4 Myths and Mistakes in Marketing During a Crisis

First, we wish everyone health and safety during through this COVID crisis. I will outline 4 myths and mistakes in marketing during a crisis. And stick around until the end, I’ll share 3 takeaways you could implement right away. Given our new paradigm, I’ll put a positive spin on the 4 myths and mistakes in marketing that i’ve seen.  Not all businesses are suffering financially, but all businesses have changed in some way whether it’s a process or protocol of doing business to ensure safety. People are looking for new ways to connect including efficient ways to do conduct their business. It’s more important than ever to stay in touch with people whether it’s email, a text or direct messenger in a social media platform. The number one priority is reaching out to all of your clients to see how they are doing and a polite nudge to remind them that you’re available if they have any questions about anything during this overwhelming time. We can call it marketing or we can call it staying connected in a meaningful, purposeful way.  If you are looking to do more than just survive in your business, it’s more important now than ever to either level up your marketing or at the very least, START marketing if you’ve been putting it off or getting by with minimal efforts.  If people don’t hear from you now when they need you the most, they will find another resource they feel can rely on. I’ve heard more than a few times, “I don’t hear from you all year and now you show up. It’s too late.” The best part is that because we’re in the digital age, the currency is time. You don’t need to invest in big advertising budgets like the Mad Men days. No magazines print ads, no billboards, no Super Bowl ads.  Here are four myths and mistakes people make when it comes to marketing. Myth #1 – I don’t know what to say. There’s more to what you do every day than you realize that people would be interested to know. You know a lot more than someone who isn’t in your business but doesn’t business with you. Delivering value of what you can offer someone will help to show that you’re present in your business and available when they need you. For people to know, like & trust you, it’s ok to show your personal side. I like to work in my yard so i’ll post projects in and around the house. It helps to show that you’re human. It will also help to show how people can relate to you. YOU are a brand whether you own a business or work for a business. You do not need to sell your product or service every time you’re marketing.  Myth #2 – I don’t have time. Some people may not think they have the time because they may not have seen results worthy of scheduling the time for this task. If you carved out 10-30 minutes every day or every other day dedicated to intentional and meaningful engagement, you would see results in how people pay attention to you.  The more you spend engaging on a platform, the more you get noticed even if you don’t think the metrics are displaying a lot views.  Business is about relationships. People have to know how to relate to you but if you don’t exist online, then they won’t know how to find you or know how you can help them. Myth #3 – I don’t have an audience. If you didn’t have an audience you wouldn’t be in business. You have people all around you, but perhaps you didn’t think of them as an audience. With the INFLUENCER movement, if you don’t have a million followers or get a million views on a post, people think they’re doing it wrong or that it’s a waste of time because they’re not getting those results. The flaw in this mentality is that we have to appreciate that for any number of views we get online is less time we have to be in our car driving to a meeting with just one person. Don’t look at the views or the metrics if you’re just starting out. Focus on the practice of developing a new habit of scheduling time to devote to marketing. If you aren’t creating content, then curate quality content that you trust and that you find relevant to your business. Myth #4 –There are too many platforms. Who doesn’t like having choices? To be able to pick from Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, YouTube or any other platform you are familiar with means you get to enjoy however you feel most comfortable when delivering your content.
  • Maybe you want to practice with video so you may utilize Facebook Live because you’ve been on that platform longer or you save your videos to your Youtube playlist.
  • Maybe you want to be more business-like while extolling the virtues of your products and services, so you go to Linkedin. 
  • Maybe you like snapping photos and want to include a meaningful, inspiring message, so you go to Instagram or Pinterest.
  • Or the newest darling, maybe you want to bust a move or deliver a message with curated music in the background, you go to TikTok.
There are so many tools these days to help develop content. It’s a matter of EXECUTING. And that is where people fail. Even if it means that you are going to pick one goal, but you’re not sure how to go about it, the RESEARCH is a form of execution.  Research is learning and learning gives us more confidence with something new. I think a formula for success can be described as follows: Schedule + Research = (a higher probability of) Execution. Here are 3 takeaways to ponder: 1. Cultivate your email list. it’s the only digital asset you own. The platforms own your content once you publish it on their site. 2. Do video. If you’re shy or you hate how you look on video, I will tell you from experience, no one is analyzing you the way you think they are. Video is so valuable and helps to deliver your message in such a powerful way. The statistics of how people connect with you is undeniable. Practice with one minute videos. It’s a great, safe start. 3. Repurpose your content. What do I mean by that? If you write a blog, do a one minute video on the topic of the blog you recently published. If you did a video about something important about your business, write a blog even if it’s only 200 words. Then, put the video on your website with the blog. Then grab a section of the blog and draft a post to Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, etc. about your blog and video. Check out our Be GRAM-Tastic Instagram course. If you want to find out more about it, Schedule a call with us by clicking on our online calendar here.

