Hint of Hustle with Heather Sager
This is the podcast for entrepreneurs ready to be SEEN, HEARD & PAID for their expertise, without grinding 24/7 or chasing trends.
Meet your host, former executive turned entrepreneur Heather Sager, bringing 20 years experience in sales, training, speaking and business coaching. Her tough love, practical and hilariously entertaining style will help YOU show up with greater intention, more confidnce and make a bigger impact with your message.
Tune in each week to discover why thousands of business owners have made Heather their go-to business mentor.
Hint of Hustle with Heather Sager
How To Pick What To Work On Next: 3 Powerful Pillars For Business Growth
Think of your business as a three-legged stool…miss the mark with one (or neglect it) and the whole structure topples over.
As a business owner, your most vital role is making sure there’s a balance between all 3 legs—or as I call them pillars–so you can find the right growth path for this season of your business.
Inside the episode I break down my 3 powerful pillar strategy to help you focus on the true needle movers as you build your thought leadership business.
Whether you’re at $500k+ or on your way to $100k, I’m dropping specific strategies to help you hit goals without overcomplicating your to-do list, falling victim to the perfectionism trap or wasting time with busywork.
Plus I answered the top FAQs I always get asked related to speaking (visibility, pitching, and more) and created a special playlist of podcast episodes for you to burn through so you can get unstuck.
EPISODE SHOW NOTES👇
https://heathersager.com/episode223
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If you’re loving this episode, please take a moment to rate & review the show. This helps me get this message to more people so they too can ditch the hustle 24/7 life.
There is this fear that I don't want to be put in a category of the Joe Brochmos who are like and you'll fight selling all the time. Here's the reality. You're a business. Okay, you're not just a person online like your friend from high school with an Instagram account, like you're running a business. So if you don't even if you have products for sale, but if you're not actually selling them, and if you don't have an active way to ask for sales or have people pay you money for sure, this three-legged stool is going to fall, freaking apart. You do not have a thought leadership business. You might have a blog online. I mean, you might be seen as a thought leader, you might be seen as someone who has great information, but I mean, this is the problem with a lot of people on TikTok and on Instagram, with these really huge accounts, is they've got their marketing down. They've figured out their hooks and their message and how to like, get a lot of views, but they're not making money and that, to me, is not a business. So we have to prioritize monetization.
Speaker 1:This is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants to make a big impact, who doesn't shy away from hard work but also wants to enjoy life along the way. Hi, I'm Heather Sager, former executive turned entrepreneur, and I've spent the last 20 years working with premium brands on sales, marketing and communication, and I've learned that when you become a magnet with your message, you only need a hint of hustle to achieve your goals. Get ready to be inspired and ignited each week with tangible strategies on sales, speaking, marketing and so much more. This is the hint of hustle podcast. Let's go. Well. Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode. I hope you enjoyed last week. Give a little update of what's going on. The time that you hear this recording, I will have brought this little baby nugget into the world. So if you're hearing this and you're curious what happened, go check out Instagram. I'm sure I'll post there. Who knows? I'm in uncharted territory of this, like dividing line between recording pre-baby, post-baby. We'll see how it goes. Either way, I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 1:Today's episode we are going to talk about my approach for what it takes to create a thought leadership-based business. Now, what does this mean? How are we going to make it happen? Why are we even talking about this? Let's go ahead and dig into it. I'm going to try to keep this episode relatively short. Full disclaimer I need to record three episodes back to back right now, so we're going to spend some time together over the next few weeks. We have some great plans. Last week's episode I shared. I have no plans on batching months and months of content. In fact, we have a really good plan on my team we're going to be recording some best of episodes.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of motherfucking gems in these episodes, am I right? I don't hold back. I mean, we have fun together. I also don't take myself very seriously. I got a message the other day from a business peer who was laughing at an episode I published over the summer where I had a brain fart. I don't cut those out. I'm like how do I say this word? What is the word? The word was swoosh, I was trying to say.
Speaker 1:Anyways, we have a lot of fun with our random sight tangents Heather's weird commentary but also I deliver in these episodes. I know you know it. This is not one of those fluffy I'm going to dance around the issues. I actually share real stuff that has a last-beat impact for you and your business, a tangible thing that you can go out and do. I always hear that all the time. I want to show my style, but, too, I always appreciate for those of you who reach out and appreciate me for creating the content Side note.
Speaker 1:On that note, can I just ask here's my direct ask if you love this show, if you like hearing my crazy rambles each week, you find them valuable and hilarious. If this is one of your go-to podcasts. Even if it's not one of your go-to podcasts, if it's one that you have in your rotation, remember to listen and then you're like, oh my gosh, I need more Heather's Saker in my life. Either way, if you have found value in this show, if you enjoy the show, could you just hit pause for a second and go to that little button where it says leave a freaking review? You know who you are. If you have not done that yet, it really, really would mean the world for me, especially over these next couple months, as maybe the cadence of episodes and my ability to market the episodes is really going to be lacking, given that I am keeping a tiny human alive who should still be baking in my belly. If you want to support me during this time, leaving a podcast review would be the absolute best way to do that. So if you are a new listener of the show, hello, welcome. Maybe hit follow if this episode resonates with you. You might be a little too early yet to check and see, but by the end of this episode you'll get a really good vibe of my teaching style and I hope that this episode really just meets you at the perfect time.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about this concept of thought leadership. I have to be honest, years ago when I was in corporate, we had this consultant, this fancy consultant, come in and he kept throwing out this world thought leadership and the man quite frankly annoyed the crap out of me. He was very egotistical, did not listen to other people and talked over mostly the women in the room. So instant I'm like, oh hell, no. But now kind of thinking forward the thought of thought leadership. I've now embraced the term. It is what we do.
