Deciding on and sticking to a marketing strategy to help grow your business can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack, except ten times worse because people will tell you that one particular strategy or platform is the be all and end all.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
Enjoy!
Resources:
If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.
Deciding on and sticking to a marketing strategy to help grow your business can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack, except ten times worse because people will tell you that one particular strategy or platform is the be all and end all.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
Enjoy!
Resources:
If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.
H ey guys. Welcome to the podcast, super excited to jump into this episode today.
Shannon Stone:Today, we are talking about choosing a strategy that sticks. So, whether you have a strategy in your business already, a marketing strategy or something that helps you to get your business seen, start to bring some leads into your business and, ultimately, clients, even if you've got something in place already, we're also going to be covering how can you make sure that strategy really sticks so that you know when another new idea or new strategy comes by or new platform, whatever it might be. You're not running off with that one and forgetting about this one. So we're going to be talking about strategy as it relates to leads, marketing, sales and, ultimately, getting new clients in your business. Now, the foundation, and what everyone needs to know, first and foremost, is that every single strategy and every single platform works. So a financial advisor can get clients from LinkedIn. They could also get clients from Instagram. They could also get clients from running ads. They could get clients from having an email list, a newsletter. All sorts of different things print so many different ways. So it's important, for it doesn't matter what kind of business you have or what kind of method or platform or strategy that you are using. The truth of the matter is everything actually works. Now, if you were to Google whatever your business is and a particular strategy tied to that, say, how can a financial advisor get leads on LinkedIn, you're going to find answers for it. If you search how can a financial advisor get leads on TikTok, you're also going to find answers for that. So we always find what we're looking for, which is always quite a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's relevant here when we're talking about what strategy to choose, because people think, will often think, that one works better than the other, or that one's worked for a similar business to mine. It's probably going to work for me and this is not complete truth, where one thing that works for someone is going to work exactly the same as for you. We'll talk about that as well.
Shannon Stone:But really excited to jump into this because it is a very common question that gets asked what strategy should I use? What's the best way to bring leads into my business? Should I be using Facebook or LinkedIn, or algorithms change? I think I'm going to jump over to another platform now, and so we see this chopping and changing and a lot of this decision fatigue going on and no real decisions being made, and if you're not making any decisions, you're not really choosing a particular form of marketing and really driving that forward with your business and going deep with that particular style of marketing, you're never going to see results. So hopefully this will help you to really choose one and really and I use this in the nicest possible way milk that strategy until you get the results you're looking for. Now we'll jump in.
Shannon Stone:There's five different areas, or five different, I guess, steps to help you to choose a strategy, and the first one is what resonates with you the most. So and this is really important if you are the person in the business who is executing this strategy. Say, you are a financial advisor and your goal is to get 10 clients per year and you've decided LinkedIn is the way that you want to go about that. So my first question is does this resonate with you? Does using LinkedIn as a tool or a platform or a strategy actually resonate with you? Can you really get behind it and be excited and say you know what? I could really focus on? Linkedin, and it could be any other platform, but whether it was LinkedIn, whether it was networking, whether it was running ads, whatever strategy it was, you need to resonate with it, because if you don't, especially if you are the one who is executing that strategy, it's not going to last very long. So, out of all the strategies out there, now that we laid the foundations and we did say well, everything really does work, every single strategy does perform well, then that kind of brings us all back to zero as far as which strategy to choose. So which is the one that you resonate with the most? And you might test out some different ones, you might gravitate towards different ones. For me personally, I love connecting with people, I love meeting people, I love building relationships. That resonates with me so deeply, but that is not someone else's ideal. So you will know different methods or strategies that really do work for you already. So that is number one. What resonates with you the most. Number two where have you seen success already? So I'm imagining your business is already set up.