Kick Overwhelm To The Curb

Do you ever have to prompt your kids to eat something, wear something, do something or go somewhere?

They resist; you persist because you want the best for them.

You’re selling, but you’re able to do that because ultimately you believe it’s best for them because you love them. You are delivering value by showing something that’s good for them.

Your kids are like the general public at large and your business is the parent that is trying to show them something of value.

I’ve been marketing since about the mid 1980’s. But I didn’t know I was marketing. 

My favorite course in college was marketing. We reviewed businesses that excelled because they applied business fundamentals that introduced their products and services to consumers.

Then when I joined my father’s insurance agency.
My first thought was “I don’t want him to be the best kept secret.”
My other thought was “this could take a while. People need to get to know me.”
My mantra became “there’s no immediate gratification in a long term strategy.”

I networked and joined business organizations to meet other business owners. I created events to engage the community.
I grew revenue 800%. He was able to retire when I bought him out and then I sold my shares to my sister six years later.

It was all from marketing. 

This was inspired by a conversation with a few of the Board members of an IDS Chapter in CT who brought me in to do a presentation. I asked, “what do you want me to talk about?” 

I wanted to do something different from what may be expected.
I didn’t want to beat a dead horse with the obvious platitudes about marketing. 

Nor debate about which is better:
Facebook vs. Linkedin
Posting in the morning or afternoon
Writing a Blog or recording a Vlog.

You don’t need me to tell you to post on social media.
It’s been trending for the past decade or more. Being an early adopter has left the station.

They said, “We’re overwhelmed. Many of us are Solopreneurs and doing everything ourselves.”

FEELING OVERWHELMED

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with marketing? I have good news and bad news.

I believe being overwhelmed is an opportunity to learn how to grow in some capacity.
Your business could be at the precipice of growing to the next level.

Being overwhelmed, to me, is the difference between doing the things we want to do and doing the things we think we should be doing. It’s an internal conflict. It’s why we procrastinate and make excuses instead of delegating.

A side effect of being overwhelmed is complacency.

I don’t want to steal my therapist’s thunder, but most of the time, many of us, in general, have the same doubts and fears. 

People aren’t paying attention to us as much as we think they are. They’re too worried about their own stuff.

I’ve listened to hours of marketing podcasts where professionals share how they got started and invariably it begins with some fear and doubt as they stumble to figure things out.

Is there anyone here that DOESN’T want to grow to the next level?

Anything I share with you today is nothing i’ve not been through already.
I’ve worried. I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’ve doubted. And I’ve succeeded.

Marketing is not an event. It’s a process.
And when it comes to process, we don’t seek perfection, we strive for progress.

Who has a purpose they are trying to accomplish?

Marketing is about understanding our purpose and the goals we set to achieve the fulfillment of our purpose along with the good we want to put out into the world.

Sometimes it feels like marketing it’s not always practical or executable.
It’s too much, we’re too busy. We can always find an excuse. I know I do.

If we’re following our purpose, it’s practical.
If we’ve not achieved all of our goals yet, we must make it executable.

i can talk to you about tactics and techniques, but it’s boring, and you know it already.
You can google everything and anything for FREE.  You know more than you know.

It’s the motivation, inspiration and creativity that we seek sometimes.

I’ve been saying for years:
You have to start somewhere in order to celebrate progress.
It’s basic benchmarking.

Rachel Hollis said it better,
“You can’t get to great if you aren’t putting “good enough” out in the world.”

Rachel Hollis also wrote a book about the lies she told herself and how she overcame them. 

I’m going to share the lies I told myself when I started social media in 2009:

  1. I have nothing to say.
  2. No one is listening to me.
  3. I don’t have an audience.
  4. There is so much noise, no one is finding my stuff.

This is ego hijacking our brains. 

Because the truth is:

  1. I was most talkative in high school. So, Duh!
  2. I’ve been hired so people are listening.
  3. I’ve built an audience.
  4. I started with my inner circle & circle of influences to let them know what I’m doing out here in the world.

