Welcome to episode 383 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris
Once again, I say Happy New Year because I wanna talk about the new year, I wanna talk about starting off the year on the right foot and maybe you’re listening to this in July and let’s make now your new year. Whenever it is that you kind of feel that pull for a fresh start I know a lot of times I feel this in the fall when the kid goes back to school. I don’t know if its 20 plus years of schooling that does it to you or what but there’s something about the fall that’s that fresh start right?
I often feel this way around my birthday, which in February and I a little bit feel this way this time of year when it’s genuinely a new year on the calendar and I have to buy a new calendar and all that stuff.
So, I wanna talk about making sure that wherever you are right now, a year from now your marketing is in a different place and more importantly you feel differently about your marketing. Especially if you are somebody who maybe feels pretty crappy about it right now. Maybe it just feels like a lot of effort, it feels like a lot of noise, it just doesn’t feel right. I want to change that because here’s the deal guys, the people who you’re trying to talk to can feel that. And that’s a tough place to buy from, and it’s an even tougher place to sell from.
So, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. The three things I want you to check in on, do some work around and then obviously you’re going to get to work. You’re going to take action because that’s the critical step to feel different.
As always, this episode is brought to you by Hit The Mic Backstage, it is the next step for this podcast. So if you love this podcast, you will love Backstage because it genuinely is the part that comes next. It is the doing the work, it’s trainings, it’s access to me in two different private forum areas. We have both a Facebook group and a forum right on our site. It’s brand new trainings every month.
But also there’s a monthly mastermind call for our membership where two or three members can actually get on video with me and we talk through something for five, ten, fifteen minutes. However long it kind of takes us to get through it. And then of course you can come in and ask questions live on that call to and the chat if you don’t want to jump on video. Or submit questions in advance, I make it really easy for you to get the support you need and that’s why honestly this community exists is so that you can get the support you need. So, come and join us, hitthemicbackstage.com.
Again, it’s the action step, it’s where results happen because you’re doing the work. Cool? All right, let’s jump in.
Who is your Who?
Number one, and you’ve heard me say this before and guess what, you will hear me say it again in the future because guys, it’s the missing link, make sure you’re really clear on who you’re talking too. I talked about this at the end of last year, but I actually sat down with my Biz BFF and we went through our ideal clients for our different offering levels because she and I both have sort of a more entry level offering and then a more high level VIP offering. As well as a sort of higher end more small business corporate instead of solopreneurs. We kind of work at these different levels, so we have ideal clients that are different at these different levels.
For example, I’ve got strategy builds that I do for people who’ve been through Backstage or people who’ve coached with me for a long time. But then I also do a lot of corporate strategy builds. Well guess what, corporate clients have different needs and I connect with them differently than I connect with people who go through Backstage or who do one on one coaching with me, who are more the solopreneur kind of model. Or maybe they have a small virtual team, but they definitely don’t have a marketing team in-house, all right. So, it’s a different structure, so guess what, I had to make sure that I was looking at that and that’s really impacted how I’m going to make some changes in my own social this year.
For example, if your paying attention in this first quarter, you’re going to start to see that my LinkedIn profile is going to a little bit separate itself from the rest of my social. There will still be some of the stuff that I share in all places, like this podcast, but I’m going to be starting to use that platform and specifically the publisher piece, so the part where I can actually post blog content on LinkedIn, to speak to a slightly different audience. We’re going to be talking more about eCommerce, we’re going to be talking more about big brands, we’re going to be talking more to those corporate clients with content in that space because that’s where I connect with those clients. They don’t tend to find me on Facebook. For realsies, they don’t tend to listen to this podcast. They tend to be referrals, they tend to be people I meet at events and they tend to be people who find me or connect with me via LinkedIn. Especially a referral who will then go to LinkedIn to sort of check me out and so I need content in that space to speak to that ideal client.
And this is why it’s so important for you to check in with your who because it may be that different parts of your social need to connect with different people. Maybe your somebody who is traditionally very kind of B to C, so business to consumer. So you think LinkedIn doesn’t make any sense for me. Well no, what may be the differentiator is LinkedIn is where you can be building those strategic partnerships and finding retailers or finding vendors. So the kind of stuff you’re putting out there might need to be slightly different to maximize that channel as a point for you. This happens a lot, I have coaching clients who are business coaches or executive coaches or health coaches and they have clients who they work with kind of like I do, solopreneurs, and they do coaching and they have programs. But also they’ll come in and do coaching and training in corporate settings. So for my health coaches, they’re connecting with HR reps. For my sales and executive coaches, they’re connecting with sales teams and executive leaders on LinkedIn with slightly different content because their needs are slightly different there.
And so, look at how you can connect specifically with your who in these different places. That’s going to be really beneficial for maximizing the content. And again, it’s not going to be necessarily about reinventing the wheel on every network, but there may be a network or an email sequence or a opt-in on your site that needs to speak to a slightly different niche. And if that’s the case, that’s something you want to figure out now all right.
What’s your Foundation?
