[00:00:00] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: 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.
Okay. Welcome everybody. I'm so glad to be with you today and thank you for joining me. I and I have a guest today that I'm really excited about introducing you to, and we're going to have a great conversation about pricing. I know this is something that I talk to a lot of people about, and it's a struggle for a lot of us, me included.
And so we have an expert here today with us. Her name is Marky Reed. And [00:01:00] she is a pricing expert and seasoned business strategist who spent over 25 years helping women solopreneurs get paid what they're truly worth. So I'm really excited to have her here. And so Marky, if you want to just give us a little bit of a fuller introduction and we'll dive right in and talk about pricing strategy and all the things.
[00:01:24] Markey Read: Sure. So, so thank you so much, Melissa. This is really fun. I always, I always love talking to you. So what, who am I? I'm Markey Reed. I've been in business, I'm in my 34th year of business. And I am really passionate about helping women Not only create their business and build it, but grow and prosper within that.
And that's why pricing is, is really central to that message. And that because we not enough of a, not enough of us are charging what we're really worth, which means we're leaving a lot of money on the table. And it also, that means that ripples out into our whole lives. [00:02:00] We're, we're short changing ourselves.
We're short changing our families. We're short changing our cats and dogs. If those are our children, we're And all of you know, all the beings in our lives. We're getting shortchanged because we're working too hard And we're not making enough money. And that's the piece that that's really, that's really driven me to talk about pricing as a central message because I just see too many women, too many really, really good women burning out.
[00:02:24] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I noticed in your bio that you talk about coming to this work through personal experience. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience, like how this became real for you?
[00:02:38] Markey Read: Sure. So, you know, because I started when I was quite young, I was in my mid twenties when I started in business.
I had never made a lot of money and I really didn't understand how to charge for my time. I'd always been, you know, I'd always been an hourly employee and never made much. So when I started, people started paying me for my services, I was like, Oh my gosh, I can make [00:03:00] that much in an hour. And I did the classic mistake that a lot of people do is I multiply that times 40, which is.
not feasible. Like you can't physically bill 40 hours a week. You would, you would be, you know, you would die. Or you would burn out really fast. And so for me it was easy. It felt like easy money in the beginning. And then when I wanted to make it into more of a formal business, cause I was, I was a subcontractor when I started doing that kind of coaching work.
job search is actually where I started. And I, so I was a subcontractor, which, which felt like I was, you know, I was into money. I was like, woohoo, I finally made some money. And then as I became a partner in the business and we started growing it, I had to really look at, the structure of what I was doing differently.
And I undercharged terribly for a long, long, long time. But the more I talked to entrepreneurs, the more clients I had who were entrepreneurial and wanted to help them develop their consulting and coaching businesses. I [00:04:00] realized that I was helping a lot more people with pricing than I even knew, like before I even knew it.
And I was talking about my own experiences, but then I started to Say, you know, there's a lot more to this. I need to actually learn. I need to learn more about this myself because I'm not charging enough. Yeah. And that helped me kind of continue to perpetuate all of that in the work that I do now.
And when I when I wrote my, my book launch, grow and prosper as a woman solopreneur, which was published this year, I realized I had a lot to say about pricing. There's two whole chapters in the book about pricing, just on pricing.
[00:04:35] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah.
[00:04:36] Markey Read: And so, you know, so it's a, it's a fun, it's a fun topic. It also is a really meaningful topic to me because I think it touches on so many pieces of our business.
Yeah. Thanks.
[00:04:45] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. And, and it's not only about our business, it's really about the internal work because that's really the foundation of the pricing, right? We have to believe that we're actually worth something. Business value, obviously as a human, we know we're inherently [00:05:00] worthy.
[00:05:01] Markey Read: Right. Cause we can do the mechanics of, okay, how much money do I want to make this year?
And, and, you know, and go backwards in your calculations and figure out what your hourly rate is and all you can do all of that. Those are, those are the simple calculations. But then you have to. Add on your years of experience, your, your level of expertise, the results that you produce, that's the value add that we bring is particularly in service providers.
That isn't part of those equations. You know, whenever you see an actual equation for how do you set your rates people leave out that piece of, you know, but there's all this other value and worth piece that you're not talking about.
[00:05:41] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: And so how do you deal with that? Like with your clients, tell me.
[00:05:47] Markey Read: Well, part, a lot of it is helping people claim that level of expertise, you know? So, so I was just talking to somebody yesterday, for example, and she, I've known her for a long time. She [00:06:00] was a client of mine before when she was in job search and has had a 25 really successful 25 year career in.
nonprofit development, fundraising, really high level, you know, big campaigns. And she went out on her own last year on, for her own business. And she was really struggling with her pricing. And what was really great is that when she was talking about negotiating salary, it was a lot easier for her than it was now as a business owner.
