Hello, love. Welcome to episode 485, and coincidentally, our last episode of Q2 2020. I feel like this means we’re officially at the halfway mark of the year. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to rally for a big, big second half. And so, what I want to talk about today is three things I want you to know about your marketing, I want you to be thinking about if you approach your marketing in Q3. Next week, just so you know, and mark your calendar right now, next week we’re going to do a mid-year review. We’re going to talk about the things we’re measuring, the things I learned in the first half of this year, some of the actions and changes I’m making for the second half of the year, and probably mostly a lot of the things I’m not changing for the second half of the year, which we’ll talk a little bit about today. So, stay tuned for that. That’ll come out the first episode of July, so 486, the very next episode in your feed should you be listening to this in the future.
Since I’m recording this in the present, technically everyone’s listening to this in the future. I feel like this is a real like rabbit hole we could go down that I’m not going to because then you’ll think I’m crazy. We’re just going to keep it here while you still think I’m just adorable. All right, let’s dig in. I want to cover this one pretty quickly because this is one of those episodes where I want you to really think about the things that you’re going to take action on at each of these pieces, and I want you to run with them. I want you to take massive actions. We’re going to keep this short and sweet.
Number one, I want to lead with this one because we’re seeing a ton of this right now.
I want you to stay the expert in your field and not someone else’s.
The reason I bring this up is because of two things. When COVID-19 hit, we saw a lot of people talking about pivots and shifting your business and really just panicking and making all sorts of changes that were not necessarily helpful to their bottom line or to the growth of their business, and in a lot of cases, I think, just confused their audiences. And so we don’t want to do that. But also following that, when we saw the Black Lives Matter movement really kick into high gear, and we saw a lot of entrepreneurs really shifting their message to be talking about diversity and equity and inclusion, I think we saw a lot of people and I think we’re still seeing a lot of people who are deciding that it’s their job now to be DEI consultants when they have no actual expertise and or business being DEI consultants, either because they straight up don’t know enough about what they’re talking about yet. In some cases, I think we’re seeing, and this is absolutely my opinion, so take it as it is. We’re seeing some allies overstep into, “Here, let me teach you,” when they still have a lot of learning to do.
Again, we’re seeing this shift, we’re seeing a lot of coaches who are wanting to now train their clients and a lot of these DEI things and pieces, and they don’t actually have the expertise to do that or the background to do that. And so, the major thing I want you to be looking at in your marketing is staying in your lane.
The final piece to that puzzle and the final reason this is important is because we’re specifically talking about your marketing in Q3 and where I’m seeing people make these shifts and these pivots, and trying to teach in these spaces that are not their expertise is actually in their marketing, but they haven’t actually changed or shifted their backend services or how they work with clients. And so we’re seeing people who are building audiences and teaching in their content, and it has no actual connection to what they sell.
So, in some cases you’re ending up putting people in services that aren’t what they need, because they showed up for something else. Or we’re seeing people just, again, confuse, confuse, confuse, confuse their audience, and here’s the deal: a confused mind says, no. A confused mind will always say, no. At the extreme of that, a confused mind will shut down and just opt-out. So, they may not even say no. They may just disappear. I see this a lot. Early in my business, when I would have sales calls and people would just fall off the planet, which happens very rarely now, if a client is not a yes after a sales call, they tell me, “No, and here’s why services want to fit most frequently for us, that service is not a fit is budget.” Or, “I don’t want a strategy first. I just want you to schedule my social.” “That’s not how our agency works, so we’re not a fit.”
And so we get told, no, for one of those two reasons. Or it’s, “Yes, but…” Meaning, “Yes, but not now. Touch base with me in…” And they’re literally telling me when to follow up with them. Usually, the follow-up closes the business. And so, earlier in my business, when I had a lot of people fall off and when that stopped happening, I was like, “Well, I wonder what shifted so that I made sure I kept doing it?” And what I realized is I left the people who just disappeared, went radio silent, were confused. They just opted out. They didn’t even have the clarity to know, to say no. And so, we don’t want that. When we have disconnected marketing from our delivery because we’re talking and teaching in a place that is not actually our expertise or our service, we confuse and our audience will opt-out, they’ll just disappear.
In a lot of cases you’ll think you have this audience that you no longer really have, and so I want you to be really paying attention to your messaging, that it’s connected to your expertise and what you teach and how you serve and how you show up because we don’t want to confuse the audience.
Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t share things that are important to you. For example, I am not a DEI consultant. I am not an anti-racism teacher. I am not an anti-biased teacher. I am absolutely a DEI student and anti-racism student and an anti-bias student. So, frequently you guys see over on my personal Instagram, the Stacey Harris, and even a little on Uncommonly More, you’ll see us share resources from the people we’re learning from. You will see us share and me share the people I follow, the people who I’m buying from, because I don’t need to show you my expertise, because this isn’t what I teach. How I can serve you with that information is by showing you who I’m learning from so that you can pay and invest with the people who are experts in this space, who can deliver actual information and expertise and results.