Speaker 1:It's essentially you sharing your ideas and being a leader in your industry, and it's been known for being a person with big, bold ideas. And when I say big bold ideas, I don't mean they have to be controversial and they don't have to be hugely outlandish. It's just the idea that you are not regurgitating other people's messages is that you are truly are showing up and serving with a your angle of a unique message. So thought leadership is this expert industry, it's this idea where we are sharing our knowledge, our experience and we are leading the way for others. That's how I view thought leadership. And I would say, any kind of information business, most information business, most coaches, most speakers, authors they would fall into this category. Right, because we're not just regurgitating something else, we're not just teaching technical things. We're changing people's worlds by helping them see things in a different perspective.
Speaker 1:Now, I don't care what you teach, right? Maybe you teach nutrition, maybe you teach something around fertility or motherhood or productivity, or there's a bajillion topics that people teach. It doesn't matter the like what it is. The question is is what's your approach that you bring to this thing, that you teach this idea around thought leadership? And when I think about, like my business, for example, I knew out of the gate that I wanted to have a digital course, digital product business. I wanted to have speaking. I knew I wanted to have a live element. I just love I've talked about this all the time love live events. I love live coaching calls. I love the live dynamic. Now, I can't be on calls every single day because it's just not in my wheelhouse but I really live for those live interactions with my clients. So I knew I wanted to do client work. I knew I wanted to do coaching. I knew I wanted to do speaking.
Speaker 1:But all of this came down to I wanted to work with people by essentially sharing my opinions, my experiences, my ideas, my trainings to benefit other people. That might kind of sound weird to say out loud. It kind of felt weird for a moment, but like that's the thing, right. Like that's when you are a self employed kind of solopreneur, personal brand style information business. That is the thing is you want to get paid for essentially talking to people sharing your ideas and your knowledge and your expertise. Like that is it. Now we have to line it to a problem that people actually pay for, but that's what it comes down to and what I really wanted to do today is just simplify how I view my business and how I organize what I work on and where I focus in my business in a process. So this process is something that I have developed over time. It's super simple. It is my framework for what I walk my clients through.
Speaker 1:This is like the full on umbrella of what I do in my business. You've probably heard me talk about this before, but my whole thing is I help people message, market and monetize their expertise. Message, market and monetize and that's what I want to talk about today. Those are really the three pillars that, in my opinion, build an effective information style business, said differently, in expert based business or a thought leadership business. Now, underneath each of these around, what is that message, what is that thing that we communicate to other people? What is the way that we market to people, both marketing ourselves and also finding and expanding opportunities to get more people aware of what we do. And then, of course, monetization, which is the area I hammered on and last week's episode around find activities closer to the point of sale If you want to make more sales. But these really are the three pillars that I organize my business efforts around, and I would really encourage you to think through this lens too.
Speaker 1:Now, the thing is is in each of these areas, your message, your monetization, your marketing? If you are weak in one area, it's like a three legged stool the stool is not going to stand up. And so often what I see from business owners, especially in this online world you get really into social media and really want to be around the Instagram or TikTok or figure those things out. People, for example, lean one way. They're like oh, I have to focus on my marketing, I have to get in front of more people. I have to get in front of more people. I have to post every day. I have to do all this stuff. I have to have the right website. I got a rebrand, I got to get photos. All of these are put under the marketing efforts. Marketing is getting your stuff in front of more people. You have a duty around how you show up and getting that stuff out there.
Speaker 1:Now, if we spend all of our time marketing but let's say the and let's say even we have products that we can monetize right. But if our message, aka the content that we talk about, the way that we talk about you already know where I'm going this If that's weak, it doesn't matter how people get really doing it. Just post more, just do more, just keep hitting it. But if the quality of your message sucks, you're going to be in front of a lot of people, but they're also going to just keep scrolling, or they're going to ignore you. Or let's say, you have an opportunity where you're speaking to a group. If your message doesn't land, they're going to just tune out and play Candy Crush. Side note that's always. My example is people tuning out and playing Candy Crush, which is hysterical because I don't know if anyone actually plays Candy Crush anymore. But that is the example we're going with. Side note to the side note.
Speaker 1:This morning I downloaded an app for a crossword puzzle, which maybe was inspired off of an episode of Grey's Anatomy where someone was filling out a crossword puzzle, and I'm like I like crossword puzzles. It makes my brain work a little bit more and that might be a better activity in the hospital. So that might need to be my new example. But I also feel like crossword puzzles. I don't know. There's this like thought that they're for old people.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me get back on the point here. If your message sucks, right, or your message is dry, or your message misses the mark, aka doesn't resonate with your audience, it doesn't matter how quote unquote great your marketing is, I would argue your marketing is not so great if your message sucks, but also if you have stuff for sale. That also doesn't matter, because if your message is lacking, both of those things fall flat. Okay, let's look at it a different way. Let's say your marketing is strong, let's say that your message is strong, the quality of your content is great, you know how to speak to your audience's true perceived paid points. You know how to communicate in a way that really resonates with them, but you're not connecting the dots to sales, and this is what I see a lot and a lot of times with entrepreneurs in this expert thought leadership education space.