And when I reminded her that she, yes, she's only been in business for quote one year, she brings 25 years of really high powered results, really high powered results to that, to the work that she does. And, When we talked about it from that perspective, I could see her like her face change and her body change.
And she was sort of sitting up more, you know, like, like kind of starting to embody it more in her, in her heart and in her gut. And it was a great [00:07:00] shift to see in somebody that I've known and respected for a long time just to see, Oh yeah, they're really, yeah, I really do need to charge more and I am worth it.
And what's challenging for a lot of people when they start is that in that first couple of years, especially in coaching, counseling consulting sorts of businesses, you really don't know what your area of expertise is. You, it's hard to know what your results are because you haven't done it enough.
But after you've done it a couple of years, you can start to really pin down like, Oh, I helped this organization go from here to here. I helped this or this person go from here to here. And it's easier to start to see those patterns. And that's, I think that's when, that's why pricing in the very beginning is so hard because we actually don't know how to talk about our expertise.
And then as we go on, we forget to reevaluate, say, Oh right, I need to start talking about the results I produce. I just, you know.
[00:07:58] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. And I love [00:08:00] that example of someone coming out of corporate, right. And they felt really tied to their results that they created within that role. But then somehow, somehow we have that disconnect that we forget our brain and all of our experience comes with us wherever we go.
[00:08:19] Markey Read: Yeah, right, right. And I think that, you know, I've seen the opposite happen where people leave corporate And then they go out and say, I can do all these things. But what they were forgetting is they used to have a whole staff that they delegated to.
[00:08:32] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah.
[00:08:32] Markey Read: I've seen, I've seen people, particularly in, in a controller and CPA kind of accounting level who realized that they are capable of a lot of things, but they had a staff that did the, the entry and all that stuff.
And they have to quickly build a team if they want to stay at the level that they're really capable of,
[00:08:50] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: The,
[00:08:50] Markey Read: of the advising and the strata, the strategy level. So I think that, you know, sometimes we forget. So there's that, there's both sides of it, right? We need to understand what [00:09:00] are the results that I bring that with the knowledge and experience that I bring and what were the results that I produced as part of my team.
And they're not, I'm not separated from those, but if I don't have a team, I may not be able to make those kinds of promises.
[00:09:13] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. So talk me through how entrepreneurs, how women can develop a pricing strategy that reflects their true value. Sure.
[00:09:24] Markey Read: Oh,
[00:09:24] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: okay.
[00:09:25] Markey Read: So there's, to me, there's, so it's a few parts.
So one is understand what it actually takes to, to deliver the services that you provide, whether that is you're doing coaching with individuals, groups, forces, you're doing consulting, you're doing research, whatever it is you're doing, what does it cost you to deliver the service that you say you deliver?
And that number is not necessarily your price. That actually might be quite a high number, but it just doesn't have to be your price. And then you add on the level of experience you bring, [00:10:00] the level of expertise and kinds of results that reproduce. What are the, what's the value of those results? So that's all like, I call that the raw data.
And then you need to get big picture with your business and understand how does this fit in. So for example, it might cost me. I might have a value, for example, of a workshop that's 6, 000 because of the amount of time it takes me to deliver that. But I'm gonna, I'm, it's a workshop, so I'm going to deliver that to many people and probably multiple times.
I could choose to charge 6, 000 per person. But I could also choose to say, I'm going to do the heavy lift on the development and then I'm going to use, reuse that and reiterate that material over many times. And I'll make back that money kind of as a, as an initial investment. So if it's an introductory product, right, for example, and then you have higher level and you have even higher level, but the more individualized it becomes, the smaller the group, the [00:11:00] more one to one it becomes, the higher your price needs to go.
And that's understanding that. That's the, where does the service you're providing fit into the level of client and information and level of your time? How much personal individual time are you giving to that? So that's, that's some of the components. And when you understand all of that, then you start to see, Oh, that's why people charge 97 for a workshop.
Like how do they, how do they get away with, you know, how do they justify that price to themselves? Well, cause it was probably an introductory course. It's probably something they've done many, many, many, many times, and they're iterating rather than creating brand new. And if somebody is charging 10, 000 for a six month program, well, it's probably because it's individual.
It's one to one. There's a lot of intensive, you know, one to one work you do.
