092: Marketing That Suits *You*

If your marketing leaves you feeling drained, uninspired, confused, or pointless,  that's a red flag. With 1000+ ways to market your business, why are you spending your time on the ones you dread?

There are writers doing videos. Talkers writing blogs. Connectors hiding behind content. Intelligent people dumbing down what they do. People with a lifetime of recognisable results handing their marketing to someone else, dismissing an entire career that could be their greatest strategy.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How to find a marketing approach that was made for *you*
• Why we need to stop following industry blueprints that work for one but not the other
• Four marketing archetypes — The Connector, The Teacher, The Talker, The Doer - and how to identify yours
• How to build a major/minor marketing plan so your energy goes where it actually converts

Because a strategy you hate is a strategy you'll abandon, again.

Enjoy!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Have you noticed so much business and marketing content out there is so abstract and airy fairy? Like what they're saying sounds good, but what do you actually need to do? That's where the Good Marketing Good Business Podcast comes in. This is where I share practical strategies to help you grow your service-based business. And in case we haven't met yet, I'm Shannon Stone, award-winning business and marketing consultant, and for the last decade or so, I've been diving in deep with small business owners, helping them to make more sales and get more done in less time. And today's episode is no different. Enjoy. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. I am very excited for this episode, and it's going to be quite the masterclass. So listen very intently. Definitely take notes. And as always, there's a transcript and also a companion article, which is always titled the same as the episode. So for today, marketing that suits you, and you'll find that companion article on LinkedIn. So just find me on LinkedIn and you'll find the companion article there as well if you like things in a written form. So let's jump into the episode. It is called Marketing That Suits You. So I obviously talk to lots of businesses about their marketing, and I always see, you know, when it comes to your marketing, if you feel drained, confused, maybe underskilled, maybe you're trying to learn a strategy, a platform, maybe social media, maybe ads, maybe um more technical things. You might be feeling underskilled, which rightfully so, if it's not your background. But if you're also feeling uninspired or that your marketing is just feeling pointless, oh my God, it's not even really bringing me anyone. And there's not even any signals. You know, it's one thing to not get the results you're looking for, but it's a very different thing or even more of a red flag when you're not even getting the signals that your marketing is hitting the right people, even bringing in inquiries, or having any kind of response. So if you're feeling any of those things, we really have to talk about your marketing and how to get it on a good track so it actually produces results for you. And whenever I talk to people, I just think, you know what, we spend so much time in our businesses. Marketing and sales is obviously a very important part of a business in order to grow and sustain itself and pay your team, all those things that come from it, let alone just helping people solve the problems that you do. It's so important that your marketing works for you and it works not just from a results perspective, but that you want to do it, that it's suitable to you. I always say there's a thousand different ways that you can market your business. And so it kind of puzzles me why do people choose of all the thousand plus different ways, why choose the couple of methods that they dread? There's so many ways that we could do it. So I'm sure out of all the different options, which we'll talk about today, I'm sure we can find a handful that actually suit you. What we're gonna do today, there's some questions that I want to present to you. Um, there's some archetypes I want to share with you, and there's a fun, quick little game we'll play as well, which I think will bring it all together. So I want to start with basically saying each of us has a strength. Some of us are great at writing, some of us are great at videos, some of us are great at maybe the technical work of what we do, and that stands so strong. We've got obviously skills in each of these, but some of us excel in some of these and not the others. But unfortunately, we're finding business