What to do when your hard work isn't paying off in your marketing (Ep#2)

You've done the courses, joined the memberships, worked with the coaches...you've built an audience, you're posting consistently, you're emailing regularly...

You're doing "All the Right Things" (TM)

So why is your offer still not selling? 

This episode shares why this is happening and how you can turn things around so your hard work starts to pay (both figuratively and literally!).

You can download your complimentary guide to "Three Techniques to Validate Your Offer Before You Launch" here: https://www.orangesheepresearch.co.uk/validate

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Transcript

0:00

You've done the courses you've joined the memberships. You've worked with the coaches you're posting on your socials consistently. You've built your audience. You're sending regular emails. You're doing all the right things. Or so you've been told. So, where are those sales you were promised? It can be really, really hard when you're putting in the hard work and doing everything you've been told you need to do to build a business, but you're still not seeing the results that you want to see. You're told you have to be patient, but how patient do you really have to be? Come on. You need to start earning some money. Now it's been awhile. And you just think maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. That's why I've put together this episode, we're going to be talking about what happens when your hard work isn't paying off and the tweaks you can make to make sure all this hard work you're putting in is worth it. And you start to see those results. And stay tuned to the end because I'm going to be sharing a question that you can ask your audience today. To start making the tweaks. You need to make, to know what you need to do to make this hard work, pay off and make sure that you are getting the results you deserve in your business. Welcome to the upside up marketing podcast. My name is Katie spread Bri. I've been working for the last 20 years in understanding how people behave and why they behave the way they do what they really think, what they really feel and how you can get to the bottom of this. My background is psychology and market research, and I now bring this to help small businesses like yours and like mine too. Create offers people actually want to buy and sell them in a way that feels good. None of that pushy, seizing, those marketing tactics that make you feel uncomfortable, sending them in a way that feels good. Do you want to see my cheesy credits, rotary easy credits.

Speaker: 1:35

Using marketing to persuade people to buy your thing is hard, icky and not an effective use of your time. It's an upside down way of doing things. Introducing upside up marketing. Helping you create offers people want to buy and share them in a way that feels good. All over a nice cup of tea.