[00:11:55] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: So is there an easy kind of way to think about that? Because I [00:12:00] think the way I've always been pricing, it's kind of been what the market will bear and thinking about what others in my industry are doing and what I feel comfortable with charging.
Obviously there's not a lot of science in that and math and you're talking about a lot more math. So. Oh, so yeah, so
[00:12:18] Markey Read: actually that's, that's what you do is exactly what the vast majority of people do. Yeah. Yeah. They, they use what they consider the, what the market will bear. And here's a really good thing to remember about the, what the market will bear is if you're in a hyper local market, then what the market will bear has a lot of bearing on you because you're really competing with, you know, if you're a retail store is selling something that three, three doors down to sells that same thing, you need to be able to compete with that in terms of what the market will bear.
Yeah. If you're a service provider, for example, for the first 20 years of my business, I was very local. I, I really stayed right in Vermont and then I started expanding outside of that. And I was very, I was [00:13:00] always aware of, there were three or four other people in my community that were offering very similar kinds of really direct competitors.
I was always aware of what they were charging and how they were structuring things because I had clients who were comparison shopping. I also had my ways of kind of, you know, getting information from the community, kind of keeping into the buzz. And so I would adjust my prices accordingly. Now the two people who were the most direct and most well known competitors had about 10 years more experience than I did in my, in my field.
And so I was always aware that I was, that I like didn't want to charge more, but here's the thing is that I realized. Maybe 15 years ago that they were terribly under charging for what they like. They were way under charging for what they were doing And so I want, when I kept my pricing compared to in my, in my competitive comparison, I didn't know what [00:14:00] they were using to set their pricing and I wasn't really talking directly to them.
I knew them. We were all friendly competitors, but I didn't get into detail about their pricing. Yeah. And when we use that, what the market will bear or what my competitors are charging, we don't always know what they're using as their basis for pricing. Now if you're doing business that's outside your hyperlocal market, like if you're, you're, you're online, you're doing work nationally, internationally, well then what is the market, right?
What can it bear? Yeah. So there's, it's a wider conversation and I think actually that's what gives service providers a little more. Freedom to start to price according to what they really see that they're worth rather than what they think people, what their competitors are charging or what they think people will, they can get away with or what people can't afford.
Because when we talk about what people can't afford, we're trying to read their minds and. I don't know what they can afford, you know, getting our hands in their pocketbook, [00:15:00] right? There's all kinds of ways that people will find resources if it's appropriate for them. And I never, you know, I never encouraged somebody to go, go into debt to work with me, but I also know that it's an investment just like your services.
It's an investment into, to, to the work we do. I'm not looking for somebody to, you know, pay me you know, 1, 200 a month for the rest of their lives. It's like, it's a, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a set time when you're doing some heavy investment and then there might be some re some retooling, you know, over time.
[00:15:38] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. So do you advise different pricing for like different stages of business? Like for like a, a brand new business? And then once, like you said, you know what your value is and you're, you have results to prove, then your pricing goes to a different level.
[00:15:58] Markey Read: Somewhat, [00:16:00] somewhat. So it depends on the individual because they might be bringing a lot of, you know professional experience into their field that maybe they've never run their own consulting business doing that, but they bring an incredible wealth of knowledge.
So for example, when I was 26 years old and started in business, I didn't know a lot. I mean, I thought I knew a lot, but you know, and so in 25 years later, when I look back, I think. Oh my gosh, who was I trying to say those things to be, I mean, I think what I did work to help people, cause it was mostly writing resumes and cover letters and helping people apply to jobs, which wasn't really that hard.
And it made sense, see that was the thing, that, that world made sense to me. Like I, I understood that in a way that a lot of people that came to me didn't. Yeah. But if I had been you know, working with a you know, for an outplacement firm, for example, if I was an employee with an [00:17:00] outplacement firm for 25 years or 15 years, and then I decided to just really do my own clients, well, I would have been bringing all of that experience.
And and I do give people a little bit of idea of like, you know, if you charge too little, people won't take you seriously. So don't, don't take that route. Don't, don't say, Oh, I'll just charge, I'll just charge really low so that I get clients because people actually won't hire you if you don't charge enough.
[00:17:27] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. And I think there's a mental thing that happens when we know we're undercharging. Mentally, oftentimes what I see is we will underperform.
[00:17:39] Markey Read: Yes.
[00:17:40] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Right? And so if we, like you said earlier, if we're embodying that level of service and the results we want to create and we know we can create for our clients and we charge accordingly, then we live into that, right?