Speaker 1:There is this fear that I don't want to be put in a category of the Joe Brochmos who are like and you'll fight selling all the time. But here's the reality. You're a business. Okay, you're not just a person online like your friend from high school with an Instagram account, like, you're running a business. So even if you have products for sale, but if you're not actually selling them and if you don't have an active way to ask for sales or have people pay you money, for sure this three-legged stool is going to fall, fricking apart. You do not have a thought leadership business. You might have a blog online. You might be seen as a thought leader, you might be seen as someone who has great information, but I mean, this is the problem with a lot of people on TikTok and on Instagram, with these really huge accounts, is they've got their marketing down. They've figured out their hooks and their message and how to like, get a lot of views, but they're not making money and that, to me, is not a business. So we have to prioritize monetization.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's look at the last three way we can look at this. So you have your message down, you have the monetization down, right, you have a way people can pay you money consistently, and that doesn't mean you have to have something for sale all the time. You could run your business from live launching. That's a big part of what I've done, but I've supplemented it with one-on-one coaching. But let's say that.
Speaker 1:But let's say the third bucket is with marketing. Let's say your marketing sucks. Let's say you don't have a presence online, or your presence online was your personal Instagram that has pictures of your cats or not of you, or of a bunch of personal development stuff, but that's not what your business is. It also could be as you not networking or reaching out, or just there's so many different ways that you can show up in market, right, maybe you don't have a way for people to get on your email list, you don't have email setup or you have email setup but you're not actually reaching out to people If you do not have some marketing foundations in place. It doesn't matter what you have for sale to sell, it doesn't matter what you like, how good your message is or how magnetic you are on stage, if you are not actively marketing yourself, either as a speaker or as an expert, marketing yourself as a coach, getting your stuff in front of more people help even just getting your stuff in front of the audience you've already built. If you are not marketing your stuff, you are no longer top of mind for your audience and that's not going to work either. So you see, we really have to focus on how do we create balance between all three of these areas Nailing our message as we're all coming, getting our monetization down. Having a way for people to pay us, not saying one day I'll finally create the program, actually getting it done. Side note. Here we go again. Sacred Side Notes are on fire.
Speaker 1:Today, at the time of this recording we are in, we just literally launched a super fricking, scrappy style launch of the signature talk Accelerator on Demand. This is something I've been wanting to launch all year. It's been on my radar, but I wanted to prove out this new, updated curriculum with a couple cohorts before we introduced the self-paced version and we thought we had more time. We thought we had about another month to get everything ready. And with this curve ball that I shared on the episode last week, if you want to find out what's going on with the pregnancy and why I'm happy to be in do so much earlier than anticipated, you can listen to that episode. But we had to go. We had to go quick. So this week we launched the scrappy version. We call it a pre-sale. The course itself is pretty much finished but we have some editing and refinement to do to adjust it from the cohort style into the on-demand style and I wanted to make sure that it really really could sing without that life support because it's an on-demand self-paced version. So we launched it scrappy anyways. Literally. My team worked overnight on Tuesday night at the time of this recording. Tuesday night they worked overnight to get this puppy ready and we fricking launched it.
Speaker 1:You know, if you want to go to my Instagram, you can look at the post I made on there and that post says "'Because I'm launching a human soon'. If you click on that carousel post, you could read through. I wrote a little letter to kind of get some context to it and then went through the entire offer. My point in sharing this with you is you know the expression done is better than perfect. I think this goes here If you have been waiting to launch some kind of offer because you're waiting for the perfect moment, or you're waiting for it to be, I don't know like you want to get it all outlined and have a high quality program, not some janky, shitty one. You know who you are if that's your thought like perfectionist in the room, I see you, I respect you, I've been you but also that perfection piece doesn't actually serve anyone but your ego. So my recommendation is if you are delaying on launching something that you know will help your people, especially if you are delaying on launching a more scalable product, my question for you is what is the shortest path to launch? How could you launch it before it's done, before it's ready? How could you test out your messaging and the quality of your marketing to get something in front of your audience? Just float out the ask and start collecting money and getting paid for what you do? We need to start making more efforts on our monetization.
Speaker 1:This is today's episode is all about just me getting new thinking and saying where can I lean in a little bit more, but what I also want to do is I want to address a couple questions under these categories that I got Earlier this week. I posted on my Instagram a little bit around what was going on with this baby and this induction date and needing to get baby out quicker, yeah, needing to record a quite a few episodes, and I asked hey, what are you struggling with right now when it comes to speaking, when it comes to visibility, when it comes to getting yourself out there? And I got some questions and topics and I'm not going to go through all of them in this episode. However, I will say my team took every single one of your topics and your requests and we built playlists around podcast episodes that go with every single one of these questions, and I'm kind of thinking you might want like to get your hands on that, so we will include that in the show notes of this episode.
