Episode 115 - Marketing Essentialism: Creating Your One-Page Marketing Plan
Melissa: [00:00:00] Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach, Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman Podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom, one business at a time.
Good morning. Hello. Happy Friday. How are you?
Welcome to Marketing Essentialism. This is week number three. And I'm so glad you're here and I'm so glad to be with you today. In this course, just as everyone's joining, I'm going to just do a little review cause, I know there are people that will be joining for the first time and as we're going live today and, So in this course I'm [00:01:00] combining everything that I have learned over the last 20 years in my own business in working with clients all around marketing and helping entrepreneurs to market themselves and be successful and create money in their businesses.
And you know, that's resulted in probably close to, or about, you know, millions of dollars. If we were to add it all up, the impact of, of the, all the 20 years and and then also I'm combining that all my experience and education, my MBA with what I've also learned from these two books. And all the other things that I've been through in my life, but a lot with 10 X is easier than two X.
And then Greg McKeon's Essentialism. And we're talking about marketing essentialism and how to really, really do and create and have a much greater impact. In the time that you have in the [00:02:00] energy that you have, and it's really a lot about shifting our thinking about marketing, and and thinking about yourself as a marketer and how you do marketing so that it's much more fun and effective and takes less time.
So that's what we're all about here today, and I'm glad you're here joining us for week three. We're going to just recap we've been having weekly calls. They've all been recorded and are here on social media. And, and so I've been teaching and then also doing some coaching and helping you to implement what you're learning.
And we've been having some homework things to work on and think about, and really to help you put into action what you're learning. Cause we can learn all the things. And if we're not putting it into action, it's just kind of a waste of time, right? And we're entrepreneurs. We don't have time to waste time.
So, and if you [00:03:00] want my personal, help in implementing this, I am offering a special this month for my marketing essentialism students, a pack of four 30 minute coaching sessions one on one privately with me to implement these, concepts in your business. Bye. Help you to take your marketing to the next level and the, and thus your sales and your revenue and your business to the next level.
So if that's something of interest to you, I'm just going to post the link to that in the comments here. And you can grab that if that's something that you're interested in. So let's just show that. And, yeah, so if you have any questions as we're going along, any comments as we're going along, please feel free to post those in the chat.
And so just as we review in week [00:04:00] one we talked about becoming the who. Who you want to become as a CEO, as a successful, effective marketer in your business and what you want to believe about yourself. Because so often our default thoughts and beliefs are around how much we suck and how much things aren't working for us and how nobody wants what we have to offer, but that's not true.
It's not the truth, even if your mind is offering you that. And so really thinking about. how you want to believe and think about yourself on purpose and how you want to think about marketing on purpose. That's going to create the energy and the actions that are going to bring those clients in. Right.
Let's see. And so we talked about some really tangible ways that you can do that. And then. Last week we talked about what is the purpose of [00:05:00] marketing and how I really was disillusioned in with marketing for so long because I thought it was just, a way to, you know, try and get something from someone else or trying to convert or, you know, these very conquest type, feelings and it felt very icky to me, but when I made the shift of thinking, mark marketing as a way to, as a way to serve.
Those around me and help those around me to build their businesses as a way of service and offering value. Then it changed everything for the way I think about marketing, the way I feel in my marketing, that marketing is really a way to change lives and offer great value even before someone pays you.
Right. And then for them from the client side, it makes it, it a no brainer to want to [00:06:00] work with you, right? So, so if you're offering your best client so much value in your marketing, you're not trying to talk them in or convince them of anything, right? But you're offering them so much value in your marketing, they can't help but want to work with you.
And so that's what we talked about. So based on all of that, Do you have any questions or have you begun to experience some shifts? I would love to hear all about that. And even if you are watching in replay, that's totally fine. Fine. Please feel free to post because, you know, I get notified and see all of your comments and all of your questions, even in replay.
So please feel free to do that. I know some of, some of y'all are joining in replay. So good morning or whatever time of day, hello from in replay land. Right. [00:07:00] Okay. So, all right. So please share with, Any questions you have also, please feel free to share any wins or any ahas that you're having as a result of going through this.
Material. Let's see. So yeah, I would love to hear, you know, how the daily practice is going. We talked about in week one the daily practice of recording three wins each day and some other things. And I know that from what I've heard from you and, and, and hearing from, or speaking with some of you that that is really important.