Shannon Stone:You've been going for you know a good chunk of time now, so where have you seen success already in your business? As far as the strategy goes, do you generally get a lot of clients through word of mouth? Do you generally get a lot of referrals? But even with something like referrals, people need to know you. So how have you connected with them initially? How have you communicated to those people who are referring people to about the good work that you do? Are they seeing content of yours online? Are they seeing reviews and testimonials pop up?
Shannon Stone:So look, you really can't have it be really surface level. You can't just say it's just referrals. You have to really go a few layers deeper and really figure out well, the success isn't just from referrals. It's because I'm connected to them online. It's because I share great content online. It's also because that content showcases the work that I do. So you have to look and see well, where have you already got success already?
Shannon Stone:And that does tie in with number one, because it's probably something you already resonate with. Could it be a particular platform? Could it be a particular style of marketing, a particular strategy that you have been using? So just check in and see where do you see success in your business? And you might look at the last half a dozen or a dozen clients that have come to you and say, ok, well, they all came through these kind of methods. You know I did this and then that's what led them to reach out to me. So you want to figure out where have you seen success already in your business as far as generating leads who are coming to you.
Shannon Stone:That's number two. Number three is could this particular strategy fulfill your goals? So the example that I shared a financial advisor who wants 10 clients per year using LinkedIn. So If that is your goal and that's who you are and you're deciding, linkedin is the way to go and your goal is 10 clients, could, using LinkedIn as a core strategy of yours in your business, could it help you to get the number of clients you were looking for? In this case, it was 10 clients per year. If it is awesome.
Shannon Stone:If it's not, I would then look at one of two things. If it's a no, I can't get 10 clients from LinkedIn, or at least my current strategy using LinkedIn doesn't help me to get 10 clients from LinkedIn. Maybe I need to explore how can I get even more out of LinkedIn, how can I maximize what I have already been doing? How can I build upon this platform, because it's already working for me to some degree, but it's not really helping me to fulfill my goals of 10 clients? Maybe it's getting you to five clients or eight clients. So that would be the first side of it to look at. The other side of it would be then have you fully maxed out and we've very rarely maxed out a strategy, but have you fully maxed out the strategy, say, using LinkedIn?
Shannon Stone:And now you also want to expand and use another strategy in addition not in place of which is really important to know in addition to what you're doing. Maybe LinkedIn is working to a certain extent, but you need to find more ways to connect with people. Now, linkedin has lots of great ways you can connect with people, but maybe you do in-person networking, or maybe you want to run an event or two once a year, something like that, whatever it might be. So you create another strategy or you decide on another one that can be used in tandem with the strategy that you're already using, say LinkedIn in this case. So question number three could this strategy fulfill your goals? Because this is what it all comes down to. That's why you've got, or you're trying to choose, a strategy.
Shannon Stone:Altogether, it's to help you to achieve a particular goal, generally the number of clients that you're looking for. So this is a really important gauge point, because otherwise, why are we doing this? It's not just about getting followers and likes and engagement. If you are a business, you have to be doing it from a business perspective as well. So, really, cross checking, can this strategy help me to fulfill my goals? And you want to be really specific. In this case, it was 10 clients. Now you can get specific as you like. Maybe it's into certain services that you sell, maybe it is a certain number of clients, maybe it's a certain amount of revenue, certain amount of deals, whatever it might be, but you need to, I guess, cross check the strategy and your goals, because they need to work in tandem together. So that is question number three. Okay, question number four, and we've only got five of them here.
Shannon Stone:So question number four is do you enjoy this strategy, especially if you are the person who is executing it? And I did touch on this before briefly, but this is actually really important for a business. It's like do you really want to be, say, this, financial advisor? Do you really want to be all over linked in, or all over linked into the point where you can fulfill your goals? Do you enjoy using this platform? Do you enjoy creating the content? Do you enjoy Connecting with people, having conversations, even you know, assessing, okay, well, things kind of dropping off a little bit.
