Welcome to episode 329 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
Okay, so we spent a lot of time this month talking about reviewing and planning because, honestly, that’s where my head space has been. I want to wrap that up with, if all this planning, and all this looking back, has led to some changes, how to go about making those changes. I’m also going to be sharing a change that we’re going to be making to the show with you at the end of the podcast, so stay tuned for that. Let’s first talk about the importance of evaluating and looking at where you’re at, and looking at the possible impact of these changes.
Here’s the deal. Changes are going to happen. It’s just a part of evolving, of growing a business, of living a life. Your needs change, your customer needs change, the industry you’re in may change. As someone who works in the social media space, I can assure you that changes are inevitable. They will happen. It’s all about how you respond to them and how you deal with them. A great example of this is the membership site; Hit the Mic Backstage. Before the membership site existed I had stand alone courses that I called ‘Rock Star Guides’; they were fantastic. I sold them for lifetime access. They were a really reasonable price. I loved doing them, but here’s the thing; I was finding that because networks would make changes, I would have to keep them updated. What was happening is my work was happening over and over and over and over again, but I only was getting paid the one time. Now, that didn’t fit my business model. It didn’t fit my goals, and it kept me from being able to create anything new because I was so busy keeping up with what I had created in the past.
I evolved those ‘Rock Star Guides’ into the foundations of Hit the Mic Backstage, so now people can be committed to staying up to date with the changes, and see the changes that happen, and I’ve built recurring revenue into my business model. It allows me to continue getting paid to keep up, and it allows my clients to be invested in paying attention when those updates are made because, I mean, when’s the last time you logged into a program you bought two years ago? Well, if it was a Facebook program you bought two years ago, that program may have been updated, or not depending on who you bought it from. Make sure that you’re sticking with those changes. I know, for me, that is meaning that I’m going to be spending a lot of quarter one of 2017 running updates on all of the foundation programs inside of Hit the Mic Backstage; all of the how to use this network 101 kind of stuff, all of those trainings are getting totally refreshed based on the changes that happened in the last couple months of 2016.
That’s going to mean a lot of work for me, but it’s also going to mean that my audience is going to have to be committed to saying yes, I’m going to take some time to re-watch that training, to review those changes and see what I need to do, and how I need to evolve. That happens a lot more when people are continuing to invest. That was an example of where I looked and evaluated what my goals were, but also the impact that changing how I was doing something could impact my audience.
Another great example is your marketing. If you’re not currently getting the results you want, something has to change. You can’t keep taking the same actions and expect different results. I believe that is the definition of insanity. You have to change it up. A great example of that is changing your format. I went from writing blog posts, which was a real struggle for me to do consistently, just because it was a process I didn’t enjoy, to doing this podcast. I’ve had zero … zero problems, knock on wood, with consistency since launching this show, and this is episode 329. We’ve been going for three plus years now. Look at the impact that making that change could have. It might make you a little more willing to make the change.
So, you’ve decided to make the change, the change is a-happening, how do you tell your community? Be really upfront. There’s a lot of schools of thought about testing the change and then telling them. I’m going to be making a big change to this show, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes, and I’m deciding to not test it; To just sort of do it and then make a formal announcement, because I want you guys to see what happens and be aware that the change is happening, and decide for yourself if it’s something that you like or you don’t like, or whatever. I like that format because a lot of times I use my business and what I’m doing almost as a case study for the show, and for the client look I do, and for the stuff that goes into Hit the Mic Backstage. I mean, we’re testing some cool, cool things starting next week actually, with my marketing, and all of that is going to be put into a case study that we do when we launch a training at the end of Q1 in Backstage.
I like being upfront with it, but you don’t have to be, you can start testing things slowly and quietly, and then make a formal announcement. It’s totally going to depend on what the change is, and it’s totally going to depend on your relationship with your community, and the kind of transparency you want in your business. There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know what, I want to feel this out, see how it goes, and then I’ll make a formal announcement, or I’ll never make a formal announcement and the change will just happen. There will be some people that notice. Most people will forget that it was ever another way. That’s okay too. Pay attention to what works for your business, but don’t let the possibility that a change may happen prevent you from doing anything. That’s really one of the big take aways that I wanted to get out of this episode because I see it a lot with content creation. I see it a lot with program development, and I see it a lot with social media.
People stay away from doing anything because they don’t want to do it wrong, and the reality is you’re going to evolve and things are going to change. Just start putting one foot in front of the other. Just start getting out there. Just start doing something because in that doing you will learn what works and what doesn’t work in a much more reliable way, because it’s for you and your business and your community and your audience and your goals, and there is a lot of variation from person to person, business to business, community to community, what works and what doesn’t work. Sometimes a small tweak that makes it fit for you is going to be all the difference, but it’s going to be hard to decide what that tweak is if you’re not doing anything, alright? Whatever it is that you want to try, start trying it; start doing it, okay? Alright.
Moment of truth. There are going to be some changes happening to this very show. For the last three plus years, and 329 episodes of the show, there have been two episodes a week. Starting next week there will only be one episode a week. We will be moving to a format where I only have new episodes released on Tuesdays. This is to make some space for some other things that I want to be doing for you guys. Because here’s the deal; there’s really only so much time in the day to not only create content, but for you to consume it. In my desire to do something else with you guys as well, we’re pulling back on the show. If you remember, a year-ish ago, we had another show called ‘Hit the Mic TV’, which was a video show. Well, we’re kind of bringing ‘Hit the Mic TV’ back. I’m going to be doing a weekly live show. It’ll stream on Facebook and Periscope, as well as on my YouTube channel, so you can check in there and that will be the second piece of content that happens every week.
If you’re on the e-mail list, you will get a reminder of the upcoming episode, as well as a link to watch episode from the week past, but the only episode of this show that will go out to the podcast feed is once a week. On Tuesdays, you will see a new episode go out, and we’ll keep pretty much the same format, 10, 15, 20 minutes for the show; somewhere in there. We’ll be talking about the same kind of stuff; podcasts, content marketing, a whole lot of social media marketing, and we’re also going to bring back something that we tested out earlier this year, which was once a month doing a ‘Three Things You Must Know’; which is kind of a recap of the latest and greatest in social media. Basically, it’s a really solid preview of what you get inside of Hit the Mic Backstage, which is an update on everything that happens in social media, and all of the changes that roll out to networks. This is just a way for you guys to have more space to get the information you need, and so I’m not just throwing more stuff at you, I’m going to adjust it and focus what we’re doing so we have two lanes of traffic.
You’ll see a little bit less from me on the podcast, but you’ll be able to catch up with me in another way through the weekly live show, in whatever format you prefer to consume it. There it is. I’m really excited. I’m really excited to see all the change. I’m really excited to go live with you guys more frequently, and I really challenge you, if there is a change you need to make … a great example is exactly this; live streaming is going to be a critical part of my marketing in 2017. It’s going to be a critical part of a lot of people’s marketing. If that’s something that you want to do more of, and you just don’t see the time right now, look at where you can pull something else back; look at how you can repurpose that.
Check out some of the episodes we’ve done on repurposing, and maybe find a different want to streamline it; a a different way to make the schedule work, instead of just adding more, because sometimes just adding more is the least productive thing we can do when it comes to making sure we’re getting where we want to get and we’re delivering a value we want to deliver. At the end of the day, I know for me, I know for you, that’s what it’s all about, is getting the value, alright? Thank you for listening. Thank you for hanging out with me. I will see you backstage.
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