Speaker 1:So if you just click wherever you're watching, go to the show notes, it'll take you to my blog and we'll do the roundup of all of these I mean Dorothy and my team. We probably have a good I don't know 30, 40 episodes linked here on a variety of topics. So if you want to find an episode that directly goes with your question, hit the show notes. I think that'll be a great place to start. We'll organize this really well for you so that you can find stuff under marketing, under pitching, under finding stages, under how to more effectively convert your stage opportunities into leads, into sales. When it comes to messaging and communicating, how do we get over our fear and our offers We'll package all those things up for you and we'll just do some links. Right, it's not an opt-in just go to my blog and we'll get you going on that. But then you can start binging some episodes from the podcast for a specific purpose, right, build a skill or answer a specific challenge or question that you're having.
Speaker 1:But I do want to address a couple of these, because these questions always come up, doesn't matter how many times I talk about them. These are like the best of the questions. So I'm gonna hit a few of them under these areas because I think this will be helpful for you too. So, one of the top questions that I always, always, every time I put a question sticker up, get asked is how do I find more aligned stages? Now, this specific question says where is my struggle right now Getting on the right stages in front of the right audiences, with the right CTA to maximize my time and effort. The reason why I chose this question to answer is, if you're one of my students, you're gonna laugh because you know exactly where I'm gonna go with this.
Speaker 1:The way this question is worded here in itself showcases the challenge that a person is having. So let me see the question again, or the challenge Getting on the right stages with the right audience and the right CTA to maximize their time and effort. You see, as a business owner, if you have the mindset that there is a right way for something, you will continue to seek it out and bypass so many other ways that would work just freaking fine. I'm a huge believer that get over looking for the right way and focus on the next way, the way that's gonna get you some results, so you can learn from them and then find the next way to do it. Now, it doesn't mean that you should always be constantly changing what you do, but I really think that we just are a lot way too precious with wanting to get things right and perfect, and that is just going to slow you down and keep you broke. So for this question here, I think you're asking the wrong question.
Speaker 1:I think when we say the challenge is getting the right stages with the right audiences and the right CTA, my first question is going we're looking at this different. You're looking at how do I get on the right stages with the right audience, with the right blah blah, blah? Well, my question for you with the right CTA is how effective right now is your lead magnet when you are in front of your ideal clients? That's the first question. Right Is stop looking for the stage for the moment and say, all right, so when I am in front of my ideal clients, how effective am I at getting them to jump on my list? My call to action, how effective am I with that? Now your call to action could be jumping on your list. It could be subscribing to your podcast, it could be a variety of things, right? And if you want to know a little bit more about call to actions, you can download my purposeful and profitable speaking guide where I walk you through how to take stage opportunities and make them count in your business the financial return, the lead generation return, all of that. So we'll include the link to that guide in the show notes. That, by far, is one of my favorite things, because geek out when we talk about how do you really take free opportunities and have them have longevity in your business by getting your results. So check that out for sure.
Speaker 1:But coming back to this question is we need to start with the end result, which is where we take in this audience. And the question would be is if your call to action isn't working when you are in front of your quote unquote ideal clients, we do not need to be worried about finding new stages right now, because it isn't a marketing problem AKA finding more stages and more of your ideal client problem it is a message problem. The way that you're talking about your offer or your freebie or whatever's you're talking about is not working. So first we need to work on how you make that call to action, how you talk about that call to action, because if that isn't converting, no stage make it like you're just gonna get on stages and still have lower conversion. So I'm not about quantity in this moment, I'm about quality and if you would like some more help on how to really nail that call to action.
Speaker 1:If you don't have my 19 simple magnetic phrases that you can use on stages for that call to action, I don't know what you're doing with your life. I've been like this thing I've been talking about now for almost two years. It is my favorite freaking cheat sheet that I give all of my clients. Just say these phrases Go, download that. It's at heathersakercom forward slash magnet. You can also get the link of the show notes, but you need to focus on that. For anyone listening who wants any kind of visibility opportunity to convert into a lead or into a sale, you have to have those phrases Like that is the secret way.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite strategies is the if then strategy. I teach it for you in the document. Give you a lot of little PDF, and I can give you lots of examples, but go for that. So let's say, for example, though whoever wrote this challenge is going yeah, my CTA is actually good. I have a high conversion rate when I'm in front of more of my ideal clients Awesome, okay. So now we need to figure out all right, so how do you get in front of more of your ideal clients.
Speaker 1:Now what I would focus on is in this situation, I'm actually taking what they wrote and I'm working backwards. What they wrote is they want to find the right stages with the right audience, with the right CTA. So there's a couple of different ways that you can go about it. Right, I want to start the CTA, but then I would work to, okay, the right audience. Well, you know who your ideal client is. So what I would do is I would start by talking to your ideal clients and ask them what other programs are they in? Where else are they gathering information and not information on your topic, but just in general. If they're listening to you, they're most likely to listen to you because they're learning something. Where else are they getting their learnings? Where else are there more people like them? I just spending some time to talk to your ideal clients often give you ideas around where else they are hanging out, aka what other groups they're part of, what other networks they're in.
Speaker 1:One of my go-to strategies is and I know I fully understand I am a business to business coach. I specialize. I'm really, really good at helping people who also are business to business because they're messaging down. But I also have a lot of business to consumers and my programs. But a lot of times I join programs not because I need the content but because I want to be near the people who need my content. Now I'm not joining it to coach, I'm not just joining random programs. I still join it if I find value in the content. There's going to be something there I'm going to pull from. But a lot of times I'm pulling it for attending the events or the community aspect, so that I can meet other people and expand my network and get in front of more of my ideal clients.