owners who are writers in one way, but they're doing videos, or talkers that are writing blogs, or people who are connectors and they're hiding behind content. And even like really intelligent people dumbing down what they do, it's like, oh, people are just not gonna get it. So I've got to talk to them like a three-year-old, which there's a little bit of an argument for that, but there's also an argument against that as well. But I think one of the big things that I really see is that people who have a lifetime and lifetime, not from the age of zero, who have that that career span of recognition and notable results, and then they often just, you know, flick off the marketing to uh I don't I I don't I never like to offend people or stereotypes, which so much of business is not fun, is not a great way because archetypes are putting people in a stereotype, but they'll flick off their marketing to maybe a young person to do their marketing, and while doing that, they're just dismissing their entire career, which can be used as a super strategy. Like I look at people and what they do in business, and I just think you are sitting on a wealth of experience, of knowledge, of assets that could be a super strategy if we can just look and unpack that and find the best way to package that up and create a great marketing strategy over that. So I feel like I sit over here with my little mission trying to really expand what people see and do when it comes to their marketing. I don't like blueprints, I don't like cookie-cutter things, but we'll often see this. And I think hopefully, maybe after 10 years, maybe some of what I'm saying is starting to have a little bit of an effect. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but you know, we'll see people saying, you know, do this and this and this, and that means you're doing your marketing right. If you do your social media and you do your email and you do ads, that means you're doing your marketing right. But we know that doesn't always work. You can give two people or two businesses the exact same strategy and it'll work for one and not the other. And for the other who it's not working for, imagine, and that could be you. It's probably been all of us at different points in time. We never look at what's wrong with the strategy, we look at what's wrong with us. It's working for that person. I'm in the same industry, I'm doing the same things, I have even more experience than that person, but it's actually working way better for them. So that's a really unfortunate place to be in, which I think why this episode and this conversation is even more important. But often it's just like with AI, it's none of the things out there. AI can only create something if there's a person behind it. And it's the same for businesses, it's the people behind these businesses, it's you who pushes your business forward, nothing else. Just kind of like background to that. We do want our businesses to perform and to grow without us, you know, without that reliance on you. If you've got a business that's completely relied on you getting up every single day and pressing the buttons, these are the they're the realities of business, but they're the things we want to hopefully, you know, execute on strategies that don't require you to always push a button. And just like a marketing example for that is like, I don't know, maybe you gave a great talk at a conference, for example, you spent several hours putting that together. You spent your, I don't know, 15, 20, 30 minutes, an hour, you know, however long it was, presenting on there. But that exercise, that strategy produced you leads for weeks and months to come. They're the kind of things, like that's just not today's conversation specifically, but we will talk about that at some point in time. Basically, marketing that has more longevity. But this, I guess I just wanted to point that out. It's it is you who pushes your business forward, but don't think that it's always going to be that way, because I think that is the work of a business owner to find and utilize and execute strategies that allow them to have more leverage, but it doesn't happen overnight. And that's why this episode is really important because people will often like so pretty much everyone thinks they should be on social media, but is that even actually working for you? So let's hopefully today find out what works for you. Let's find the marketing that is better suited to you as an individual. And we'll start by these questions, and then we'll talk about some archetypes and matching some marketing methods to who you are more naturally. So, the first question that I have for you, I