Shannon Stone:Now let me explore what I could do to improve it. You know, can you really get behind this particular strategy? And this is why I say it's different for every single person. For me, I love connecting with people, I love going to. If I could just go to events 24, seven, that is literally what I would do. So I can fully get behind that, as not that it's a strategy, but you could definitely use it as a strategy. But so do you enjoy this particular strategy, especially if you are the one executing it or you've got a strong influence? Maybe you do have Someone in your business who helps you to execute the strategy, or you maybe hire someone say you hire a linked in specialist to help support you with this, whether it was on the nitty gritty of the strategy or the execution of it, or the setting up of your profile or optimizing it, whatever it might be.
Shannon Stone:But on some wavelength you have to enjoy, enjoy the strategy, and this goes across the board as well. It's a key piece of advice that I tell a lot of my clients it's that you should enjoy your marketing. So your marketing is this big ecosystem and, honestly, it's the way, it's the step between someone learning about you and becoming a client of yours, and I imagine you love all of your clients and so the way that you connect with them, the way they get to know you, you should also enjoy that as well. So if you enjoy your marketing, you're much more likely to stick at it, and same goes for your strategies as well. So that is question number four do you enjoy this strategy? And question number five, the last one we have here, is that, coming back to our key focus, so choosing a strategy that sticks.
Shannon Stone:Question number five or it's more so a step in this case is that you need to build a system Around the strategy. So Even if you have found something you love doing, even if you have found something that you get results from and this is crazy as well, people can love something you can get results from it, but if you don't have a system around it, you will stop doing it at some point in time. And if you've read Atomic Habits, he talks about it more so being as habits. For me. In business, I often talk about it as systems. But if you don't have systems around certain things, particularly your marketing or strategy, the way that you're generating leads in your business, it's going to stop at some point in time.
Shannon Stone:So step five here is that you do need to build a system around the strategy and systems and strategies everything really in business. It's never set in stone, so you always have to improve it. You'll have to review it. You might find new ways or better ways of doing things, so you need to update that. So it is a living, breathing element of your business. But you do have to build a system around the strategy. So if you are the financial advisor who wants 10 clients per year using LinkedIn, work out what is that strategy that you're using, or if you've got a, you've probably got strategies and things that you're using in your business already. So if you were to laser in on one of them and you really systemized it, say it was LinkedIn. With LinkedIn, maybe you're creating content. Create a system around the content. And then maybe you're connecting with people. Create a system around connecting with people. Or, however it is that you're using LinkedIn or whatever strategy or platform it is, create a system around it because it makes it easy for you to stick to it and it makes it easy for other people to stick to it as well, especially if you've got a team member or someone supporting you with that.
Shannon Stone:Okay, so they're the five steps, or questions, so I'll recap them. So, number one is what resonates with you? So what strategy resonates with you? Number two where have you seen success already? Number three could that strategy fulfill your goals? So you really want to connect the strategy to your goals. Number four do you enjoy this strategy, especially if you are the one executing it? And number five is to build a system around the strategy.
Shannon Stone:Now, a couple of closing thoughts or closing notes I wanted to share with you is and we did a little bit touch on this at the beginning is if you were a financial advisor and someone had a carbon copy of a strategy that's worked amazing for them, why does that not work amazing for you? And you'll see this often people will sell documented strategies or courses or they've found something that works for them and they want to teach everyone how that thing has worked for them as well. But how often does it work exactly the same way? Not very often, and I'll tell you why. It's because the variables are different. So even on face value, you could be the same business, same goal, same platform, same strategy. There's still so many variables that are different. The business is different even if it's the same industry.
Shannon Stone:Even things like you're at a different stage in business could be one of the variables that impact the results you get from a certain strategy the people, so you yourself or the person executing it. That could just be a strategy that just doesn't gel with you. It doesn't click with you. Imagine someone who doesn't like going to events and you tell them I tell them that is the best way to grow your business, but for them, they can't stand it. It tires them out, they don't enjoy it, it's such an uphill battle. They could do it, you could train them in it, you could tell them all the things to say, all the things to do, what events to go to, all the things in between, but if it doesn't resonate with that person, you're probably like it's probably downhill from there as far as getting results.