[00:17:55] Markey Read: We step up, right? Pricing to me is a muscle. It's like any, any [00:18:00] muscle you're trying to develop in the beginning. You do some things that seem, you know, you're only lifting five pound weights, you know, because it's kind of what you can do and do, you know, 15 reps. And then you get a little stronger and a little stronger and a little stronger.
I broke my wrist a couple of years ago now, and I had to do all kinds of PT to rebuild my whole arm.
[00:18:22] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: And
[00:18:23] Markey Read: it was amazing to me that just a couple of pounds felt like a lot in the beginning. And then I had, I have, the more I did it, the stronger my, my arm got. And I also know interestingly is when I start to feel the tendonitis in my wrist is because I'm not doing enough muscle development in my bicep.
And that's a really interesting thing to look at too, is that if you don't consistently And use that muscle around analyzing your pricing, understanding it, adjusting it, doing that, then you get sort of atrophies. And all of a sudden five years have gone by and you haven't raised your [00:19:00] prices and you're, and you're getting resentful about what you're charging.
You're not performing. Like you said, we're not stepping up in the way that we know how to.
[00:19:09] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I told you my story. I didn't raise my prices for probably the first 10 years in my business. And then when I did it, it was my clients all congratulated me. Nobody, cause I thought of course, right, I'm going to raise my prices and then everyone's going to quit and I will have no business.
So right. But they ended up congratulating me and happily paying. The higher prices. And so that was a really great learning experience for me. So talk about that a little bit. Like, how do you advise that we think about price increases? Do we just make it something? Consist that we're always doing or what do you advise?
[00:19:52] Markey Read: I would suggest, here's what I suggest every year, like this time of year, this is a perfect time of year to do it. Look at your pricing, [00:20:00] look at all your programs, your offers, whatever it is. And if all you do is one to one coaching, great. You probably have some packages in that. You probably have some ways that you, you do that.
If you do more complex training, consulting kind of work, then just start to look and is it working? Like, you know Was it really costing? Right. And then some do some of that value add, but look at it every year. You do not have to raise your prices every year. One of the things you might do is look at your pricing.
And for example, for a long time, I've had a program that was like 10, 10 to 12 sessions. Right. And I had a price on that and for a long time I just sort of bumped the price up and bought the price up. And then I realized, you know what, I don't really think we need 12 or 13 sessions. I think I could do this in 10 cause I was actually, my expertise had increased.
I was getting faster so that, so for a couple of years I didn't change the price, but I changed the number of sessions. And [00:21:00] then I decided I wanted to add some bonuses onto that. And so bonuses are a nice way to add a little extra on, but that doesn't necessarily affect the price and people appreciate bonuses.
So I played around with how, what it is I offered rather than how much it was. And you might decide that you have a six session course that you teach that you could really do in four. You could change, you could charge the same exact price, but you've just gotten better, cleaner, more focused in the material.
And you just, you're able to do it in four. And then all of a sudden it snaps together.
[00:21:34] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And so that brings up for me as I talk to a lot of women about dollars for hours. And versus dollars for value, right? So I could hear someone say, well, I don't want to decrease the amount of sessions or classes or time that I spend because that's what people are paying for.
And what would you [00:22:00] say to that? Well, actually people are paying for the
[00:22:02] Markey Read: results, really, that, you know, this is where I started to see that it didn't take me 13 sessions to get to a place that I felt like we needed to get to. I really, I could do 10. And Anne, one of the things I do more, I find more of is a little bit more email and messaging exchanging going on because sometimes there's a quick question that doesn't need to wait to for an appointment.
And I don't mind that. That's part of, that's part of the bonus, right? Is that in between sessions, you can ask questions and interact with me. Now, if it's going to take me more than five or 10 minutes to answer your question, I'm going to probably say, let's get on the phone or let's get on zoom and let's have an appointment.
But that's a way for me to get quick. For them to get a quick answer and not have it be a whole session where we feel like we have to fill the time.
[00:22:56] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Mm hmm.
[00:22:57] Markey Read: In fact, if we say it's 10 hours [00:23:00] as opposed to 10 sessions, Then we're also holding ourselves to filling an hour. And I'll tell you what, as soon as you say it's 10 hours and not 10 sessions, your client is doing the, the, the, the clock, Oh, we only met for 45 minutes.
Yeah. Then we only met for 45 minutes a day. I have 15 minutes extra, so I'll use that some other time. No, maybe you actually got to where they needed to be in 45 minutes.
[00:23:27] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. And I think the question is is knowing what does my client value? Do they value the result or do they value the minutes? Right.