Questions

SPEAKER_00 9:15

guess I want you to think about this not just in business, like with a layer of business, but just you as a person, you in your whole life in every walk of life. So, question number one is what's your natural strength and superpower? What do you do really well? And I want you to think about that. For some people, it's like, what are the things that just come so easy to you? You find so much joy in those kind of things. If you kind of reflect back on different parts of your life, it's probably something that's like a golden thread through each of them. Like for me, I love depth, I love to really connect with people. Um, we'll talk about some of these as we go through. But what are some of the things that are just natural to you? Um, how do you create things? How do you kind of go through life and just think, you know, some of it will make more sense as we go through. But the second question is how can this natural strength and superpower connect you to your prospective clients? So say you really like depth, you're someone like me in that way, or maybe you're really good at writing, or you're really good, or you love creating videos. It's something you would do even if no one was watching. So now this reels revolution is like so up your alley, or maybe it isn't at all. And that's why you find resistance in trying to do that. But that second question, how can your natural strengths and superpowers connect you to your prospective clients? So if you are really good at writing, how could that skill of writing or that skill of really having that depth with people, or that skill of, we'll talk about some of these in the archetypes, the skill of I just get in and I do my work and that's what I love to focus on. Whatever your natural strength and superpower is, how could that connect you to your prospective clients? And I don't want to give you all the answers to these because sometimes when you provide answers and examples, it can limit someone's thinking. So whether you pause this episode now and think about it, or you come back to it, or you write it out and you ponder that question some more, it's a really good question because it gives you an open-ended opportunity to connect with those prospective clients. The last question I'll share on this is what do my prospective clients need and want? And I think about this in two ways, in general and right now. So COVID's a great example for this or a reference point. So, what do my clients need and want in general and right now? So during COVID, when everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people were forced to work only online and things like that, at that time, in that right now piece, they needed connection. So, personal trainers, for example, were running their classes online because gyms were closed. But just think about what do my clients need and want in general and right now. So, in general, they might need, you know, they're always seeking information or they just want to connect with their peers, or um, if I think about if I put myself in the shoes of my prospective clients, here's the things that I'm seeing that they really want. They want, maybe you're in a very futile industry, and so they need certainty. That's what they really need right now. And then maybe in general, they need, you know, they're very busy people, but out of that busyness, here's what they actually need, here's like some things they need. So a couple of questions just to get you starting to think and reveal some of the ways you could possibly connect with your prospective clients in ways that are more suited to your natural strength and superpowers. And nothing is wrong. That's why I think the blueprints often don't work, the cookie-cutter ways of if you're a mortgage broker, like the here's like the perfect formula to generate clients. Like I'm sure there's some wisdom in that, but what if we started with your your skills and everything that's built the great business you have today? So they're the first questions. Now let's go into the archetypes.