Speaker 1:Now you might be wondering well, how does that lead to a stage? Well, here's the fun part. You could spend a lot of time pitching stages or you could use my adjacent pitching strategy I shared in a recent episode. We'll link that below which episode we talked about the adjacent pitch. But the other thing to think about is I'm all about attracting stage opportunities. What I find is when I'm in rooms with my ideal clients, I find out who they're following, who their mentors are, who else is there, and then I go make friends with those people. I start building my peer group out. It's the networking episode. I just remembered it the recent episode I did around expanding your network go check that one out. I think it was two or three weeks ago, but I talked about how I expand my network, how I'm really intentional with that, and that is how I get people saying, heather, come in my group or hey, heather, come talk to my people on this or come on my podcast. So now is this the quote unquote right way to do it? No, I already told you there's no right way. I'm just sharing a way to do it.
Speaker 1:This is a strategy that could work, because I think the challenge in this whole statement here of finding the right stages with the right audience and the right CTAs is there's this idea that there's some kind of recipe or some kind of formula or some secret database that you can type in to be like I'm looking for single white females who. This is not Tinder. You can't like plug in your desires. I know I've never literally logged into Tinder in my life. Online dating came out after I met and married my husband, so I have no idea if you actually can do that. So that's full speculation. Please do not send me messages educating me on how to use Tinder or dating apps, but the point is there's no like enter in hear me clicking with my pretend keyboard. There's no enter in to find is.
Speaker 1:You have to get a little scrappy and I said, bill your network a bit. So from that perspective, if you really want these to all online, I would work from the source. Make sure, with your existing audience that you have. When you know you have an ideal client right, does your stuff convert. Then start broadening it and say how can I get in front of more people like this? Or you can tap into your network. Now, it's not the only way. Another way to think about it, though, is finding stages that might have your ideal ish client right. They might not be an exact fit, you might not know super too much about them. However, what you could think about is all right. If I want to get some experience getting on stages, if I want to broaden who I speak to, finding stages, just start finding them and don't worry so much about it being perfect, because here's the funny thing.
Speaker 1:So I was listening to my client. It's one of my program graduates, liz Wilcox. I've had her on the show multiple times before Shout out she's a great poster style child of my program. She has gone on and just fricking killed it with her brand. This last week she was on Smart Passive Income Pat Flynn's podcast and I listened to it with the biggest shittigern on my face because that girl is just fricking, rocking it and one big bomb she dropped on the episode is she shared with Pat that. Hey, pat.
Speaker 1:He asked for her favorite lead generation strategy and she said by far podcast-guesting. And she went on to say that she's been on now over 300 podcasts in the last two and a half years. That is, since Liz and I worked together back in 2020. And I just had to expel on my face because she went on to say that, look, I wasn't so great when I started but doing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. I have slowly laid, brick by brick and I have built my list to over 10,000 people and it was really cool because I've been thinking two and a half years building your email list to 10,000 people, that's freaking like amazing. But also the sheer work that she put in and 300 podcast interviews plus keynote speaking opportunities and all these other things she put in the work for it. Now I would imagine and this is not from Liz, this is me just commentating on this Is that a word Commentating? We're gonna make it. It's like a sports announcer. But I would imagine that when she said yes to those podcasts, she wasn't going. Is this a perfect fit? Is it a perfect aligned audience? No, she's going. Do they want to talk about my topic? Awesome, put me on Like, put me in, coach. I'm ready, like saying yes, right, saying yes to more opportunities, and it doesn't mean that you need to do a bunch of opportunities for free.
Speaker 1:The thing about Liz let me tell you really clear. Liz has these three pillars down. She is good at our marketing. She's in. She just email marketing. She's got it down. She's got her brand down. She's got her website dialed in where she's got a very clear link with a very clear download and a very clear offer. She had that down, boom. Then she went into okay, so her offer, boom, monetization done. She's got a $9 monthly email marketing membership where she creates templates. It's so freaking awesome I'm going to link to it in the show notes because I get it. I use it for my emails sometimes, so it's awesome.
Speaker 1:And then the third piece is her message. She worked with me speaking coach. We built her framework and she built her signature talk and story and everything. In the old version of the accelerator it used to be called Speak Up to Level Up. She built that there and then she went out and she started practicing it and saying yes to opportunities, seeking out opportunities. So my takeaway for this person you were not expecting this big pep talk around this question is I'm going to ask you, throw away this need to be right and get on the quote, unquote, perfect stages where everything's aligned right now and just start saying, yes, you know your topic. The question is is the stage aligned? Ish, right, is it going to be audience who's interested in this topic that your offer could work? For that could be a great fit. Just say yes so you can start going through the repetitions to practice it. But you have to have those other pillars in place your marketing, aka your lead magnets and such, and how you consistently show up to nurture an audience once they start following you. And then your monetization. Do you have an offer that could work Now?