1:56

Okay. I wanted to start with a game today. Let's play bingo. I want to know how many of the following things you have done in your business to try to, sell more of your offers. So number one, have you invested and at least one of those big name courses that promise you, you will build the business of your dreams and, um, be setting offers around the clock. Number one. Number two, have you dropped your prices either permanently or held a sale or a flash discount or something like that? because people told you that they couldn't afford it. So you thought if you've got the price down, more people will buy it. That's number two. Number three, have you introduced some lower ticket offers? So some cheaper offers for the same reason people told you they couldn't afford your main offer. So you've gone and developed some smaller things to make them more accessible. Number four. Have you tried a new social channel? Um, for example, I've heard a lot of people say, oh, people were sending to businesses, say, oh, on Facebook, the people on Facebook aren't really serious about business. That's why I'm not getting any traction there. Maybe I should be on LinkedIn. So have you switched social channel or added a social channel? to try and sell more offers. Number five. Have you ever worried that you might have attracted an audience of freebie hunters? So people that are just there for that brilliant, free value that you give, but never going to buy. I hear this one a lot, so don't worry if it is you. Um, but yeah. Have you ever worried that you've attracted an audience, a freebie hunters? Uh, number six, have you ever found yourself flitting from one offer to another. Um, well, each one doesn't do as well as you thought it would do. Um, Coming up with a new offer and the new offer and a new offer coming up with new things all the time to try and find the thing. The one thing that's going to land with your audience. Exhausting. Isn't it. So there's six things I'd like you to tell me, how many of those you have done. And let me know, either by sending me a message, I'll hop over to my free Facebook group that accompanies this podcast. It's called the upside marketing movement. That link is in the show notes, but come over there and sit there and let's have a conversation. How many of these things have you done? Um, and how has it gone? Now, when I did this in a live webinar, um, answers of 4, 5, 6 were common. So don't worry if you've done a lot of them, they are all the kinds of things you see out there. Um, being advertised to as if your offer isn't selling as well as it should. If you're not getting as many sales as you should, if your business isn't growing as fast as it should, these are all sold as things that will help you move forward and get more sales. But how has that work for you? If it's worked fantastic. But if you're still thinking, well, they're still not quite landing. That's what today's episode is all about. So I've spoken to heaps of people. Sorry, just turning the page on my notes for those of you on the video, wondering why leaning forward. I've spoken to heaps of people who are in this situation, and I've noticed a few patterns. So if you've experienced any of those things I've been speaking about and that bingo game. It's likely that you've got stuck doing what I call product focused marketing. Product focus. Marketing goes like this. Um, number one, figure out. How you can help people with your genuinely unique and special talents. We're not doubting how good you are at what you do here. Um, so figure out how you can use those skills and talents that you have to help people. Create an offer that does this. And then go out there spending all your time, energy and money, convincing people. It's what they want. It's what they need and they should buy it. Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds hard. And I've been there. Believe it or not, even, even me. This is what I do now, but it comes from experience. When I first started my business, I came straight out of a career in market research, knowing how valuable market research was for businesses. So I thought when I looked around and I was like, oh, there's no one really in the small business space doing market research. I was thinking to myself, oh, this is great. I can go in there. I can help them all. And I was even like wondering how I was going to hope cope with the demand or hubris. You could imagine how that went. I went out there who wants to market research? Yeah, it turns out no one, no one. No, one's as interested as in PI toxins. And spreadsheets as I am, it turns out. And so I had to learn the process of flipping that around to making it into something that people would actually understand why they wanted the need. Did it. What they don't want market research. They want more sales. They want, at the time I was doing. Um, Um, customer research for e-commerce, uh, they don't want. To know stats about how happy their customers are. They want to make more sales. So I had to learn how to change it and position it. So it's not just me. That is an upside down way of doing things, taking what you've got and trying to sell it to people and convince them it's what they want. That really feels upside down. And yet it's what most of the traditional marketing is. Isn't it? So. I call that upside down marketing. And I think if you notice the Tice left this Procast, you can see where I'm going with this. Um, there is another way. I call it. Person focused marketing or upside up marketing, if you will. an in person focus, marketing, or upside up marketing as in the marketing is marketing done the right way round. We. Figure out what's your audience, what the people you want to support actually want and need from you. So actually what they want, what they want and need from their life, from their business, from their, whatever it is that you help them with their goals. Um, and I just did, it was site. Which I'll come back to later. This is very different from what you think they want and need. You might be able to come in with all your experience, look at them and go, I can see you need this, but. That they might not have seen that yet. So if you go and try and sell that to them, they might just go not completely know. And for a few examples of what I mean by that have listened back to episode one of this podcast, because I talk about an example in that that illustrates that nicely. Um, so yeah, figuring out what