Archetypes

SPEAKER_00 13:26

So I've got four archetypes for us, and with each of these, there's some marketing suggestions that probably are a little bit more suited to those type of archetypes, and you might see yourself clearly just crystal clear in some of these archetypes, or maybe you're, you know, a bit of a mix of each of them, but ultimately there these are examples, but I want you to then create your own archetype one. What's your marketing archetype that suits you? And you can create that identity based on the things we're talking about. So the first archetype example I have is the connector. So the connector is someone that they're really great at connecting people. I'm sure there's a lot of these connectors uh that I'm connected to on LinkedIn, and I just see, oh my god, you are just a connector. All the people they know everything about you should know this person, I should connect you with that person. They're energized by people, they're great at relationship building, they're great at conversation, straight from the get-go to networking event. They're just an energizer bunny. And also, I want to say with this as well, you could be an energizer bunny connector, right? Or you could be like a quiet connector. You could just be someone who's like maybe a little bit more observer, but you're still a connector. So just keep that in mind. I think it goes with my thing of like, I really don't like stereotypes, I don't like putting people in boxes. It's for those reasons. The connector can feel like you have to be this outlandish, inadvertent, commas, extrovert in the societally accepted kind of way. But maybe it's not that, but you've still got those traits of a connector. So uh connectors, I think what they would often be great at is doing coffees with people. And people often say, Don't waste your time with coffees. Oh my god, coffees built my business. I don't drink coffee, I drink tea. But coffee dates with people, 100% built my business in the early days. Referrals are a great marketing method for people who are often connected, partnerships as well, physically getting into the rooms of places, networking is a great one, facilitating that connection, bringing a few people together, or maybe they're the people that host networking events or industry events or partner with someone in the industry to put that together. True connector. The next archetype is the teacher. So the teacher is someone who they just want to teach people. They they might think in frameworks, they love to explain or maybe mansplain, mansplain things. They get satisfaction from making things click for people. Like they want you to get it, they want you to understand. They like to share, you know, here's the reasons why we do things in these kind of way. I know I definitely have a touch of the teacher in me, but for me, I don't really love frameworks. I don't I think the stereotype thing, putting people in boxes, I have certain frameworks, but yeah, that's probably an element for me personally that I don't entirely connect to. But for someone who is the teacher, when it comes to their marketing, teaching in your content, and again, you've got to think about this. Are you more of a writer, a video person, an audio person, or connecting with people? This is where some of these things can start to overlap. Their content and just their marketing. Don't just go to social media when I say, you know, content is your learning platforms, it can be courses, it can be your blogs and your articles and your white papers. There's so many methods. Don't just think of content as social media. The teacher can also be into things like maybe they create an email course or an email challenge that gets strip fed. They really want to teach. Podcasting, definitely a one as well. So there are a few elements of the teacher. The next one that I have, we've got four of them all together. So number three is the talker. So the talker is someone they're they're often quite articulate, they're persuasive. Someone who's just a speaker, they love that. And again, remember with a connect, it doesn't have to be in outlandish ways, it could be in quiet ways. It could be they love to talk, but they love to talk, you know, in intimate settings or with smaller groups, or even in big rooms, they make it feel really small and intimate and create that depth. Persuasive, they light up in conversation. So their marketing or your marketing, if that's you, or touches of you, would be things like speaking, would be things like podcasting, whether it's your podcast or you're a guest on someone else's podcast. Like think of everything radio, TV, getting onto stages, and whether that's someone else's stage or your own stage or a social media stage, creating Loom videos or YouTube videos or whatever kind of videos, maybe it's hosting live sessions or being a part of live sessions or being on a panel. So for talkers, people who love those elements, really connect to it, could do it. And that this is the thing. This is about finding marketing that suits you. What could you just do so naturally? What comes so easily to you? So if you're a talker, start finding microphones, whether they're big or small microphones or your own microphone. That is something that I think can work really well to your own strengths. The last one, the last archetype that I have is the doer. And I think a doer is like very crystal clear. Now, the doer is someone who they just lead with the results. And there's a few people I know like that just come to mind, and like they're just doers, and their marketing should all be doers. So there's like an SEO person that I'm connected to, a systems person that I'm connected to who does like automations and things, and all they have to do and all they do, whether they realize it or not, but their marketing is just led by the results they do. They're not worried about the frills, they're not worried about networking, going to regular events and things, or but everything they do is all about the work they do. It's like they're just quietly confident in what they do, or maybe they're very loudly confident, got to the top of Google. SEO's working really well, ranking amazingly, you know, or they just very data, very science-y minds, very analytical, can often be doers, but it can also not be as well. I love to lead with results. So their marketing is often case studies, it's testimonials, it's letting their work speak for itself. So maybe if someone did websites, it's like a very clear before and after. It's so evident of what they do. They don't need to perform, uh, which I think is a problem, not a problem, but uh resistance for people with doing marketing, it can feel very performative, very much like they're the show pony. So in instead of like, you know, someone, and there's nothing wrong with any of that. If you love to be on things like reels and hop on things that are trendy, all power to you because that works for you, but it doesn't work for everyone. So, someone like the doer, they don't need to perform, they need to document. Just show us what you do, just take us behind the scenes of what you do. So, can you see now why blueprints don't always work? So, if someone gives you a very cookie cutter, here's the way to create leads for your business. And if the blueprint is something very, very factual, I think that's where we have to be very careful. So, you might see yourself clearly in one of these archetypes or maybe a mix, but part of your homework and the action steps for this episode is to basically give yourself or your marketing a title. Create an archetype that suits you based on what we've spoken about, but also when you reflect on any marketing that you've done or just your natural tendencies and superpowers and abilities, what really suits you? Because if you did more of that, I think it would work so much better for you. You're not going to have the resistance, like the things we spoke about at the beginning, you know, feeling drained about your marketing, confused, feeling under skilled, uninspired, but most importantly, pointless. If your marketing feels pointless, you've definitely got to change things up. And sometimes changing things up and not in big, dramatic ways, can be very small ways. So maybe you do find you're more of the teacher, but the way you've been doing it is just not working. Like you told yourself, I need to teach people this through an article or a blog or like a written format. But for you, like that's going to take you three hours to do one and you're still not happy with it. Whereas maybe it's better for you to just jump on a video or have a friend or a peer or a team member interview, ask you things about it, and it comes out in video format. And it's not to say all of this can be repurposed as well. If you were to do that, team member interviews you, then maybe they can go turn it into an article, turn it into those written pieces. But the starting point starts with what naturally works for you. The last thing we're going to do is we're going to play a very quick game and then we'll get into the action steps. So the