CONNECTION
Remember when we discussed purpose? There’s a reason I didn’t say passion or profit first.

Who doesn’t love financial gain? With profit, sometimes we let our money junk get in the way. Sometimes we charge too little or too much or we procrastinate because we don’t know what to charge or how to charge.

With passion, we keep ourselves mired in minutia because it’s an art or it’s too important and it has to be perfect and we don’t let go.

Purpose allows us to dig deep within ourselves to reveal and share our values. And values have impact.
Impact will tempt people to pause and perhaps notice you. And the more they notice you, the more likely they will remember you. When they remember you, they will buy from you when they need your products and/or services.

Your marketing strategy should include your story. People don’t want to feel alone. They want to connect.
We’re biologically wired to connect as humans.

Sharing your story, your struggle to make it in this business causes connection. People can relate.

No one cares what you post unless they know that you care. Thank you Theodore Roosevelt.

Let’s talk about the “Judgey Judge Judys” in the world. If anyone judges your content and proclaims it as a failure, thank them. It’s a gift. It’s called feedback. Feedback directs us on how to improve.  It’s not about perfection, it’s about progress.

Y’all still with me?

CONTENT
Content is king; consistency is key.
It doesn’t have to be all business all the time. The best marketing is when people don’t pontificate all the time with all that they know.

No matter your industry, build in visuals. I don’t want to invite you to my pity party, but I used to post about insurance.
Now, with my new business, I post about Business Credit Financing. It’s not very exciting content.

Find the emotion. You’re bringing your product or service to life.

Here are some things you can do to stockpile content for your business.

  1. Photographically document your process, parts of the process, pieces of the process.
  2. Train your clients to know you’ll be wanting their feedback along the process. Ask how they are feeling and why they are feeling that way. Bring them into the process.

Why is this beneficial?

You want to know what they are feeling at all times because this provides relatable events with what other people are feeling. This provides direction on your how your content will reach people who may need you in the future.

Document and/or develop “case studies” to capture a keyword library for you to enrich your content though your clients’ experience.

  • What is their Pain
  • What are their Problems
  • What are your Solutions
  • What is their Satisfaction

Lewis Howes, renowned podcaster of the School of Greatness said “Create what you would want to listen to if you were stuck, starting out or striving.”

People are paying you for your perspective. They have a problem. You have a solution.
Your job is to find more problems so you can help them solve it.

You are doing a disservice by not sharing your solutions and your creativity.

In my previous business, I amassed 13,000 Twitter followers. When I first started using Twitter, I politely stalked my competition & strategic alliances to see what they were posting and how their content was relevant to a similar audience I was trying to develop. 

Let’s go back to feeling and/or being overwhelmed.

Who feels that sometimes, somedays maybe they squander 30 minutes here and there?

Maybe you’re binge watching Netflix.
Maybe you’re aimlessly scrolling Facebook or Instagram.

Did you know that 30 minutes per day is 182.5 hours which is almost 23 days lost which is more than 3 weeks potentially squandered vs. being productive. 

How will you start taking that time back?

How We Avoid Prospecting

Professional salespeople know when they wake in the morning they have to do the one thing that is sure to guarantee an income:

Prospect for new business.

In a way, salespeople begin everyday looking for a new “job”, don’t they? Because without a new client to purchase what they’re selling, how is there any any hope of a paycheck in the future? Even if that salesperson is a salaried professional, without showing results for their employer, there’s no guarantee the employer will continue to employ that salesperson.

I think therefore, we can agree that a professional salesperson, whether commissioned or salaried, knows that prospecting for new business is the number one priority for their days, each and every day.

That’s not to say they all follow through on the actions necessary to prospect. “Prospecting avoidance” is a commonly understood malady in the sales profession. Sales Managers everywhere constantly harangue their sales teams to hit the pavements, ring the doorbells, make the calls, set the appointments, to fulfill the promise of prospecting.

Avoidance of prospecting comes out of the simple psychological fear of rejection. We all have it. Besides, as simple as prospecting can often turn out to be when you actually do it, it can also be as difficult to initiate.

It’s no wonder then that business owners who are NOT professional salespeople may suffer from this very disease of prospecting avoidance. The creative excuses people come up with to avoid having to make prospecting calls are legendary. Yet, as the owner of your business, unless you have a professional salesperson or sales team working for you, you must must, must, Prospect for new business.
The only way to overcome your avoidance of your emotional pain about Prospecting is to simply attach a level of importance to this task.