Because if I can go to a personal trainer, for example, and they say, I can get you to your, you know, beach body in, Five minutes and not five days. I'm all in. I'm all for it. Yeah, I'm all in.
[00:23:49] Markey Read: I'll pay double. Right, and that's why, in fact, weight weight training exercise is a great example of this, is all these methods now, you know, 10 minutes a day, 7 minutes a [00:24:00] day, they're all, they're trying to get us down to this, like, what's the essential to get the result we want.
[00:24:06] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. And I think that's very valuable. And so it is,
[00:24:10] Markey Read: and it gets in, it gets out of that conversation of I I'm, I'm my billable hours. For example, it's more like, well, what's the, what's the number of clients that I have and how, how am I, how's my, what my prep, how do I structure my pricing so that I'm not.
Beholden to an hourly, filling a certain number of billable hours, might be having a certain number of billable sessions or a percentage of your time being client service as opposed to business management.
[00:24:40] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Mm hmm.
[00:24:41] Markey Read: Mm hmm.
[00:24:42] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. So what would be like three steps that anyone listening could take, whether it's thinking about their pricing, like three things they could do to.
Really know how to [00:25:00] price and if they're pricing, you know, like you said, we're in this time where it would be a really great time to assess prices. Like what are three things that we can do to know if we're pricing correctly?
[00:25:12] Markey Read: I would say probably the majority of people could just automatically raise their prices 5 percent without even doing anything.
Just give yourself a 5 percent boost. And if you have a hard time saying it, it's okay. It's a muscle, right? Okay. You'll say it a few times. There's a few people that'll walk away because you weren't convinced of it yet. You'll say it a few more times and all of a sudden it won't even feel like a big deal and everybody just says yes.
So that's one thing. That's an easy thing. And the other is, I think is to really do some good. Take apart your services, you know, use your wall. I like to, I'm a, I'm a post it queen. I've always got bags of post its with me. I take apart things all the time. I, I write the components of a program and take them apart on post it notes and put them up and see, [00:26:00] is this the order they need to be in?
Does this, the length they need to be? Is this the content? Is there some piece that I can take out that isn't really, it's fun? Is it, it's nice, but is it essential? Mm. And start to, to tighten up what you do so that you're getting people to their results more effectively, not, not so much efficiently, effectively.
And then start to look at, is this an introductory service? Is this an intermediary? Is this an advanced and how do I want to differentiate my pricing accordingly? Introductory means it's one to many. Or I'm trying to sell many of them. Intermediate is one to a few, or I'm only selling a, you know, a limited number one to one is I'm probably have some premium clients I'm working with.
And they're taking, they're getting all when I'm with them, they have my entire attention. If you can distinguish your services in those categories, it'll also help you start to think [00:27:00] about. How to, how to set pricing to get folks in the door and then move them up into those other levels.
[00:27:06] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So your recommendation is having services or packages or containers in each, in different steps, like different ways of engaging with you.
Yeah.
[00:27:20] Markey Read: Too many of us have the 3, 000, 5, 000 package and we don't have anything below. Or if we do, we, we, it's always custom and we have to kind of scramble, you know, if you always have a few things in your back pocket, like I have, I have my a program that's kind of my basic. individual work. And there are people that really don't need all of that.
Like I can tell when we're talking, they really don't need all of that. Now I don't promote the other, the smaller one. Like I don't have it anywhere on my website, but if I'm talking to you and I realize, you know, just like, there's a few essential, really big, this essential pieces that I think would make a big difference.
I'll say, you know, I [00:28:00] have a smaller program, but I bring it up. It means I can downsell. So if I can't, if I can't downsell to anything, then there's only the one or more. But if I always have a couple of things that I can say, you know, Hey, I run a group or, Oh, I'm doing a course on that coming up next month.
You might really like that. Or I even, I have some free resources on my website here. I sell a book on that, you know, you can wait, have ways that you can help people access your knowledge, your expertise without necessarily being one to one all the time.
[00:28:35] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. So in terms of thinking about attracting those ideal clients, what are your, what's your best advice for us in bringing in those ideal clients that value the work that we do?
[00:28:50] Markey Read: Well, I think it really clear about it. So for, so I'll talk about, for a long time, I didn't understand really what being in having a niche was. [00:29:00] I actually thought that niching meant like you were cut, asked me to cut off limbs of my body, you know, cause I felt like I had a lot to offer, right. And so when I, when I, when you, when you niche down to your really clear, you're crystal clear on who your ideal clients are.
It's much easier to price. It's much easier to create services for them because those are the folks you want walking in the door. And remember, you can take on other clients that don't fit that. There's other folks who come to you because they just because they think, Oh my gosh, Melissa, you're so great.