the people you want support actually want a need what's going on for them. Designing your offer around that. So taking your skills and experience that we talked about earlier and saying, well, how can I apply that to their situation? Um, and then your marketing basically just needs to be telling them about it. Okay. It's like a bit more. Yeah. There's a little bit more to it than that. You don't just go out and say, I've got this thing, although it might have might happen like that. Um, it's a little bit more to it that, but essentially your marketing is going out there sharing what you've got and because you're talking about it in a way that makes sense to them that resonates with them, that they can really see how it apply to their lives. it just makes it so much easier and it means you can leave behind any of those pushy uncomfortable marketing tactics that you've been told you need to do to make sales, but I've always made you feel a little bit off and have made you less than excited about your business and maybe made you feel you hate the marketing part of it. When actually I think the marketing part of it should be the best part of it, because that's a bit where you get to go out and make those connections and share what you know. So. This is where the conundrum arises though. I get people saying to me all the time, they say Katie, they say, but I'm doing that. I'm doing this person focused marketing. You speak of, I've done all my ICA work. I filled in my avatar worksheets. I know who my ideal client is. I've done an empathy map. You know, I know this about them. Um, and to be fair, the gurus, the marketing gurus. Um, the people that are really established in the space and yeah, most people that come from a marketing background, they think they're teaching this. They think they're teaching this person. Focused marketing because they're saying, okay, go and figure out your ideal client. Filling all these questions about what they are, what they're thinking, what they're feeling and things like that. But. Think back to the ideal client exercises you've done in the past. So the avatar worksheets, the empathy grids, call them what you will. They all require you to. Switch off distractions. Sit there in a quiet room or maybe go and sit by a lake or something like that. And think really hard about your ideal client. But here's the problem. Your ideal client doesn't live in your head. They don't, they're not in there. They are real breathing, thinking, feeling people that are out there experiencing life. They're not experiencing that issue that you solve for them in nice clean isolation, it's weaved into the complex web of everything else they've got going on in their life. Um, They don't know all the background as to why these things are happening. They might not have even identified that what it is that you solve for them is a problem yet. But. It's all going on for them. And you need to have a real appreciation of that to really understand your ideal client and to really be able to do this ideal client work. So your marketing needs to reflect this real lived experience that they have to clear the biggest hurdle that people have to buying. And that is relevance. And again, I talked about. A little bit about this in episode one. So after you've finished listening to this one, if you haven't listened to that one yet, do go back and listen to it. But essentially, if people can't see from their point of view, how, what you do is relevant to them, they can't even begin to think about buying. They won't even get, as far as your carefully constructed logical arguments explaining to them why this is the problem, because they've checked out on that first sentence. They just don't think it's relevant to them. So it's not worth their time. And that's fair enough. Everyone's busy and there is a lot of information and stuff out there. And if something doesn't get relevant, they'll definitely be something out there that is relevant. That they'd be better spending their time on. So. If they don't see themselves in it straight away. They don't see themselves reflected as they go on to discover more about you and about what it is you do and your offers. Then. They're never going to buy. I'm afraid to say. So, let me give you an example of that, of that to show you what I mean. So let's give you an example. I want to be more productive. I don't know why I can't fit everything into my day and just focus, but I'm ready to invest in a solution. I follow someone. Who's got a load of good. They put good quotes out about being productive and seizing the day and things like that, but their offers talk about. Fix your morning routine and reduce anxiety. You have meditation and healthy living and exercise and things like that. And these all sound very nice and I understand why they would help. They sound like they're for someone with a lot more flexibility than me in their day-to-day lives and their schedule. Then I have got, you know, I have children, I have, um, other things going on, so that's not going to work for me. That all good logical solutions. I can sit there. Taking in content about why our morning routine will set you up for a day. I can sit there and taking in. Uh, content about why I'm eating right or getting exercise will make you more productive and things like that. But. If I can't see. Myself in that situation. It doesn't feel relevant to my life. It's I don't know. Nice hypothetical thing for people who have that sort of flexibility in their life. It's not for me. But if the offer or even the content I was reading or the sales page started with fit a full-time job into school hours. Wow. Suddenly I'm listening because that is what I'm trying to do. I am trying to fit. A full-time job I'm trying to fit. In enough work for a full week's worth work. It's just scored hours, which is five and a half hours a day. Um, with a little lunch break. So. It's not giving you enough hours in the day. That sounds like something is exactly for me and people in my situation, because I know if they have any morning routine stuff, it's going to be working around having children in the house, because it said within school hours, I know that it's not going to be telling me to. Do anything that doesn't fit into these school hours? And, um, it just sounds like something that's going to be perfect. It sounds like it's going to not only give me what I want, it's going to take into account the reasons I might