We hear so often from Business Owners of being distracted with other important tasks: making payroll; attending to a malfunctioning machine on the shop floor; taking a call from the accountant/attorney/spouse/pesky customer/excellent customer/number one account/printer/fleet mechanic and on and on and on.

The Business Owner has attached a level of importance to each and every one of these tasks. Attach that same level of importance to Prospecting. You must. Absolutely must. Your business health, wealth and survival depends on you doing so.

Once you make Prospecting as important an activity as any other in running your business, all those other avoidance afflictions melt away into nothing. Fear of rejection disappears. Procrastination towards your Prospecting Plan converts to an optimistic sense of urgency.

And, yes, you may even like Prospecting.

Our Comfort Zone is Unsafe

I’ve been skydiving, twice. Yes, it was terrifying, both times. I imagined all the worst case scenarios…and they all resulted in death. When you jump out of an airplane at 13,000 feet, there’s that first feeling of free falling. Queue Tom Petty, please.

This is not butterflies; this is sheer terror. For many split seconds, I wondered: “how did I get up here, jumping into this big blue sky that’s so high?” But I did it. I got out of my comfort zone. And I lived to tell this tale.

Doesn’t it make you nervous to get out of your comfort zone? It makes me nervous. For instance, I didn’t want to write this blog for fear of having to take my own advice.

I’ve gotten out of my comfort zone in my business, too. I had no choice. I had a deliberate plan to build my business to a certain level. The only way to get to that level was to get out of my comfort zone, jump out of the metaphorical airplane and do things that were uncomfortable but necessary.

Why would you get out of your comfort zone if  you know something works? Getting out of your comfort zone implies pain. Who wants pain?

There’s a reason we do things that scare us. When we do something scary, we put ourselves in a situation and/or surround ourselves with circumstances that we wouldn’t otherwise experience. But, the real problem with staying in our comfort zone is missing out on opportunities.

Skydiving and/or public speaking provide opportunities to learn about ourselves by getting out of our comfort zone and trying something new, and potentially scary. I survived both skydiving jumps and I managed to leverage the two experiences into successful marketing campaigns for my business. This opened up opportunities to win clients. The bonus was also being featured in a book, Make What You Say Pay, by Anne Miller, Sales and Presentation Coach.

Sometimes, doing what we know feels productive. When we want something done, we do it ourselves. Like marketing. Or fixing a leaky faucet. We’re in our comfort zone; we believe we know what to do, and we believe it’ll get done faster. But sometimes getting it done faster isn’t the most efficient use of our time. And sometimes, we actually fail. Sometimes, that leaky faucet repair we tried to fix ourselves turns out to be a disaster.

How do you move from being set in your ways to getting out of your comfort zone?

First, if you have a doubt or fear about doing something you’ve never done before, realize that could be a trigger that there’s experience and growth waiting for you. The fear of jumping out of the airplane is replaced by positive anticipation of the experience. Sheer joy is so much better than sheer terror.

How else can you execute on this trigger?

Decide how you want to grow. Is it personally or professionally? Or both?

  • Do you want to grow your business to the next level?
  • Do you want to have more adventure in your life?
  • Do you want to date more suitable companions?

Be specific in setting your goal so you can know how to proceed with the following task which is to research activities necessary to perform the fearful task. Taking on small challenges will lead to the ultimate goal if you break it down into mini deadlines.

Speaking of public speaking, if you fear public speaking, join a Toastmasters Club. This practice will hone your skills while in
front of a group. This will begin to build good habits around this activity.

As part of achieving my previous business goals, I wanted to get over my fear of public speaking. Not only did I join a Toastmasters Club, I also enrolled in an Improv Acting class. This practice of being in front of people diminished the feeling of embarrassment while performing “think on your feet” acts.

You can discuss with a friend or colleague how to bring life to your thought. Then make the bold move and announce it to the world. To assist with staying accountable to the task, calendar each progression so you know how far out of your comfort zone you’ve come.

All of these activities assist you to imagine your outcome of success. Trish Tagle is an expert in leadership training and troubleshooting organization efficiency in order to evolve businesses. Trish is famous for saying, “imagine the outcome.”

Here’s a great example of a business owner who challenged her team to get out of their comfort zone.

My friend and colleague, Kelly Piro, owner of  Agency Performance Partners invited me to judge a “Sales Showdown” for her company. Twice a year, the APP consultants undergo role-playing exercises in order to practice how they interact with prospects. The objective is to convert prospects to clients faster.