I want to work with you. And you're like, okay, yeah. You're not going to say no. But if you talk to your ideal clients, right, speak to them, that's all your marketing message, your packages or all of that is targeted toward them. Other folks will come along and want to be part of the party, but you'll be attracting more and more of the folks that are really your ideal.
I heard this really great statistic yesterday that at any given time, only 1 percent [00:30:00] of your ideal clients are in a position to buy. Hmm. That was really interesting. So there's a lot of, there's like a lot of richness in that. First of all, even though you might be my ideal client, you're not, you don't, you don't either see, you don't need my services.
You're not in a position to act on it. Now there's no urgency. There's lots of reasons why you may not act on it, but it doesn't mean that some other time you won't be. So when we're talking to our ideal clients over and over again, when they are ready to buy, They choose you.
[00:30:33] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. I love that because I always think about that is like my tomato garden, right?
Like you plant your tomatoes and they begin to grow and they sprout. And that whole time we're watering fertilizing making sure that, you know, there's no weeds, we're taking care of them, but they're all going to ripen at different times. And so we have to, yeah, continually be nurturing and offering value to all of them.
[00:30:59] Markey Read: And [00:31:00] if you start it from seed to, you know, to the first ripe tomato, which for in Vermont, that's right around the 1st of August, that's like from March or April to August. That's a long time to take care of a plant that's giving you nothing tangible, right? That's not, that's tangible.
[00:31:21] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah.
[00:31:22] Markey Read: And so, you know, it's, that's months and months.
And I think that's also part of that commitment to speaking to your ideal client, because When they start to come in, it comes in richly. You know, it's like the tomato plant. If you start to ripen, then a few more and then a few more. And the next thing you know, you got buckets of tomatoes in the kitchen and you're trying to make sauce.
[00:31:43] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So what are your top tips for converting those folks into loyal customers without That icky, pushy, salesy
[00:31:55] Markey Read: feeling. It's about relationship. [00:32:00] It's about staying engaged. You know, I've had, I've had a really interesting, it's been, it's been a really great fall for me because I have, I did a lot of strategy change to my business at the beginning of the year.
And I put out all kinds of information, all kinds of, you know social media, email marketing, just, you know, all kinds of stuff, right? All this promotion. And it just felt like crickets for so long, so long. And then this fall, because it's conference season, I've been going to various in person events which I do think that in person events are so essential for that.
And I have people been walking up to me saying, Oh, I'm, I was so hope I was so looking forward to seeing you. I hope you would. I was hoping you'd be here. I want to talk to you about, Oh, I'm also, I've been watching, I've been following everything you're talking about. I'm loving it. I'm just trying to figure out when I can sign up.
So I, okay. So you know what I do is I, if somebody says that, you know, you just say, okay, well let's look at [00:33:00] our calendars right now and let's get a time and talk because even if they don't buy, I want them to understand. What's available so it's all the relationship.
[00:33:10] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: I'm a
[00:33:11] Markey Read: firm believer in are Nurturing our relationships through our network and whether that's because you can't just do it through social media, right?
Because social social media really is just another form of networking but it's quite impersonal because it's Because it's, you're not physically there, so you've got to do the showing up in person, the connecting, finding the groups that are your, both your collegial groups as well as your target market groups.
And all of that starts to build. And if you're doing that on many, many, you're doing, you know, you really have several fronts of interacting. I know this makes some people, their skin start to crawl when I say several fronts because they're like, ah, we're having more time, but it's about quality. Hey. It's about quality, not quantity, quality posts, quality connections, quality groups.[00:34:00]
And and make sure every single time you go to a live event that you walk out of there with at least one appointment booked with somebody from that from that group. And my all time record was nine.
[00:34:12] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Wow.
[00:34:12] Markey Read: And I was like, I almost couldn't walk out the door before somebody, another, I was literally getting my coat and walking out and somebody said, Marky, I've been waiting to talk to you all night.
I wanted to introduce you to, and I'll, and then I got another appointment. Wow. I got in my car and I thought, what just happened? But it's because of all those, you know, all those relationships, all those ways that I just kept interacting and showing up and showing up and showing up and being myself.
And being of service, being helpful. It's hard when you're first starting to feel like, Oh, I'm supposed to just show up everywhere and give everything away. Cause it, cause that's what it feels like. But no, you're, you're putting deposits into the goodwill bank and then you get to start to withdraw them.