not be able to achieve it. And it's going to work around my life and my situation. So. It's really, really powerful to be really specific about the situation they're in, in their life. So just talking generally, isn't going to help. It's got to be specific about them so they can see themselves reflected in it. And that's how to stand out in this noisy online world. So do you see the difference? So if we're looking at. Talking generally. And like these, the ideal things to do to be productive, it's inviting the why nots it's inviting the why I can't do this. Um, even, even at the subconscious level, it just doesn't sound like it's for people like me, but immediately you put in. Within school hours. Bam. That's where people like me. So it's to do with looking at the needs of the individual. So flip it to look at the needs of the individual and that's where the magic happens. Now to be able to do this, it requires a deep understanding of what's going on for people, what they are trying to achieve and the situation they are trying to achieve in everything else they've got going on. Um, you might, you want to know them so well, you probably going to find, you know, them better than they know themselves, because you also have this dimension of why the problems happening, which they don't have. You'll be able to call it out things they haven't even considered as things that make, you know, things that aren't just completely normal and how life has to be, you know, Things that niggle them, that they just thought they had to put up with and things like that. You know, you'll be able to call out these things that are sort of on the edge of their consciousness and make them go from, yes, me that's me. So it's really, really, really powerful to be able to do this and to be able to do this. It's not a case of shutting off distractions and sitting there in a dark room with just you and your thoughts were not dark rim. You struggled to write in the dark room, but sitting there in a room with just you and your thoughts, you know what I mean? It is a case of being out there, engaging with them and talking to them all the time. So a few ways you can do this. Um, set up coffee catch ups, just to see what's going on for them just for a general chat. No agenda, definitely no sales. Just to have. Catch up and see what's going on for them. So you can pinpoint. The sort of things. impacting on their situation beyond what you do and how that is impacting, what you do for them., Think about making your marketing a two way thing, stop thinking about it as a broadcast mechanism, I'm going to stand up on a pedestal and just speak at you. I know it can feel like that sometimes. I mean, I feel a bit like that now, because obviously I'm in a room by myself recording, like speaking to you, but I am also inviting you into my Facebook group where we can continue these conversations. It can go two way and I ask lots and lots of questions in there too. Um, really understand what's going on to peop for people not. So I can then hit them up in the DMS and sell to them. Cause I know that's a lot of how social media marketing works. You ask a question and then anyone who answers your heart, you've got my, you've got the problem myself, hit you with the DM. You haven't invited me to or asked for it. You've just expressed an opinion online, but I'm now gonna jump in those DMS and try and set at you. That is not what we're talking about here. That's horrible. It's horrible. When people do it for you to you. And I can imagine you, if you fit, it's horrible. When people do it to you, you don't want to be doing that to other people. No. What I'm talking about is real two way conversation where you can use the information you get back to improve your content, improve your marketing and crucially, improve your offers. And by the way, I've got a great question that you can use to get you started with this, but I'm going to share it at the end of this episode. So stick around for that. Um, and another way to do it is to take a look at, just take a look at what they're talking about online. So you don't even need to get involved in the conversation. If there are communities that have sprung up around what it is that you do for people, just look at where the conversations are going, what people are talking about, the sort of phrases and. Terms they're using the frustrations they're expressing and so on and so on. Um, and just see what's going on for them. And again, this isn't. So you can then jump in on anyone that says, oh, I'm really struggling with X, Y, Z. I don't know. That's the thing I do. That's the end then. This is to help you understand so that when the next time that person sees a bit of your content and it's talking about the issue, they have not in a creepy way. Like, but they like, oh yeah, I've been thinking about that. And anyone else who's been thinking about that too? You can bet if one person's saying online, lots of people are thinking it. Um, they can all look at that and go, oh, that, that really relates to me. So that there, those are the three ways you can do it. So actually have one-to-one conversations with them, make sure your marketing is two way asking questions, engaging in conversation, having debates and things like that. And yeah, just, just keeping a general ear to the floor in terms of what's going on in your space. Um, whether that's, whether that's things that places are hanging out online and things like that, or when you go to networking meetings and things like that, just listening to what the conversation is. And a final point here. Most importantly, make sure you're listening to that answers. avoid the temptation to impress your interpretation of what's going on on them, because that will then change the way they relate to you. You want this in their words because when you put content out, you want it to click with what's already in their heads. keep an open mind and really hear what they're saying. And if ness, if appropriate and necessary, ask more questions to get them to expand on that. But really, really listen to what they're saying. And use what you're learning, what you learn when you're figuring out. What you're going to sell and how you're going to sell it and just look at the difference it makes. Now the first step. To doing this to get in your marketing upside up rather than upside down. Um, is to make sure you have an offer that actually addresses something they want and