Right vs. Wrong Game

SPEAKER_00 23:01

game is called right versus wrong. Very simple. And it's a nice quick one. So the first one, it's a question. It's a question, it's a scenario. So I want you to think about when you're talking to someone at a networking event or a dinner party or you meet someone, whatever it is, and they ask you, like, oh, what is it that you do? Take yourself to that moment. And I think there's so many ways this moment and this scenario can go. For some people, that their pitch, they've got their pitch, their elevator pitch all ready to go, comes out so naturally. It helps they feel really good explaining it, you know, their 30-second pitch or however long it is, and and it gets received really well by the other person. I want you to think about that scenario. And if that feels, is that how it feels for you? Comes out really easily. If it doesn't, for me, like I've got my pitch, I've got it worked out. I know what it is, but honestly, it's not my most natural and right medium to me. What works better for me is oh, do you have a business? Tell me about your business. When did you start your business? Who do you work with? I'm more someone who connects with people. I want that depth and I'm very inquisitive. And so I want you to think of this scenario, someone asking you at a dinner party or a networking event, what is it that you do to then basically see me sharing the elevator pitch, does that work really well for me? Is that really natural? Does it feel really good for me? If it is, that's right for you. If it's not, let's find the way that is right for you. So if I know I'm someone that, okay, the pitch thing doesn't work, but I'm gonna say it. But what I'm gonna do next is tell me about your business. Have you ever wanted to go into business? Have you got any ideas? Let's brainstorm some ideas right now. Like I'm like zero to a hundred all the way. If like someone says they have a business and they start telling me about their problems, I'm like hitting them with some solutions, probably more than I should. But that is me. That is something that works really well for me. So there's the touch of the doer there, there's a touch of the teacher and the touch of the connector, there's a touch of the talk, there's a touch of all of them in there, which is why I say we have to make our own archetype, our own identity out of it. But that first part of this right versus wrong game is for you to see what actually works naturally for me when someone says, What is it that you do at a networking event or a dinner party? How do you answer that? How does that feel for you? And what would be the right way? What's the best way that would actually suit you when someone says, What is it that you do? Do you need to show them? Do you need to ask more questions? Do you need to, what is it? So that's the first one. The second part of the game, so this is what is wrong. So I want you to reflect on what marketing have you started and quietly just stopped? And I'm not talking about one time, I'm talking about three, four, or five, many times you've been in business enough years by now that you've tried and retried and tried, tried, tried again. So many different marketing methods. What are the ones that you've started and just stopped? Whether it's stopped loudly, but mostly people stop things quietly. That is the wrong marketing method for you. Why would we force something that is just not working? And the most common one that does come to mind is social media. But I want to tell you with this, um, and the action step will tie this part of it together. But you know, a lot of people will stop and start social media. They'll kind of go quiet for a bit or find something that's just not working, but they're always often finding they're trying to restart themselves back on social media. It doesn't mean you don't post on social media. It means, or whatever the strategy is, the one that you've stopped multiple times. It just means, and it could be a seasonal thing, events might be a seasonal thing, or a strategy might be a seasonal thing for you. It's not that you really attempted to maintain it, but you just don't. It means the one that you just don't maintain, it means you don't put it on a pedestal and you don't expect an abundance of leads coming from that particular strategy. What you need to do, we'll talk about this clearly in the homework, is you have to do what works for you first. And then the channel that, like whether it's a social media or, you know, going to an event every so often, it's not on a pedestal. You're not expecting an abundance of leads for from it. But we're just gonna put it in the background. Maybe you're gonna post once a week or once a month. It's not your direct marketing method because it's important to know that if it's not that direct marketing method, it's something you've tried many, many times, starting and stopping over and over again. It's not gonna hurt you by putting it in the background, downsizing the number of posts you do or the number of events that you do, just something that ticks slowly in the background, it's not gonna hurt anyone. But it will hurt you when you spend 10, 20 hours or you know, thousands of dollars a month on that particular strategy and it does nothing. So put it in the background, don't overextend yourself to work on that particular strategy if it's relevant for you. If your business is so got nothing to do with like benefiting yourself by using a particular strategy, maybe social media or otherwise, just don't use it at all. But if it is about I just need to have a little bit of a presence, I need people to just know that yes, I am in business, and the last time I posted was not five years ago, it was two weeks ago, and that is okay. So the best marketing strategy is the one that you'll do, and it's the one that you'll do consistently, it's the one you'll do confidently, and it's the one you'll do without apology. It's the one that's naturally aligned to you. So at the start of this episode, we start to really bring it all back. I said that if you're feeling drained, confused, underskilled, uninspired, that your marketing is pointless. They're all green, uh, not green flags, they're red flags. They're very bright red flags that we need to stop and question what our marketing actually needs to look like, especially if it feels pointless. What you want your marketing to be, and I promise you it will be transformed into this. If you take what we've spoken about today, use the things that are more naturally aligned to you. You are going to feel more inspired with your marketing, that your marketing's more aligned, that it's more natural, comes out more easily, just like you know, you've owned every part of it. You can maybe speak about your business on a stage, or maybe, you know, you're just great at writing, and you know, you know that represents your business so well, and it's proven. That's the thing about great strategies that work for you. They're proven. And I want you to feel in control of your marketing as well. Don't want you to be dreading it. I don't want you to feel, you know, like it, I don't want it to take up all the headspace. I think that's another red flag indicator. So if it's feeling inspiring, natural, aligned, proven, that you feel in control of it, they're green flags as far as what type of marketing to follow. If you're great at picking up the phone, green flag. If you can't stand networking events, don't do them. They're red flags for you, but maybe they're green flags for someone else. So don't get it twisted. This is your business, your life, your natural tendencies. All right, let's wrap this up and talk about the action step and the homework for this episode. I told you it would be quite

