treating it as seriously as you would if it were your own show. All right, so podcasting is the first thing that is working right now. 1000% it is working, and I’m so, so excited about it.
Create Intimacy
Number two thing that is working, small communities. Not looking for the spaces where I can connect with 15,000 people, but looking at some of the smaller events. Last December, I went to Racheal Cook’s CEO Retreat. There were maybe 25 women in the room, perfect. I got to actually connect and have a conversation with these women. I got to actually spend time talking about my business, talking about their business. Guess what? That was really impactful. Through my own events, doing Backstage Live in person and virtually this year, we’ve had groups of like 10-ish. It’s been really, really valuable to connect in a small way.
When I’m looking at, because one of the things I’m looking at, at 2020 is more in-person stuff, really connecting my online and my offline, and we’re going to talk about that in just a second, but when I am looking at these opportunities, I’m not looking for luncheons or rooms filled with a hundred people. When I look at the events I’m going to be attending in 2020, they’re not 25,000 room or people rooms, they’re not 10,000-people rooms. They are, where can I get into a room that’s a hundred or 200 or 500 people? Where can I go in and connect more intentionally instead of just like in a mass sort of like firestorm of people? I say this as somebody who is an extrovert and who loves being around people, and who enjoys the experience of some of these larger events, to say what’s really actually moving the needle revenue-wise is getting in more intimate, more intentional rooms, and really being conscientious of that when I’m creating the rooms.
One of the things we’re going to be launching in 2020 is something that I haven’t done since we moved away from Phoenix. When I was living in Phoenix three years ago, I launched something called Women Entrepreneurs of Phoenix, and it was a monthly coffee date. It was two hours long. We really treated it more mastermindy. We capped the room at 15. Everybody kind of got a little time to sort of talk about their wins, and where they were maybe dragging a little bit and wanted some support. We did that once a month, and it was incredibly valuable for the room. It was also incredibly profitable for me in building real relationships, not necessarily because I sold at these events, but because in supporting each other, we all sort of highlighted our expertise, and so some women in the room hired me, some women referred me, but I generated a lot of business that way, and it was because we didn’t treat it as a firestorm of here’s my card, here’s what I do, what can you do for me now? But instead, we really nurtured an actual conversation.
We’re going to be relaunching those here in Southern California. I don’t know what I’m going to call it. I don’t even know where it’s going to be yet. It may be in the conference room here in my offices. I don’t know, but we’re going to be relaunching those in 2020 because again, this intentionality, this intimacy is really what’s working right now, and creating that same kind of atmosphere in this podcast. You’ll notice when I talk to you, I talked to you. I don’t talk to you guys. Every once in awhile, you’ll hear me say that, but more frequently you’ll hear me say you. You’ll hear me talking to you listening. That’s because I want you to know that I created this podcast for you, not for 50,000 people, but for you.
I want you to connect with what you can take away and see value in here and leave the rest for the next person listening when I’m talking to them, and they’ll get their thing.But this moment, this 20, 30 minutes I’m going to sit here and talk to my computer, I’m not talking to my computer. I’m talking to you. I think that intimacy goes a long way. I do the same thing in my stories. You’ll most often hear me in stories talk about you because when I’m creating them I’m creating them as if I were talking to you and not my cell phone. I think, again, that intimacy is what’s working, so finding ways to integrate that feeling and that energy and that intention in all of the different ways you’re connecting is going to be really incredible.
Bridge Online and Offline
The third thing I want to talk about is the and of marketing. More than ever, we’re seeing the value of bridging online and offline. I’ve talked about this a lot over the last five years, and something you’re going to hear me talk a ton more about in 2020 because I’m really recommitting to this because I’ll be honest, in the last couple of years since we’ve moved to California, I have not done a very good job of this. I’ve attended a couple of events here and there each year that I’ve traveled to. I haven’t done really very much in person, sort of local networking at all. I’ve been to maybe a couple of events since I’ve been here since we moved here in 2016.
In 2020, and really right now in Q4 of 2019, that’s changing. I have regular times in my calendar where I’m going to events, I’m going at connecting in person, and I do that not because online has stopped working, but because my online marketing work best when I fuel it with some offline marketing. Guess what? My offline working marketing is most effective when I partner it with an online followup, when I partner it with connecting on LinkedIn or following them on Instagram or sending them an email or probably all three of those things. Light stalking, it’s okay.
That’s really what I want you to look at as you go into 2020, as the other piece, is what events are you showing up at next year, where are you intentionally getting yourself physically in a room with other people, Because unlike any other time in the world, it’s easy for us to hide in our offices, in our beds, behind our computers, behind our phones, behind our iPads. I think the real separation of those who are really going to connect and achieve what they want to achieve in the next couple of years, are going to be the people willing to pull themselves out from behind that screen and connect in person.
Again, I’m raising my hand on this, babe. This is something that I have really dropped the ball on in the last three years since I’ve lived here, mostly because I don’t just … In Phoenix, I had lived there so long, I had such a great local network. I knew so many great people, but I was kind of always being taken someplace or told, or a friend of mine had an event, and I was going to go to that, or another friend of mine was speaking at an event, and I want to go support them. I don’t so much have that here. That’s something I’m really being intentional about correcting and about shifting because I’m 100% seeing the impact on my business. I’m also 100% seeing the impact on how I feel in my business kind of stuff. I like the in-person stuff. I like getting to sit face to face, belly to belly, however you want to talk about that with you guys. I want to get to hang out with you, and that means getting butt out of my office from time to time.
Those are the three things. Again, podcasting, intimacy, in person. All right? Those are the things I want you to be looking at in your marketing over the next year as we roll into 2020. As you’re building those plans for next year, I want you to think about those three things. I also want you to run those three pieces through that two question filter, who are we talking to, what are we selling them. Find your version of the three things we just talked about. Find how that trend or topic or technique or tool or whatever you want to call it works for you. All right? All right.
2020’s the year we’re going to not blindly follow trends. We’re not going to blindly jump in because some ad said they would definitely work for us, or our coach said we had to do it this way because that’s how they filled their client roster. Guess what? My coach and I don’t sell the same way because we don’t have the same offering because we don’t have the same business. We do have some of the same clients. That’s purely coincidence. That’s not actually coincidental at all. But, we have different whats, we have different whos, we have different hows all of that. That’s a good thing. Cool? All right.
I’m going to call it for today. I do want to remind you Backstage Live VIP is open right now, so if you would like support navigating all of these things as we roll into 2020, now’s a really good time to jump in because that first bonus of the sort of emergency, phone a friend, one on one call with me that you can use at any point in 2020, it’s going to be disappearing on Thursday, October 10th. That will be the final day that you’ll be able to get that bonus call. Other than that, there’s no one on one calls built into this program. There’s group calls, there’s a private one-to-one forum area where we can connect via text, and sometimes I drop video or audio messages in there. But for the most part, on the whole, this is your solution to being able to say “No, Stace, I just need to hop on the phone. I need to talk to you for an hour.” “Cool. Let’s do that.” You’ll have that in your back pocket without having to book an additional hour with me. All right?
Also, this is going to be, we’re going into like the last two weeks, 10 days, whatever of being able to book at the early bird price of 500 per month, that 12 payments of 500 instead of 800 a month, which is what will go up to on October 18th, so I highly, highly, highly recommend you get in now. If you have questions, if you’re not sure, if you want more information; send me a DM, send me an email, we will get you on my calendar, and we will talk it through.
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