Speaker 1:I've done things before when I've spoken to groups and maybe my offer isn't like an on the nose, so great example One of my friends, colleagues, and now she coaches inside my program from time to time, emily Reagan. So she teaches a program, is all around becoming a unicorn digital marketing VA and she, like, she's got an incredible story around how she worked her way up as a virtual assistant and learn the skills of specific digital media marketing VA and now she teaches other people how to build their own businesses and income by doing that service. Now where was I going with this? Oh, my gosh, pregnancy brain just hit. Okay, I remembered. So Emily asked me to come guest inside her program because one of the areas her unicorns struggle she calls them unicorns they struggle with is competence on camera, and it's one of those things that at the time when I did it, I didn't really have an offer around that, right, I'm teaching people how to speak on stages, on podcasts, those types of things, but these are service providers, right, working as virtual assistants, marketing assistants and people's businesses. So my offer really didn't align but I thought, hmm, I could. One could absolutely help these people.
Speaker 1:I am great with teaching people how to be more comfortable on camera because fun fact you might not know about me I was terrible on camera when I started my business. Yes, I've been speaking on stages at that point for 15 years and I was terrible on camera. Now, what's funny is at my old job they would laugh and be like you're on the camera all the time. I'm in like a ton of training videos at my old company. But I was awkward as hell in terms of if you asked me to speak off the cuff, I would develop this weird word slur like the character in the 40 year old version where it got waxed, and I was like, oh, mother fucker, kelly Clarkson, I couldn't put sentences together when you put a video camera on me. So I had to work and I mean work to make up for that just awkwardness on camera. So I know all about getting confident on camera. I really, really had to work through it. So, back to when she asked me to speak, I'm like I could totally do something around this. So I built a training around it and then I had a lot of my clients want to get better on camera, so I put together this offer. This is back in like late 2020.
Speaker 1:I put together this workshop and I pre sold it and it was called Lights Camera Rockstar and it was all about getting over your fear of the camera and getting comfortable and showing up consistently. Now, was it about like how to be awesome on a live and how to create a live stream strategy? No, was it about Instagram Rails or TikTok? No, those things didn't exist at the time. Essentially, it was me sharing what to do to get better on camera so that you could show up. Now, at the time, in 2019, 2020, I was using Facebook Lives quite a bit, not because I thought they were awesome, but because it was the best and easiest tool for me to show up consistently and force myself to speak. So that was great. So I taught a little bit of that. But anyways, I created this little offer, sold it and then, a few months later, I happened to be teaching in MLA's program, so I made an offer for that. Like it was the hey, if you want this, here you go, and I gave them a little special bundle of stuff.
Speaker 1:But the point I'm making is was that my perfect stage with my quote, unquote perfect audience into my perfect call to action? No, but did I make it work? Did I want to do it? Could I serve those people in the best way? Did I have an offer that would be valuable to my main audience and to that group. Yes, so my point that I want to make here is I think a lot of times, in an effort for us to be so efficient and effective and strategic and all these other big words that people throw out and I know I use you probably do too I think sometimes we just miss the point.
Speaker 1:That's like what's going to move us forward? I think thought leadership, running an expert business sometimes we just have to ask the question is what's going to be the most of service to our audience? What can we do if we stop overthinking it and just simplify and say is there a workshop within us that our audience would really benefit from? I think a lot of times we spend all of this hype trying to focus on is it high ticket, is it low ticket, is it whatever ticket? I screw all the tickets.
Speaker 1:Folks like what's going to help you reach your goals and what's going to serve your audience? Because I just I don't know. I feel like we've gotten a little bit into a world in this online marketing where there's so much arguments around what's the right way. I Only want you asking what is the way that feels right for you right now, in this season of your life and when I like to go to use last week's episode as a really great Gut check around are you headed on the right track or you hitting your goals? If you're not hitting your goals, that gave you a little recipe around how to get closer to the point of sale to hit your revenue goals. But when it comes to where you're at right now and thinking about finding stages, getting in front of more audiences in 2024, it's probably what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:I I want you to let go a little bit of trying to get everything so dialed in and perfect and accept that the journey is Going to be a little bit of a shit show, my friend, and it's gonna be a fun one. Right, you're gonna reflect and be like whoa, that was a wild roller coaster, just like me in my life phase. Right now it feels very roller coaster-y, but also it's the path that's required to get to the end result. That's how simple it is. It is the path that's required, and if you think that you're gonna be able to lay out all your ducks in a row and one smooth these process, you're up for a lot of disappointment. So I would just embrace the what's the next step? How do I build the foundation on each of these three pillars? Now let's talk about this. I want to circle back to the three pillars piece.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we talked about your message, your marketing, your monetization. What I want you to get really clear with right now is know where you're at right now in your business. Earlier this year, I did an episode around helping identify your stages of business. We will link it in the show notes, but I talked about how, in like stage one, you're in like new business build mode Versus I can't remember what I called him but like growth mode versus scale mode. There's these different levels in business and I think a lot of times when we're looking online at other people or we're being exposed to other people's marketings, sometimes we're looking at strategies that are at a level that is far beyond what our business requires of us right now.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example of this. I have a five-year-old at home and we are in the season of building Christmas Legos. Yep, we are the a-holes that pulled everything out for Christmas on November 1st. Now argument is I could tell you it's because we wanted to get everything done before this baby comes. But also we've done this for the last few years and it makes us so happy because we love Christmas. I swear I married buddy the elf over here and we just love, love how our house feels at Christmas times. We keep up the decor longer than possible and then we pull it down pretty quickly in the new year Because at that point I'm ready for like clean, clean house, simple house, changed house Anyway.