[00:35:00] And it always comes back to you in ways you probably don't expect. Yeah. It comes back in the most amazing, I really, truly this fall. Lifted my heart when I had people come to me and say, Oh, I've been following what you've been doing online I'm just loving it and I want to talk to you. Like I couldn't I wouldn't have known that otherwise No, I'm gonna turn off my camera for just a second because it's kind of getting blurry.
There you go I think it's a little sharper So I would never have known that they were watching her because nobody commented right I get all these impressions But what does that even mean? Yeah, it's just Yeah,
[00:35:41] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: and I've heard that that really is a trend where, where people are watching and taking it all in and loving it and not at all engaging or commenting or any of that.
And so that is, Knowing that because that's very typical. I hear that all the time. And [00:36:00] from the experts that I follow, like that's the statistics are showing that too. And so it's such a great reminder that, you know, they're just all those tomatoes. They're out there. And even if we don't think they're growing, they really actually are growing.
Even if we don't see them.
[00:36:18] Markey Read: To take the tomato seed further, the tomato plant further, it's really great, is if you're a gardener, I, I'm a big time gardener.
[00:36:25] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yes.
[00:36:25] Markey Read: I don't put tomatoes into my compost because tomato seeds last for freaking ever. Right. If you throw a bunch of tomatoes into your compost next year, you're going to have tomatoes all over your garden, little baby tomatoes.
And that's a really a great reminder though, is because all of that, all of those things you've done, all those deposits into the good, the goodwill community, good, good, goodwill bank. They don't go away. People remember, people remember something that you did. You kindness or a generosity for years, and you have long [00:37:00] forgotten you even talked to them and you said something that made a difference to them, and they remember you.
And so when they're ready to act, they call you. Yeah, because you remember one percent, one percent of your ideal client base is ready to buy right now. Mm
[00:37:18] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: hmm. Yeah, and I love to even have a little flip on that to think that Your work is always in demand and that all that demand is already all around you.
Yes. Right. Yes. Like it was wild. Yeah. Go ahead.
[00:37:39] Markey Read: It's just, it's just waiting. Right. It's just waiting. And because we aren't clear about who our ideal clients are, and I know you do that work with your, with your folks so much is about let's get real clear about who you're talking to so that you can talk to them more effectively.
When we don't know that, we're just doing buckshot and people don't [00:38:00] know, they don't know what we do. They actually don't know. They don't know how to access what we do. We think they think we're wonderful. They think we're smart. They, we think that they think all kinds of great things about us, but they don't quite know what door to walk in.
And for you, it's real clear, like marketing, let's just talk about, let's just talk about that. Let's open that door. Cause it, cause it touches everything. Right.
[00:38:22] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah,
[00:38:23] Markey Read: pricing touches everything, right?
[00:38:26] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great reminder that in all of our marketing, if we just consider that all of the clients that we have capacity For are already all around us.
And so in everything that we are doing, we need to talk to them and let them know what we're doing, how we do it and how they can take that first step.
[00:38:48] Markey Read: Yeah,
[00:38:50] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: exactly. So good. So my final question for you, since you have been an entrepreneur for three decades, which is [00:39:00] so admirable. We know from statistics that most businesses.
Don't last that long. And so you are immensely successful in the work that you're doing and having been an entrepreneur for so long, what would be a couple of pieces of advice for us that would love to grow and have our businesses for 30 plus years also,
[00:39:23] Markey Read: that's really good. Don't try to figure it all out in the beginning.
You know, allow yourself to grow, because particularly for, for, for those of us who are solopreneurial service providers, as we grow and develop and evolve, our business grows and develops and evolves. And in fact, my, my, what my prime, I've always worked with with entrepreneurs throughout the whole, my whole career.
And it wasn't until the last five years that I said, you know, they're going to be my primary audience. It's like, they're going to be, I'm going to, I'm going to just talk to entrepreneurs. And so because I've always worked with them, I have a long [00:40:00] history of working with entrepreneurs, but I never just said, I'm going to just talk to entrepreneurs.
So I've had other focuses in my business. And all of that has helped me evolve and change because, you know, I get bored or I get tired of that, or I realized I went after something and I caught a big fish and it wasn't really a fish I wanted to eat anymore. And so I went after something else. And I allowed myself to do that Because you know, the truth is if in 10 years you meet me, I may not be talking to solopreneurs anymore I mean, I might still work with them, but it may not be my Primary focus if I you know, i'll be a much more mature women woman then I just I just turned 60 this year.
So 10 years from now. Awesome. But I basically, I love entrepreneurs and I, and I've loved all the things I've done. All the people that I've worked with so far, I've, I've loved when it, when I worked with them and then it changed for me. I've also changed my business name three times. And so, you know, it's part of [00:41:00] like, I grew out of that business name.