Shannon Stone:Other variables the target market and the market or your niche of people that you work with. These days there's so many intricacies to it. You could say you target the exact same 40 year old person who lives in Brisbane who does this works. This has X number of kids, but there's still going to be different things compared to another Identical demographic of people. It's just going to be different, different variables. Your audience could be different, the type of people, your audience size.
Shannon Stone:The timing of a strategy also really impacts the results as well. Imagine getting onto a platform when it first starts, versus five years later. 10 years later, you're going to get different results from the exact same strategy. Geography, where you live another variable that can impact it. So just wanted to add that there because it's important for you to recognize, because quite often people will purchase things or look at you know well, this is work for that person and it's definitely going to work for us, because why wouldn't it? But if you understand that there are different variables at play, it doesn't mean it's not going to work for you, but sometimes we have to adapt the nuances and understand, okay. Well, let me just make this more applicable to me, because these are the things that will impact the strategy that are different from the person who is teaching it. So I wanted to share that with you. As far as why sometimes the exact same strategy is not going to work for the what might seem the exact same people, but they're not, because the variables are different.
Shannon Stone:And the last thing I wanted to share with you is around shiny object strategies. So quite often we will hear about new things, new platforms, new ways of doing things, and we can go off with the berries and try those new strategies. But the joy and the results really come from the depth that you can get to in a strategy. So the deeper that you go with it, like no stone unturned, the more that you can dot your eyes and cross your T's. Sometimes it's just a little bit more. One more step further is what will get you the results, and quite often when new strategies and things come up. People think it's really easy to just jump ship and go over and try that new thing. But quite often you would take the same, possibly, problems you're experiencing with this strategy, you'll take those same problems and you'll experience over it with that other strategy. So why would you start fresh with another one when you could just keep figuring out what are the things that you need to tweak with this strategy that you're using in order to start to see better results? And same goes as well any kind of strategy.
Shannon Stone:They all start to plateau at some point in time, and not just once, many, many times as well. But that is not when you stop. That is when you reassess and you improve and you work through, when you think through, when you question and you check in and you do some research and you figure, you try some different things, you test out some different things, but you don't stop when things plateau. You look for different solutions that you could add to it, to change to it, to try differently. Maybe it's become a little bit white noise the way that you've been doing things. You're just sharing same type of content all the time. Maybe you need to change some things up. So when things start to plateau, as in the results you're getting from a particular strategy. That is not when you stop. That's when you well, you can pause and you can reassess, but we're not stopping and switching to another strategy all together. That's when we look at how can we improve. So that's the last thing I wanted to share with you there.
Shannon Stone:Okay, and finally, the action step. So the action steps are building on the five questions that we went through today, but ultimately, how do you choose or stick with a strategy in your business? So action step is number one. If you fully focused on one strategy, what would that be? And that's something I'd love for you to ask yourself and really decide. It doesn't mean that you don't do multiple forms of marketing, but you can have one core strategy. That is that one that you're really focusing on more than the others. You might fully focus on LinkedIn, but you might still repurpose your content to other platforms. You might still email your list, you might still do some networking and things. But what is that one core strategy that you're going to focus on? And that's something for you to decide, and I would run it through those five questions that we went through. What resonates with you? Where have you seen success already? Could this strategy fulfill your goals? Do you enjoy this strategy? And then action. Step number two is to build a system around the strategy. So what are you doing? What does it look like? Is there a schedule? What are all the learnings that you've got from it? Build a system around it. So that's what I want to share with you today as far as choosing and sticking with a strategy for your business.
Shannon Stone:If you found this useful, definitely share it with a friend and I hope you have an amazing week and we'll talk very, very soon.