need. So they have to actually wants to buy it. Um, so it needs to address a want and need your audience actually has. Not one. You think they should have. Not one that they have, but they haven't realized. The the thing they know they actually want and need. So that's why I've put together a guide for you to, um, give you the three techniques to help you validate your offer before you launch it. This will show you exactly how to verify that you have an offer. People actually want a need and to highlight what might stop them from buying, because you wouldn't want your perfect client to miss out because of a hang up. You could have easily mitigated for in the way you talk about your offer. and also heads up. This also works. If you have an offer already, that's just not setting as well as you wanted it to. Um, it works for that as well. It can help you pinpoint where the holes are, where the gaps are, where you might just be able to tweak things a bit to lift it and get those sales. So if you're bouncing on what should offer or you, if you have one that, that isn't selling quite as well as you hoped the techniques I give you in this guide are really, really going to help you do that. And it's absolutely free just for being listening to this podcast. You can grab your coffee, your coffee. Unfortunately, doesn't call me free coffee. Maybe I need a coffee or a tea. Um, you can grab your copy@wwwdotorangesheepresearch.co.uk. Forward slash validate. That's. Orange sheep research.co.uk forward slash validate. Um, and orange sheet research, orange sheet being like when an orange sheep. That's my business name, um, research being like doing your ideal client research. Orange sheet research or one word.co.uk forward slash validate. That we'll get an email straight over to you and you can have that first thing, the first technique up and running within five minutes of downloading the guide sees a really quick, easy things to do. Very little effort on your part, and they might just make the difference between an offer that flops and an offer that flies. Well, I think the up on the hoof and offer flops. It flies. I enjoyed that. Um, so, so yeah. Get your copy of that. Now I'm excited to share it with you. Um, these are the things that I do every time I launched something new and the information they bring in is absolutely valuable in making sure that my sales page sales copy, et cetera, is spot on. So now it's time for this week's question for your audience. I promised you this earlier, um, as I mentioned, the absolute key to getting your offers right, is by understanding your people before you create them. and an really easy way to do that is to always be asking questions of your audience. So here's a question you can ask your audience today to make sure your offer is meeting the need. They have, they see it. Put it on our socials, ask it in your emails, ask it in any conversations you're having with people today. And ask them this. What is stopping you from achieving X, Y, Z, where X, Y, Z is the goal, you know, they want, so for my business, it might be what is stopping you from getting more clients? Or a running coach. My ask, what is stopping you running a sub four hour marathon. Um, the responses will help you understand what problems they think they need to fix to hit their goal. Uh, and you can adjust your marketing and offers respectively to show them either how to solve that problem. Or to explain why it's not the real problem and show them what really is. Um, so as an example there, um, the, what stopping you from running a sub four hour marathon. Um, I mean, my marathon PB is 4 38. Um, There's probably a sub four in me, but I look at that and I think, well, I'm never going to run a sub four, cause I'm just genetically not cut out for running that fast. I can go a long way slowly. But I cannot go fast. it's just not in my genetics. So I would, if I was going to sign up for a running program to get faster marathon time, I would need someone to overcome my barrier that I think is just my genetics and show me how actually, okay. I might not be ever be a sub to 30 marathoner, which is like, sort of Olympic standard, but. I could. Knock a significant amount of my best time by doing X, Y, Z, that they're going to teach me and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. It is the genetics part of it, but you can still fulfill your potential within your genetic makeup, that sort of thing. If you see what I mean, but if, um, people just assumed, it was like, oh, uh, people can't achieve a sub four because they haven't got time to train or something like that. That I'd be like, well, no, that's not me. I'm already training. Um, so that's not going to help me. So, you know, it's kind of brings out the things you might not have considered in terms of what's stopping them from achieving that goal. And they might think it's really obvious, but if you're not in that situation, It might not be obvious to you. So that's a really, really good question to ask what is stopping you from achieving whatever goal it is they have for you help them to achieve. So pop that out on your socials today. And when you do, I would love you to come and share what you learned in my Facebook group, the upside up marketing movement. Um, just search that on Facebook. I'll also pop the link in the show notes. So you can do one click if you're, if you're somewhere where you can click. Um, and join a bunch of businesses, just like yours, who are looking to get more clients through offers that people actually want a marketing. That actually feels good. and is both effective and ethical. upside up marketing, and if you want to talk about anything we've discussed in the project cost today, that group is where all the conversations are going on. So come along, join the conversation, share your views, share your thoughts. Maybe you agree with me. Maybe you disagree with me, whatever it is coming in. That's chat about it. Um, so that's the upside up marketing movement over on Facebook. And yeah, link in the show notes. So that's all for this week. Make sure you've hit subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to make sure that you, uh, find out when the next episode comes out. They come out fortnightly on a Tuesday. So make sure you're subscribed. So you get notified of that. It's been great chatting to you today and, Good luck going out there and asking those questions. I can't wait to hear what you find out.