It didn't fit me anymore. And so I evolved into something else. I think that allowing yourself, so so many of us like, People try to create a name that somehow, you know, gives us catchy, gives, gives them a catchy URL. Yeah. You know, it'll work for the first four or five years and then you're going to change and that URL doesn't work anymore.
You might need to have something that's a little more organic. I just, this is one business locally that the name of their business is We Clean Heat Pumps. This is a great example of a company name. They, the name of their company is weekly heat pumps real clear about what they do. Right. Real clear. Okay.
But they've grown and evolved and they do more than heat pumps. They do other things now and every once in a while I hear on I hear the name of their businesses. We clean heat pumps and, and they'll add something, which is sort of fun, you know, but like that's a great example of creating a, a business [00:42:00] name that was so hyper focused that it didn't allow for them to grow.
[00:42:04] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. So it's allowing your business to grow with you over that, over those decades and not making that a problem. I feel like so many of us, we go into one thing and we have to think that's going to be our one thing forever. And it's okay that our business grows and evolves and as we grow and evolve and.
Yeah. I love that. The
[00:42:27] Markey Read: more we learn, the more we start to make choices about what we don't want to do. There's, you know, in the beginning you do stuff that you're like, I don't even, I never knew I was going to be doing this. And then you realize five years later, I don't ever want to do that again. So you stop talking about it.
That's by the way, that's number one, just stop. If you don't want to do it, provide a service to anybody. Stop talking about that service, never mentioned it again. So some people stop hiring you for it. But but yeah, we, we, we're afraid to like we see people who've been in business for a long time, or we see bigger businesses and we think they have [00:43:00] figured it all out.
And they have not, right? I mean, I just love the story of how Sandra came up with e women network, right? The name of the, of the organization, that it was not about entrepreneurship. I mean, it was sort of about entrepreneurship, but it was about e as in electronic, like online. Yeah. Yeah. And then she was able to take the name, fortunately, because it has, it had enough flexibility and make new meaning out of it.
But she had a very clear idea of what that was going to be. And it wasn't that at all. She's like, I can't even imagine the transformation that business has gone through in 25 years.
[00:43:37] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I think it's so critical to just to be open to that, right. And to just be open and allow it because it does make the entrepreneurial journey more fun.
And if we can explore those passions and those desires and those people that we want to work with and we really land on things that light us up and that's what it's [00:44:00] about.
[00:44:01] Markey Read: I think being an entrepreneur is one of the most amazing explorations of the self. Yeah. There's so many parts of yourself you have to confront and work with.
This is, this is, this is really why I've always loved working with entrepreneurs because it's just you, you know, it's just you. Like there's no, I mean you can have helpers, you can have staff, you can have a whole office full of people, but when you go out there and talk about what you do, it's you. It's not this company that you work for that you may not work for and for three or four years.
And there's a, it's confronting, it's also incredibly enlivening, it's it's an opportunity for self development and self growth and self exploration. It's like, it's, you know, it's some of the best therapy you can do for yourself, right?
[00:44:52] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: That we never intended.
[00:44:55] Markey Read: Right, right. Cause you gotta, you gotta deal with all those demons and all that.
I mean, [00:45:00] just, holy cow. Yeah, it's amazing. What you have to confront every day as an entrepreneur. Really. It's truly amazing.
[00:45:08] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Yeah. Well, I'm so comforted in hearing that from you, that it's been at it for so long. And that those of us that feel that and struggle with that. It's just part of the journey. I love that.
[00:45:20] Markey Read: Yeah. Yeah. Mostly try to do your best to keep your sense of humor and keep, keep sitting up every day and it'll, it'll
[00:45:28] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: be at better. That's right. That's right. Well, thank you so much, Mark. This has been such a great conversation. I so appreciate your time and your expertise and your wisdom and your generosity being with us today.
So thank you.
[00:45:40] Markey Read: Thank you so much. Lots
[00:45:41] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: of fun. And I look forward to next time. Yes. Me too.
[00:45:45] Markey Read: Thank you. All right. Bye bye.
[00:45:47] Melissa Kellogg Lueck: Hey, if you like this podcast, I want to invite you to become part of my community by signing up for my Friday Celly. The link is in the show notes. Each [00:46:00] Friday, I'm going to deliver to your inbox, my weekly celebration, as well as my thoughts on the latest in business and marketing. I want to keep you in the know about my upcoming events, free trainings, book clubs, all the fun things, even some free gifts.
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