ROLE-PLAYING? Yes!

The APP team had various scenarios such as being at a trade show, being on a sales call or in an initial sales meeting. There were several of us observing while the team role-played their scenarios. By critiquing their performance, the judges and the fellow team members pushed everyone out of their comfort zones. It was easy to do in the role-playing scenarios because it was practice, it was imaginary, and no one actually jumped out of an airplane.

Outsourcing important tasks is another way to get out of your comfort zone. Like hiring a plumber to fix that faucet. Cost tends to be the primary impediment before people make the call to the plumber. It’s “comfortable” to think we can save money by doing it ourselves.

But we have other things to do with our time and we’re not actually plumbers, are we?

Interesting in marketing, email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.

Fly Birdie Fly

“Thinking outside the box” is a phrase commonly used in the business world to exercise your creative thinking.

What’s wrong with boxes anyway? Boxes are handy.

They store and organize stuff AND transport stuff, you know, like PIZZA delivery. YUM!

The origin is said to emerge from the 1970s and 1980s among management consultants challenging clients to connect a “nine dots” puzzle, using only four lines, and without lifting pen from paper.

While the phrase is often used in the corporate world, what about the Entrepreneurs, better yet, Solopreneurs charged with leading ourselves to the best place we can be in the outside world?

Earning money calls for ambition, initiative, creativity and “thinking outside the box”. I’m sure those management consultants who developed the “nine dots” puzzle would pontificate about how we need to think outside of the box to differentiate ourselves.

Are you thinking outside the box?
Are you being your best forward-thinking, creative self?
If so, how?

Here’s a few examples of the entrepreneurs out there in the world:

First, there’s Julie from Brandtwist. Her consulting company helps business-owners think outside the box so their business isn’t “boxed in.” I worked with Julie as an insurance agency owner. She guided me with incredibly creative ideas to help me think outside the box. 

Here’s another example of a creative entrepreneur who thought outside the box. She was asked to collaborate with a newly renovated movie theatre that was about to reopen to the public. The theatre owners hired her to manage the cafe adjoining the theatre. This was a wonderful collaboration until the cafe owner realized that there was no parking for people, who were going to the cafe, during a movie showing.

What did she do? She thought outside the box. She walked the aisles before the movie started with beverages and provisions.

Let’s get back to you? What are you doing to think outside the box?

  • How often do you do something that scares you?
  • What are you thinking that prevents you from trying something new?
  • What outside influences keep you comfy and cozy and stuck inside the box.

Your business needs to leave the nest to find those creative marketing ideas that will let your business fly…to then soar! 

Marketing is Like a Marriage

Credit: Kelly Lindquist of Sweet Rewards in Brookfield for this beautiful creation! Photography credit to Dave Noonan of Modern Fotographic in New Milford, CT.

Marketing is a commitment, a long-term commitment.

In fact, marketing is like a marriage. A good marriage, that is! But it’s no cake walk.

Remember when you fell in love? You decided to get married; you made the commitment for happily ever after. Marketing is the same. It’s a long-term commitment.

Yes, you have disagreements but you don’t throw in the towel because he leaves the toilet seat up or she has 112 pairs of shoes. No, you communicate and compromise. You do that because of your commitment to the long-term. Marketing requires the same effort.

Marketing is a commitment to a long-term result. You discuss (communicate) with your partner(s) to decide on how to allocate the budget (compromise) to engage in marketing strategies that develop your brand.

I met with a new client yesterday. It was exciting because he was excited. He had great ideas, useful tools of the trade and understood the value of basic marketing.

But, over six months ago, he sorta left me at the altar. He originally contacted me after a presentation I was invited to give on prospecting. We spoke, but nothing happened. And I mean nothing. He didn’t hire me and he didn’t execute his great ideas or launch his own useful tools to do the marketing on his own. His excitement waned because he didn’t execute.

Sales gets a bad rap and marketing is an afterthought. That is, until we realize that we want to build our business because maybe we want to take that dream vacation, buy that bigger house or we need to put braces on the kid or send them to college. Or both!

We can’t fear the sales process if you have no clients to sell to.

Take a vow to your business, get engaged with marketing and live happily ever after.

Marketing Superpower: Justice League Style

  1. Paying for your kid’s college tuition
  2. Getting the pool in the backyard when it’s LAVAHOT degrees outside
  3. Crossing off a travel destination that’s on your bucket list

Who’s your favorite superhero?