Created an amazing shift and yeah, and we've only been at this for a couple of weeks, so imagine and keeping that going and creating that momentum and compounding that that shift. Right. And then how did it go? I'm also curious how it went for you in terms of working on creating your why in your [00:08:00] marketing and the change that you seek to make in the world through.
Your marketing and your business, the services that you provide. And, and thinking about, you know, what does your best fit client want to know or need to know in order to want to work with you, right? Or to know that you are available. I, met a woman not too long ago at a speaking engagement.
And she became part of my I have a networking community, e women network of here in Northern Colorado. And she was so excited to find out that we existed. Like she had no idea this kind of network, this kind of support was available to her. And so your clients feel the same way. They will be so excited when they
find out about you, right? And when they learn about what you do and [00:09:00] how you can help them. And so just think about that and think about if you believe that, like, how would you be showing up in your community, in your marketing, in all the other, activities that you are doing to get the word out about you.
Okay. So let's dive in to this week's teaching. And so for all of you that love strategy, which is basically, you know, our marketing actions, if you love marketing strategy and marketing actions, this is for you. I mean, I love. Actions and strategy, right? Like I love doing all of the things. And so if that, if you can relate to that you know, this week and next week are definitely up your, right up your alley, but.
I want to, I want to also [00:10:00] remind you that even though we're shifting to the marketing action side of things all the actions you do without also doing the work on your thinking will You can still sell, you can still make money, but it's so much less efficient, less effective and harder, right? So when we have our thinking and our energy on board with the actions that we're doing, it's so much more effective.
So please continue practicing the, the working on our thinking that we talked about over the last two weeks. And, and then you will find that the marketing actions and activities and showing up. Becomes much easier. You feel much more joyful, less fearful, and that's what we want. That's what we're here for.
Right. Okay. So, so [00:11:00] the first thing I want to talk about, so really what our whole point of our, our talk are the teaching today is. I want you to begin creating your one page marketing plan. So when you leave this class today, you will have a draft of your one page marketing plan, or at least know exactly the kind of information that you want to gather about your business in order to create that plan.
So, What I always, like to do with my clients when we are assessing their marketing, and I'm always available to assess your marketing as well. I will put a link in the chat where you can schedule a marketing assessment with me. And. And we can do this work together. But I'm going to walk you through it today and here we go.
[00:12:00] Before I forget, I want to, I want you to have this, if this would be helpful for you. Okay. So as that is coming through, we're going to show that and show that. Okay. So we always start with an evaluation of your marketing because a lot of times we will have. Our own opinions of how we feel about marketing, right?
And how we feel about how we are doing with marketing. But it's, that is important to have awareness of, but I also want you to have awareness of what's actually happening and what is the actual data in your business? So, we start, we do that by evaluating. And so we evaluate using three questions.
The first question is, what is working, what's working in your marketing? And so I want you to, first of all, just make a list off the top of your head. What you [00:13:00] think, what you feel like is working for you right now. What's worked for you in the past, what you're enjoying, like all the things that are going well with your marketing.
All right. I also. And I mentioned this last week, this was your homework was, is to really look in to your business and see what is the data, what are the numbers? Say, and so I would love to hear from you what the numbers say in your business. And I want to share with you my, what my numbers said, cause I did my own data study as part of preparing with you and I do this regularly.
But I hadn't done it for this Well, actually I opened it up and looked back at all of my sales conversations or consultations from the last two years, since 2021, three years, two and a half years, something like that. And so I looked back [00:14:00] at all of those and I tabulated like where the, where the initial contact came, you know, how those people came to me.
And so I was able to see what's working. And what was so interesting is that if you would have asked me, okay, where do you get most of your clients? I would have said three things, but then when I did the data study, I was surprised because Three other things were actually where all my business, all my leads are coming from.
So I thought that that was so interesting. So I just encourage you to go back and look if you, even if you you know, this doesn't have to be a huge project. And I said, Last week. And I know some of you that I've talked to are making it kind of a big project. And obviously if you want to, you're the boss around here, so you can do what you want, but you don't have to make it a big project.
Like you could even just look at this [00:15:00] year. I mean, we have you know, we're at the half point of the year, so we have the first half of the year to look at. Or even if you just go back 12 months from today, look at the first half of this year and the second half of last year. But you do you and get some data together that will, that you can kind of really look at what is actually working with your marketing of bringing in new leads, what's working with nurturing those leads because, so I'll just share with you.