Right vs. Wrong Game 23:01 Action Steps

SPEAKER_00 30:54

the masterclass. So I hope you pause or will pause if you watch this again and really take notes. Take a look at the transcript and take a look at the companion article if you want it in a written form. So the action step is to rewrite your marketing plan. And with that, there's two things that I've got here for you. I want you to create your marketing archetype or your identity. So we spoke about those four different ones. So the connector, the teacher, the talker, the doer. There could be parts of you that are it and parts of you that are not. I want you to create your own marketing archetype and identity and find out what works exactly for you. The next part of the action step is major and minor. So I want 80% of your focus to go into the major things. What where are your natural superpowers? What are the one or two amazing strategies that you just know I can do this? It's a really great way for me to represent my business. There's nothing about it that I would dread doing. So that is what you need to major in. I identify where are you going to spend most of your focus. Then the minor focus. These are the things, these are the strategies that will just work slowly in the background. Yeah, they're important, but they're not, you're not, you're taking them off the pedestal, you're not expecting an abundance of leads from it. They're a touch point for your clients in the customer journey coming to you. So that might be things like social media. So instead of expecting yourself to post five times a week, maybe it's one a week, and then you spend that time you're gaining back and that headspace on the things that are more aligned to your superpower. Last thing I want to say, so that's a homework, create your marketing archetype and work out your major and minor. What are you 80% majoring in? What are you 20% minoring in? So the last thing I want to end this is a strategy that you hate is a strategy that you'll quietly abandon. So create your marketing strategy, your marketing plan around things you actually like, that things you can actually do, things that it doesn't matter if there's an identical or similar business doing something completely different and getting amazing results from it. If there were things you can borrow from it and it were to work for you, amazing. But it's probably because it's naturally aligned to you. So that is what I have for you today. I hope you found this useful. If you have any questions at all, do let me know. If you are listening to this podcast at the time of publishing, which is April 2026, I am doing some business boardroom days in Brisbane and in Melbourne. So they are full in-person days where we go through your business, go through your marketing, go through your sales. It's for a very small group of people. So four or five business owners, and you'll get lots of intimate time together because we'll also do a one-on-one session and go through your business, audit your business and find your specific opportunities for growth. And then the group boardroom day with just five business business owners is some very tactile implementation focused strategies. If you like this episode, you will love the business boardroom day. So if you're interested in that, go to shannonstone.com.au forward slash boardroom and you can fill in the application form and we can take it from there. But they are happening soon. So they're happening soon and they're also very limited as well. So if you're in Brisbane or Melbourne and you want to know more or you're interested in that, just visit the website shannonstone.com.au forward slash boardroom and we can take it from there. But I hope you found this useful. I hope you have an amazing week and I'll chat to you soon. Hey, thanks for listening. If you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to send it to a friend. The best podcasts I have found have all been recommended to me. If you can spread the word by sharing this episode, I can spend more time helping you by creating episodes just like this one. Send it, text it, tell somebody about it, whatever you need to do. The more you spread the word, the more I can focus on creating needle moving episodes to help you and your friends.