Speaker 1:So my five-year-old right now is one of our traditions, might say our I mean my husband and our kids, definitely not me. Every year they buy a new Christmas Lego set. And my eight-year-old he likes Legos. But my five-year-old loves building Legos with dad and he's wicked smart too. He's building kits that are way more advanced. I mean, he's five years old and last night he was building a kit for 14 year olds and up now, with that, my five-year-old, we have to have conversations all the time because he's not interested in the five-year-old level.
Speaker 1:He wants to build the more complex, cool looking ones, because you look at two boxes and you're like do I want to do a dinky Mickey mouse with a dump truck? That's like three pieces, or do I want to do this really cool train with Santa Claus and like a little tiny waffle maker in the Elf house. I mean, come on, give the two choices. They're gonna want to do the more advanced one now, bringing this to you, same thing for you, right in your business, right now. You got to be honest with yourself. The basic stuff You're like, oh, stab me in the eye. I want the more advanced strategies. I want the mini chat Automations. I want the fancy funnel blah, blah, blah thing from the whatever tool we look, and we're comparing the five-year-old Lego box to the 14 year old or the 20 something year old Lego box.
Speaker 1:My husband's like really into the architecture ones right now and wants to get all of them. I'm like we don't have money for that. We're paying for two homes and having a baby. So, and it was. I understand. I understand how it goes now with my five-year-old.
Speaker 1:We constantly have to have conversations around when he gets stuck and frustrated. It's okay to be frustrated when he's building a four, I mean, it's okay to be frustrated whenever. But when he's Following directions and can't quite compute and figure it out and it's not working, as the picture shows, well, yeah, you're gonna be frustrated, buddy, but also you're five and this is meant for a teenager, like cousin, like you are doing an amazing job. So we're constantly reinforcing that, like that learning, and that the gap between what, like how much, he's covering on this right, but you can already see the bridge here into my, my story about my kid, into the point for you is, as a business owner, when you think about your message, when you think about your marketing, when you think about your monetization.
Speaker 1:I want you to be really clear around what level you are right now in business. So, for example, if you are pre-profit, you should be having very different Conversations with yourself, with your coaches, whoever you're working with. Then, if you were making Even a hundred thousand dollars a year, there's a huge gap between there versus a gap between a hundred and two hundred and fifty. That is another gap to fifty, to, I would say, five hundred, and then five hundred scaling up to a million and beyond. There are different levels, aka different Lego kits for your business in these areas. And what I really would focus on for you when, if you want to be more effective with your marketing, with your message, with your monetization, if you want to be seen as that go-to thought leader, I Think the key just my opinion is really mastering the stage you're in. So let me give you an example of this.
Speaker 1:If visibility is high on your list for this year, for this next year and you are let's say you're at a half a million above in business, all right, what we can focus on is all right, you have monetization down. You, if you are pulling in $500,000 a year, that's 40 grand a month. Okay, you are at a point where you've got your monetization down. You've probably got your marketing down and I bet you have your message down to a degree. But I would argue we could really take your message farther and amplify, amplify all those other areas. If we dial in your freaking message, if we hone it in, if we work in a couple things together, we figure out more effective storytelling, get a little bit more strategic about what you're saying yes to. That is your golden ticket. So you have a little different level of conversation that we need to have for you to amplify in 2024.
Speaker 1:If you are, let's say, let's just put this together in the hundred grand to 500 range. Okay, I know that's a big swing and I'm grouping a lot of things together there, but there's opportunity for you in your monetization. Something's happening in your offer suite. There's something happening in your marketing. There's something happening in your messaging. It's probably a combination that there are some holes in the boat, my friend, and we need to start thinking about.
Speaker 1:All right, so how do we have the simplest way possible To shore up in each of these areas? How do we get our message down? A k a signature target accelerator could be your best friend, especially for those of you above a hundred thousand, above five hundred thousand, like if you are profitable. The signature talk accelerator is a frickin no brainer because the ROI on that, if you already have a consistent monetization strategy. A k a. How people pay you money, whether it's one-on-one Consulting, whether you get paid for speaking or you are selling some kind of offer that will just amplify and amp frickin up your results for sure Z's.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're sitting here and you're under a hundred thousand dollars a year or your pre-profit, I'm gonna tell you the tough love right here. I want you to think about this, and I do not mean this in an offensive way possible. I'm about to call you my five-year-old child, not that you're a five-year-old child. I hope that we can get over the analogy here for a moment. But if you are Pre-profit or under a hundred grand, Okay, I want you to recognize that, when it comes to a lot of the ideas and strategies that you hear on these big podcasts that you see these other big people doing and pushing, that is the kit from the 14 year old or the more advanced adult level Lego sets, and I agree they're fun and easy to look at. But, my friend, right now we got to go simple and master the basics. We have to master the basics.
Speaker 1:That comes down to what are you talking about, like, what is the niche that you're in? What is the problem that you're solving? What is that core message that you're communicating to your ideal client? Monetization what is the way people are paying you money If you do not have a consistent monetization plan? So, whether it's a program you're promoting or one-on-one services, whatever, if you don't have something like and you've said this is the thing I'm focused on or maybe you're selling, like 14 things, my friend, if you're not at 100K and you're selling 14 things, those 14 things are not serving you. So can we simplify and do a few of them better?