So what I found out is actually working for me. I learned that networking and my e women network, that comprises 49 percent of all of my sales conversations or consultations come from people I have met networking or through e women network. So that was surprising. I mean, obviously I knew that that was a big part of my business, but I didn't think it would be half.
So I [00:16:00] thought that was so cool. And then referrals for me comprise 28%. And then social media is 12 percent of all of the people that come to me. And I know a lot of us, we, you know, so what's so interesting as we're going to get to this in a little bit of thinking about the 80, 20 I think so many of us like spend 80 percent of our time and 80 percent of our cognitive creativity and 80 percent of our overthinking probably to write thinking about marketing on social media.
When for me, it only creates 12 percent of my leads. So I don't need to be spending that much time worried about it or thinking about posting or feeling guilty. Cause I haven't posted or whatever. Right. And so having this kind of awareness is super powerful for you as a CEO, as you mature as a CEO and a marketer, a chief marketing officer in your business.
Right. [00:17:00] Okay, so then we have what's working. Then what we're gonna look at is what's not working. What are you noticing? So for me, you know, there's three things that I thought were really important in my marketing plan that have kind of fallen to the lower because I'm seeing, looking at my data for the last three years and noticing, you know, the top three, and then also looking at those bottom three.
Right. And so, and how much effort and energy am I putting into those and just having that awareness of there are things and it's not, you know, that you have to make take this personally like these aren't working because you suck. It's just. As CEOs, we need to know what our, our best fit clients are responding to and what are the things they're not really responding to.
So are those things that we, those active activities, marketing strategies that we [00:18:00] maybe don't need to spend as much time and energy and creativity on, right? And then finally, think about what are you learning about this evaluation and this data study? What are you learning? And what are the lessons that you want to take with you in changing your marketing strategy going forward?
And so, So that's the first step, right? We're going to evaluate. And then the second step is to look at our 80 20. And so when I'm talking about 80 20, what that means is it's called the Pareto principle. And so what that means is that 80 percent of your results. are coming from, or so in this instance, when we're talking about marketing, marketing is to create sales opportunities, right?
So 80 percent of the sales opportunities you're creating through your marketing is, is coming from 20 percent of your marketing [00:19:00] actions, right? So what that means is that there's also 80 percent of the marketing actions that we're doing that are only Creating 20 percent of our results. So just let that sink in because what we want to do is have awareness of this so that we can take the 20 percent that's working really well and creating 80 percent of our results, and we want to optimize that 20%.
And then reduce the 80 percent that's taking up all our time, effort, creativity, and only creating 20 percent of our results. and either get rid of it or reduce it, but we want to optimize the 20 percent that's creating at 80 percent of our results. Why do we want to do that? Because that makes us more effective, more efficient.
And when we [00:20:00] focus in on fewer things, and this is the, the the principles from essentialism, right? You can go, you can go one inch in a thousand directions or you can go one mile in one direction, right? And so we want to know what is the 20 percent that is helping us go a mile in one direction, right?
And, and optimize those things because then we become much more efficient. Much more focused in our businesses and in our marketing. I mean, we're talking about marketing. So we've become more efficient in our marketing. Okay. And so you're going to, and it might not be exactly 80, 20. The, the idea is the same.
It's like, like for me. Okay. So I learned that networking [00:21:00] comprise makes up 50 percent of my consultation. But I spend so little time doing it. I go to a couple marketing events, right? And I create leads and I create opportunities. And it's so easy for me that it's easy. It's fun. My energy is there.
Whereas if I think about, I'm just looking at, let's see in my data study, some of the things that have fallen down or that are very little. Okay. So social media, for example. Okay. Social media only creates 12 percent of my leads, but I probably spend 80 percent of my time thinking about how much I suck at social media or writing posts or rewriting posts, or, you know, taking four hours to write a post.
Right? And I'm not that so much that way anymore, but you can relate, right? Like we, [00:22:00] obsess over this you know, this, this, these parts in our marketing, they're only creating 20 percent of our results. So I spend 80 percent of my time thinking about social media and it's only creating, you know, 12 percent of my results.
So if I were smart, which I am, that's why we're talking about this and you are too. We're smart. We are going to have awareness of this data, and we are going to shift our actions and we're going to shift the way we're doing things so that we go in the direction of the things that are creating 80 percent of our results.