And that’s true of DEI, and I bring that up now because I think there’s a lot of danger in false expertise in this space. I think it does a lot, a lot of harm, and so if that’s something you’re doing, please stop. I’m going to assume it’s not ill-intentioned, but this is true in any space. We see it a lot in marketing, we see businesses and marketing coaches who have never actually owned a business or done any marketing, and it’s like, “You took a course. Are you really ready to teach this?” So, stay in your expertise. I know, I know, I know it’s attractive, and I’ve seen it early in my business, there were lots of things, I definitely went down the road like, “Well, maybe I should be a business coach,” because I was like, “Well, I’ve been doing this a couple of years.” No, I’ve been doing this nine years that I still will not be a business coach because I don’t know enough. I know a lot about my business. Not going to tell you how to run yours.
Again, be really cautious. I know that when things change, it can feel like we need to, or we have to respond by changing, but we got to stay in it.
And that really brings us to number two, which is that consistency matters. I want you to remember this is a long game, and that massive shifts are not required.
This is something that I’m so, so grateful about being in my Mastermind this year, I’m in Tara Newman’s Bold Leadership Mastermind. I was part of it last year. I’m part of it again this year. The conversations we’ve been having so much this year are around how we’re not pivoting, how we’re not changing, because the women in that group and this is something I so deeply believe and something I want you to really take to heart, are building long-term businesses, are building businesses that are going to be around not for 18 to 24 months and then we revolutionized with some new product and then we’ll sell that. No, we’re building businesses that are built to last decades. And so, that means the things that are happening now, however important they feel right now, 10 years from now will feel like a blip, will feel like a crazy story we told that in some cases I hope started a revolution, and in other cases, you remember that time we stayed in our houses for four months? Or six months or eight months.
As I record this, I don’t know. But back from my point, I want us to be really clear that because in the moment this feels massive. It’s not a reason to massively overhaul your business. Consistency is more critical than ever. I don’t mean consistency and like making sure you get a daily Instagram post. I mean, consistency in your messaging. I mean, consistency in how you’re showing up with your clients. I mean, consistency in the content and the quality of that content that you’re serving. I mean, consistency in reviewing your SOPs and your systems and your team and talking about your goals and working with your mentors. I mean, consistency in all the places that keep your business afloat.
I know for me, the consistency pieces that I’m paying attention to as I go into Q3, specifically for my marketing, are my podcast schedule, my outbound promotions, meaning pitching other podcasts, pitching guest posts, interviews, Instagram takeovers, whatever the case may be, to get in front of new audiences. Those are my two things that I’m committing in Q3 to be consistent within my marketing. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do stories every day. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do a Facebook live every day. I probably won’t do either of those things in Q3. I may do an Instagram live here and there or Facebook live rather here and there, I will definitely do some Instagram stories, but I’m not worried about doing them every day, because I’m choosing the two things where I know they’ll get results, and so I’m being consistent in those places.
That really brings us to number three. I told you this was going to be a quick one, guys.
I want you to focus that consistency on the things that get you the most results and stop trying to do it all.
I think if we’ve learned anything in this year, and again, I suspect we’ll talk a lot about this next week, it’s okay that we’ve got to be taking care of ourselves. We’ve got to be really making sure that we’re factoring in sustainability.
I’ll be honest with you. This is me standing right next to you on this one. This is a constant lesson. This is something I talk about a ton with my own coach and my own mastermind and my own community and my friends and my family, because I’m terrible at this, like deeply terrible at paying attention to sustainability. I am a how far down can we get the gas pedal and for how long can we run? And so we just run out of gas. I’m really committing that in my marketing and Q3, I’m only doing what I know works. For me, I know the show works. I know to get in front of other audiences by providing them value. So, blog posts, guesting on podcasts, speaking at online events, those kinds of things, they’re worth my time and effort and energy. And so, that’s where I’m going to be consistent because I’m going to focus on the things that get the most results.
If you’re not sure what gets the most result for you, let’s talk about this next week and the things we’re measuring and how we’re measuring them. It’s also a really good way to use one of those one-hour calls with me, book one of those for us because you have to be paying attention to what gets you the most results. That’s it. Those are the three things I want you to be paying attention to. As you go into Q3. Remember, stay in your lane. Stay in your expertise. We don’t want to be confusing your audience, and we don’t want to be harming the people who join your audience, thinking they’re there for something that’s not what they should be there for.
Number two, consistency matters. Number three, we’re being consistent in a really focused way. Consistency does not matter when it’s in all the places, because that’s not sustainable. Again, we’re building businesses that will last a lifetime, even if we don’t actually want them for a lifetime. We’re building something that could last a lifetime. And that means sustainability is key, and that starts with your marketing, because this is the way we end up, again, in that peaks and valleys, that roller coaster thing that we’ve all experienced, and I hate. Oh, I’m so glad to be done with it, and I hope I never revisit it because it’s awful, but it comes from that lack of sustainability in your marketing. It comes from trying to be all the places all the time, instead of deciding where we’re going to be consistently, where we get results, and just working those systems.
All right? All right. Again, short and sweet this week, if you have questions, I would love to hear them. Head over to Instagram, Facebook, email, whatever works. If you haven’t yet checked out the Launch Your Podcast Challenge, it’s a great way to get started with a podcast. If a podcast is on your goal list for Q3, let’s make it happen, baby. Go over to uncommonlymore.com/launchyourpodcast, and I will see you next time.