Number two, don’t forget your foundation. When we talk about your social media foundation we’re talking about the content that has to go out. This is your blog content, podcast content, guest posts, videos, your promos, your marketing stuff. You know, maybe its old content, maybe it’s I don’t know, webinars you’re doing, whatever it is. That’s the stuff that has to go out, it just has to. So schedule time to take care of that or find someone who can help you with it. This may mean bringing in a VA, this might mean bringing in a social media manager, this might mean a lot of things. It just depends on how you want to work with somebody and we’ve talked about this in the past. If you are really unsure about who to hire and who you need, I would highly recommend you go listen to the episode from just a couple of weeks ago where I talk about social media managers versus social media strategists, what the difference is. That’s going to be a really helpful episode for you.
Realize that this stuff has to happen if you’re seeing right now thatyou’re on this hamster wheel of it goes really well and then I fall down and it’s crap, and it goes really well and then I fall down and it’s crap. And your income is following that same cycle, it’s time to fix the cycle. So, how do you do that? Well you make sure your foundation is a priority. Your foundation is going to be the consistency that keeps your audience engaged. It’s going to be the marketing that works in the middle of the night. It’s going to be the piece that makes you relevant 24 hours a day to your audience, whenever it is they need you. Because that’s what’s getting us back to your content, that’s what’s getting us back to the value that’s available to me 24 hours a day. Your content on your website, your opt-ins, your videos on your YouTube channel, whatever that may be. That’s all happening because of your social media foundation. I’m finding that because of that social media foundation.
This foundation may include ads, I would highly recommend hiring somebody specifically for ads if you want to hire it out, not just have a social media manager do it for you unless they happen to also have an expertise in ads because they don’t all. When I first started doing social media management, I did not have an expertise in ads. That took a while to get to a point where I was comfortable being paid for that service, that I knew enough to deliver results. So pay attention to that, but if that’s what you need figure it out. Get the support you need or if it’s something you’re going to do yourself for now and you want to DIY it, great, build your strategy, schedule the time to do it and make it a priority. And you know a lot of times I say this, but treating your own business like a client is the easiest way to get clients. And the reason your business needs to be a client, is because if you don’t treat your business like a client you will no longer be in business and therefore no longer able to serve clients.
So the people who need you, the people who are waiting for you to solve their problem, they need you to get this together. They need you to figure this piece out, they need you to sell to them because they need to be made aware that you are the solution. Okay? All right. I will get off my soapbox on that now.
When do you engage?
The other piece of that though is scheduling time to engage with your audience. So your foundations great, and again, we can hire it out, we can do it ourselves, but it’s got to be figured out. One of the best ways to really maximize those results though, is to then engage. And this is the part where I highly recommend you doing at least part of it yourself if you are somebody working directly with your clients. Now, if you are somebody who is an eCommerce brand or sitting behind a brand and your name is completely irrelevant, then great, have a social media team do your engage points too. That’s great, fantastic. However, if like me maybe, you’re a personal brand or you work directly with your clients, then yeah, I would make time to do this yourself because that is how they’re getting the connection. That is how they are building a relationship with you.
Now it’s supported by the value you add, but think about, you know I think back to years and years and years ago. Like five years ago now, I did B-School with Marie Forleo. Marie Forleo was a huge early mentor for me, I really respected the way she had built her business. Now, full disclosure, with time I realized that it was not at all the business model I wanted, I didn’t like the one time per year launch thing. I tried it, it’s just not the model for me, it’s not how I teach, it’s not how I engage, it’s just not preferred for me. But, she did teach me a lot early about providing valuable content to my audience.
And the coolest thing happened after I joined B-School, I was co-hosting a show, web show at the time, called YFE, Young Female Entrepreneurs, and I had tweeted out that I was excited that I had joined B-School. And she responded to that tweet, or someone on her team did, saying congratulations. And do you know what I did, I took a screen shot, I shared it, I was so excited. Well guess what guys, there’s somebody in your audience that’s the same way. I’ve had people do that to me. They’ll tweet me something, I’ll tweet them back and their like oh I can’t believe it. There is somebody who looks up to you in that same way and that’s only going to grow the more you do this work. The more you engage, the more you provide value. So make space to engage with them, connect with them, they want to hear from you. It doesn’t have to be writing a four page essay, it can be as simply as congratulations, thanks for listening. I hope your having a great week. That’s fantastic. Great job. Whatever the appropriate response is there.
But figure it out and make the time on your calendar to do that because guess what guys, that’s where the magic is. Seriously, it’s that simple. Okay so it sounds probably a little simpler than it is in action, but start small, but you’ve got to do it. That’s where the work is to all right? All right.
So that’s our show for today thank you for listening. Show notes for this episode are at thestacyharris.com/episode383. Holy moly, 383 episodes. If you enjoyed this episode and I truly hope you did, be sure to join us at Hit The Mic Backstage, it is the next step for this show. It is where the action is. It’s also where the support from me is. I would love to hear from you there and the support from everybody else in the community. That’s one of the things that I have on my goal list for 2018 is really building up the community engagement piece for Backstage and that comes from making sure that the right people are in there. And the right people are you people. The people who listen to this show and enjoy it and then you know, do the stuff. All right? All right.
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