And it's usually that that small percentage, right? Okay. So let's see. I'm looking at my notes. So I want you to determine your 80 and your 20. Okay. The, the 20 percent of marketing, the few marketing [00:23:00] things that are creating the largest amount of results. And, so this really is the power of priorities and essentialism in this book.
Greg McKeon talks about, you know, the, the definition of priority is like one pre I don't know. I'm not like, I don't know how to split up the words, but you get what I mean? Like a priority. You know, he, he kind of makes light of the fact that priorities, like we say, priorities is like kind of an oxymoron because priority is usually just one, but, but the, the power of essentialism and the power of commitment is having one or very few priorities, right.
And, and make progress and focus on those things. And you will get so much further because what I often see and what [00:24:00] we all tend to do at, at some point in our entrepreneurial journey is, We continue to change our offer, we continue to change our marketing activities to the next shiny thing, or we continue to change, change, change, looking for the one right offer, the one right price, or the one right marketing activity, right?
And, you know, trying to hit on that one thing. It's like, we're going to the slot machine. Right. And we just keep, you know, pulling the, and you don't do that anymore. Right. With slot machines, you push buttons, but anyway, we keep spinning the slot machine, trying to land on that one right thing where the jackpot, that is not.
How it works. Where your power is and where your greatest efficiency and where your traction comes is when you focus on those very few things [00:25:00] and and continue to improve and perfect those you make the things that you want, right? And that's how you gain traction and how you, gain mastery in those few marketing activities that create results for you.
And so. Because what I want you to know is that what I've learned over 20 years of work in marketing is that all the things work, all the marketing activities work. When I first started out in marketing, we were doing you know, yellow page ads and AM radio ads and they all worked, right? And not because that was the magic thing, but because of the quality that we put into those marketing efforts.
And so it's the same for us. It's what do we want to commit to? [00:26:00] Where do we want to feel alive and bring our energy to? And how do we want to master those marketing activities? And when we do that, all of our results will come from there. It's not based on the marketing activity. It's based on you and the magic you bring to the marketing activity.
So we take that knowledge and then we look at the data we already have in our business. And if you have a new business, I want, and you don't have a lot of data, I want you to think about your own history, whether it's in a, another business or in your career, like what have been the things that have really worked for you, the types of activities, and how can you apply that to marketing?
Right? And how can you apply that to going out and meeting clients? Because maybe in the past, in your past career, you were looking for, you know, new job opportunities or and so just [00:27:00] think about the other times in your life that you have marketed yourself, right? And so use that as kind of your data.
Or you can just, Pick three things that sound really fun to you. Pick some marketing activities that sound fun to you. Go out and do those with your whole heart and then look at the data. See what it creates after a period of time, right? Okay. So now once you have your 80, 20, like once you know the data in your business is telling you which activities few, Activities are creating the best results for you.
Then we're going to create our balanced one sheet marketing plan. And so you always want to balanced because you always want to have three things in your marketing plan. You want to have activities that bring in new connections. Right. So for me, my top three are [00:28:00] networking, referrals and social media, right?
So for me, it's a lot of like connecting with people, right? Cause networking and referrals are kind of very similar. So for me, I want to be out networking and I also want to be serving my clients at the highest level so that they're excited to refer me and talk about me to people in their network.
And then social media is my number three. So those are the three places I want to be focusing when I'm meeting new people, when I'm bringing new people into my sphere, and then you always want to be having marketing activities that nurture relationships, businesses, all based on relationships. So how are you nurturing those relationships?
So for me, I nurture through email. Through and through my podcast. So those are things that I want to continue as far as nurturing. And so you have to know so [00:29:00] I was thinking about this also is, is important when you're thinking about your evaluation and when you're doing your evaluation. So I did my data study on how all of my consultations have, you know, how those folks have come into my world, but think about what are all the steps they take.
Along the way, because the majority, the vast majority of people, when they first come into my world, when I meet them at a networking event, or when I when they're referred to me, they don't like right then and there be like, okay, I want to work with you. Usually they want to get to know me. We get to know each other a little bit.
Right. And there's different ways that we do that. And then they decide, yes, I want to. Talk to you about working together and see what that would look like. So think about what are the steps that people take once they come into your world to continue to get to know you. So they get a feel for whether you might be the person that could help them.