Speaker 1:The last part is the marketing piece. How are you getting in front of more people and what I want you to think about in marketing and this is for anyone listening, regardless of your place or your revenue I want you to think about marketing. I want you to simplify into two buckets Marketing to your existing audience, marketing to new audiences. That is the simplest way I can put it. What I mean by that is your existing audience, is your email list. It is your people who already follow you online. It is the people who already know who you are and Suda, what you do.
Speaker 1:You need to show up for them to stay top of mind. A lot of times, sales and these relationships online it is a process. People are not ready to buy right away. Some are, but a lot aren't. This is that whole nurturing cycle. You have to show up. In the beautiful part, it's when you just consistently show up for your existing audience you really get to practice your message. You get to practice your monetization efforts and see how they're working. So showing up serves you too. But you really get to show up and serve them.
Speaker 1:But the key is the second part of the marketing piece. I think this is what a lot of people are missing and it's your responsibility to go out and find new audiences. If you're constantly just marketing the same people. If your strategy for marketing is just posting on Instagram every day, you're hoping the algorithm will pick you up on the For you page and other people will find it. But let's be honest, what's the likelihood of the people who find it? If you go viral that they are even your ideal person? You're just setting yourself up for a bunch of strangers to give you a lot of feedback on the internet.
Speaker 1:So what we wanna do is really think about for you, I would say, if you are not getting the results you want in your business, whatever price point you're at. Number one, I would look at your monetization plan. How are you monetizing your expertise? What is the thing you have for sale? And if you're not happy with the thing you have to sell, like, let's talk about it. But the second thing I want you to think about is if you are not selling the quantity you need to hit your goals. Of the two buckets I would say, are you showing up in your own bucket? But, more importantly, how do we get you in front of more people? How do we get you in front of more people? And so, if you want some help with that piece.
Speaker 1:If you wanna talk about visibility, if you wanna figure out all right, how do I get my message, whether or not you have a super dialed in message that you feel confident with, that you know converts, that you know serves it well, or you need some help with that. The signature talk accelerator, my program, is now on demand. You can grab it. I can help you get your messaging down. We wanna make sure you have your message nailed down before you start really amping up your visibility. So perfect timing for 2024. But if you want more help with the, how do I get in front of more audiences?
Speaker 1:Instead of me giving you just like a list of ideas, I'm gonna give you a list of episodes that talk exactly about this and that's gonna be in the show notes here. It's gonna talk about finding stages. It's gonna be talking about pitching what goes into that. I actually do a two-part episode with Emily Reagan, who I mentioned here today, around how to leverage a virtual assistant to support you with your pitching. It's also gonna talk about oh, episode 167, 10 stages you could be speaking on right now to attract clients. You can also go back to episode 176, it was at the end of last year, I called it planning guests speaking and visibility for 2023. Spoiler still works for 2024. So there are a crap ton of episodes here that will help you get more intentional with your visibility efforts.
Speaker 1:But first and foremost, I want you to declare and say okay, what is the pillar I really need to focus on? Do I need to get my message dialed in? Do I need to get my monetization down? Do I need to get my marketing, or do I need a little bit of everything, and at what level do I need? But we have things here on the show. We talk about all three of these pillars. We can support you with that and my hope for you is, over the next few weeks, as we round out the end of the year.
Speaker 1:You use this time to cut out all the noise and all the big ideas telling you these big fancy things and for you to get quiet and just really simplify what's really necessary for you to enter 2024 as the confident and clear thought leader you know lives within side of you. Within side of you, whatever. You know what I mean. You get that person right, you show up and you say this is the year that I'm really going to make leaps and bounds on my plan for growth. This is the year that you're going to serve the people that you want to serve, and in order for you to do that, you're gonna have to get quiet with yourself and say, okay, what do I need to focus on? I can't tell you that unless you and I actually spent a day together and we did like a CEO intensive and we can walk through these things right. I think other marketing coaches they're gonna probably have a lot of ideas for you, but at the end of the day, you really got to think about what you want. And where are you? Do you have a way for people to make money? How are you marketing yourself? How are you showing up for your existing audience and nurturing that, helping them? How are you getting in front of new audiences and what is the message you're leading with on all fronts?
Speaker 1:I hope this episode not only got you thinking I know it got you thinking but I hope that it serves you with clarity and knowing that business does not need to be as complicated as it's made out to be. Business at its heart can be very simple it's you have a heart to help others. They have problems and you can help them. Find them, help them make some money, give them a high five, move on with your day, feel good about it. This business does not need to be so complex and overwhelming. As we head into the holiday season, I wish for you so just peace of mind and excitement as you head into planning the new year.
Speaker 1:All right, friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I will see you on the next one, ["hustle Podcast"]. Well, thanks for listening to another episode of the Hint have Hustle Podcast. That flew right by, didn't it Gosh? I hope I didn't say anything super embarrassing today, but if I did, it's pretty much on brand. If you love today's episode, be sure to scroll on down wherever you're listening from, and if you haven't yet left a review, it would mean the world. Hit those five stars. Tell other people who are prospecting podcasts how awesome this show is. Give us a little love. We would appreciate that. And hey, if you're hungry for more of what we do here on this show, you can peruse all of the past episodes. Grab the show notes and find out the latest free resources to help you get seen, heard and paid for sharing your expertise. Head on over to heathersegarcom. You can also grab the link wherever you're listening to this episode, and we'll see you in the next one.