So for me, that's my podcast [00:30:00] is a huge way that people get to know how I think, how I coach the types of things I help my clients with and my philosophies, right? They, they learn all of that there. And the same on my email list. Right. I email regularly. So that's another way that I nurture those relationships.
I also, you know, have one on one connections and coffee chats and things like that. So think about for you, like, what are those things that really work? And so, so for our balanced marketing plan, just as a review, so we have ways that we meet new people. Then we have our nurture activities and then think about your offers.
You always want to be offering, right? You always want to be offering an opportunity for your best fit clients to go to that next step with you. And now I'm not talking about just purely selling something. There are, you know, micro offers, and then you have [00:31:00] your main offers, like your main thing that people pay you for.
But then there's all the little steps along the way, like, you know, connect with me on social media, you know, listen to my podcast. Let's have a coffee chat, you know, those are all micro offers that nurture that relationship until, until such time as the, the the person is ready to work with me or, you know, and that can, or, or collaborate or whatever, like relationships can take all different kinds of forms.
So so you want to have a balanced marketing plan that create, that includes those three things. So that's what I want to work on with you today. And so I want to answer any questions you have around those ideas. So please feel free to put them in the chat. And I [00:32:00] think what a lot of, questions I get around this is, you know, what, what different marketing activities
are like some people think of a podcast as an activity that brings in new people. I think of it more as a nurturing activity. It's usually people that meet me in other places and then think Listen to my podcast. I don't get a lot of new people coming to me through my podcasts, but it's a great way to nurture and continue to offer value.
And you know, like we talked about last week, like my, the purpose of my marketing and changing lives is to help women make more money in their businesses joyfully. And so it's a way that I can do that and offer that. With that, you know, before someone has paid me, so if you have any questions on your marketing activities and whether they would be considered a new and a nurture, and I like to have a [00:33:00] balanced similar number of marketing activities in each of those and as few as possible.
Right. It goes back to what we talked about earlier. If we have so many. Marketing activities, we're like going an inch deep in a thousand different directions, we're never going to perfect those activities and make them really great and valuable. And they won't become venues for clients to come to us.
So by all means, especially if you're early in your business, you don't have a lot of data, try a lot of things, but don't try them all at once. Like have a couple of things that you want to be really good at and focus in on those, see how they work for you, evaluate them based on the process I talked about earlier and put data to them, right?
Like, like, Take note of where your opportunities are coming from. And and so that's going to really help you to create this [00:34:00] one page marketing plan where you have just a couple ways that you're bringing in new people, a couple ways that you're nurturing relationships, and then a very clear set of offers that you're always making, right?
Based on where they are in the relationship. So any questions you have on any of that, please put them in the chat, even on replay, I will get those and I will answer them. If you want to work on this personally with me remember that you can do that by, Taking advantage of the marketing essentialism this month long course and the offer that I have in there to have four one on one private coaching sessions with me to implement this work in your business.
So that's what's happening there. Okay. So next week, so, so your homework [00:35:00] basically for this week, right? Is to compile or to tabulate your data study and to determine your 80 20. And then from all of that knowledge, and after you've evaluated your marketing. to draft your one page marketing plan, based on what are the activities I'm doing to bring in new people?
What are the activities I'm doing to nurture those and grow those relationships? And what are all the, all the micro offers and, you know, major offer that I'm going to make along the way. So that's the work for this coming week. And so next week, what we're going to talk about is how to take the, all these marketing activities and really Increase the quality and the value of these marketing activities.
So you can do a few activities and be really great at them, super valuable and create much more efficiency and much greater results. [00:36:00] Because the, the results and the efficiency come from focusing on quality and value. And that's all in this book, this book is talks a lot about that. And I have experienced that in my own journey as well, that when you're focused on a few things and making them super valuable, that's where you get that traction, right?
And I'm going to teach you how to slow down time and get 10 X more accomplished in the same amount of time that you're currently using marketing. And so we're going to talk about a whole new concept of time. And it's a, it's a concept that you can apply to anything you spend time on, but we're going to talk about it specifically with your marketing and how you can really.
Increase your efficiency, get so much more, so much greater [00:37:00] quality and valuable marketing out into the world. And that will bring in the clients and the opportunities that you want. So there we have it, my friends. So again, if you have any questions. Please feel free to put them in the chat and I am going to sign off.
All right. Take care. Bye.
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