910: Thinking like a customer for marketing that CONNECTS w/ Mary Casey

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and today I am particularly excited because once again we are talking marketing and we found an incredible guest that offers a full suite of marketing services.

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But what I really love about her work is that I love this phrase.

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She doesn't just do marketing for marketing's sake.

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She does marketing with a clear view of growing a business and resonating with customers and clients and ensuring that a product and a service actually meets the demands and shows the demands of an entire market.

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Her marketing is so results oriented and results based that you'll be able to see the way she talks about it, whether it comes from fitting your product and service to a specific channel, to a specific message, getting it in front of your ideal customers.

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I'm sure we're going to say that phrase a bunch in today's conversation.

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You'll find that today's guest really focuses on that side of marketing.

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So let me tell you all about her.

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Her name is Mary Casey.

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Mary started Maximum Marketing Strategies to help businesses maximize their brands and reach their business goals, a passion that started all the way back in high school.

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I can't wait to find out.

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How did.

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She love marketing all the way back in high school, but Mary has taken her love of all things marketing and turned it into a full-time business.

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Now the other side of Mary with her entrepreneur hat on not just as a marketer is that life is all about finding balance and doing what you love.

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So, outside of marketing, mary is an avid runner, having just finished her third half marathon with a PR.

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She's an amateur baker, health and wellness enthusiast and a proud dog mom.

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We may or may not see her dog make an appearance in today's episode.

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Mary enjoys meeting and connecting with fellow entrepreneurs and business owners and is always looking for something new to learn, which I think is such an important trait for all of us as entrepreneurs.

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So I'm excited for us to learn from Mary here today.

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I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Mary Casey.

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All right, mary, I am so excited that you're here with us today.

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First things first.

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Welcome to the show.

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Thank you, what an intro.

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Well, listeners know I geek out anytime.

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We've got an episode where I get to talk marketing.

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I'm very excited and, mary, I know that this is a deep rooted passion for yours as well.

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So let's kick things off.

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Take us beyond the bio.

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Who the heck is Mary?

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High school marketing interest.

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How did you get there?

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That is such a funny story.

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I actually back in the day, back in high school, what I wanted to be when I grew up, you know, I wanted to do journalism.

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I liked writing.

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And when I got to senior year, some of the electives you could do there was a journalism elective and I was like, fantastic, that's so perfect, that's what I want to do.

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And so I signed up for that elective and got a call from my advisor in the summer telling me that that class was canceled due to under-enrollment.

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And I was really upset and she told me well, you know, there's space in this marketing class that you could take and I think that would be really good for you, because if you're a freelance journalist, you're going to have to know how to market yourself.

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So she was like take that journalism or take that marketing class, and you know it'll be, it'll be fun.

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She's like I, probably it'll be, it'll be good's like I, probably it'll be good.

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Uh, and so I went to the class of the full year class and I just loved it.

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It was the project that we did was just create a business, come up with a business and market it.

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How are you going to get it?

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You know how are you going to promote it?

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What product or service were you going to provide?

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Your pricing strategy?

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It was really like a perfect high school intro to marketing.

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And then I kind of just left journalism behind and was like you know what I really like doing this?

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This is fun and I'm good at it.

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So I just pursued marketing then through college and that was the beginning.

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That was the start.

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Yeah, I love that Fast forward us today because, mary, I already know that listeners they're going to be excited about two parts of what we're going to cover here today, which is one for sure marketing.

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We're going to go deep into the world of marketing.

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But two, I love that you back it up with an entrepreneurial story because, hearing high school, you have a strong focus on marketing.

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For too many people that turns into great careers in the world of marketing.

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But I love, obviously, I've studied so much of the work that you do for your clientele.

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I love that you've taken that to serve so many different small and medium-sized businesses in a really results-oriented way.

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So walk us through that journey, because full-time entrepreneurship is the dream for so many, but you get to do it while also doing incredible marketing projects.

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Yeah.

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So I decided to start my own business.

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It kind of just was like a light bulb moment.

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I had no thought of it.

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I thought that my career was going to be just working for other organizations, other employers, and just climb the ranks of marketing organizations, other employers, and just climb the ranks of marketing.

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I had this dream at that time of being high up in the marketing world, maybe a CMO one day.

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How exciting would that be.

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And then, funny enough, I was just catching up with a neighbor one day and he told me that he was thinking about starting his own business I think it was construction maybe and he was like, yeah, I'm thinking about doing that.

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And he worked in construction for his full-time job.

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But he wanted to branch out and do his own.

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And I heard myself go oh, that's so great, congratulations.

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If you need some marketing help, just let me know.

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That's what I do.

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And that moment, like right after that conversation, I remember going back, you know, going back home and thinking, wait a minute, yes, I can help him, but I can also help a lot of people.

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And maybe that's something I should think about.

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And that just kind of planted the seed.

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You know, that's where the thought came from.

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And then I started to think about having my own business and I started to envision being my own boss and my own company, and that became more attractive to me than climbing the ranks in marketing for another organization.

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And I just slowly kind of put the, you know, put the steps together, put the process together, started my business.

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And then I was working full time for another company when I started my business and the realist in me, you know, was like Okay, mary, we started this company.

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It's probably not going to be something we can do full time for a couple years.

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I was going to give myself like five years to see where I was and how it grew.

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And I don't know, I guess the universe was like we are not taking five years.

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And a couple months later I was actually unfortunately or maybe fortunately, the way you look at it I was laid off from that job and I found myself trying to find another job, going through that whole recruiting process, reaching out to all my network, my connections, everyone, and nothing was biting, nothing was working.

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And so I thought, okay, you know what, let me take this time, really pump up my business while I've got this free time.

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So I thought, okay, you know what, let me take this time, really pump up my business while I've got this free time, and I'll keep looking for that for that other job.

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And then a connection of mine had someone who needed marketing.

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That's how I got my first client and then after that it was.

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Then the next client came, and then the next client, and then it just started to really gain momentum and I thought, okay, I think this is the universe's way of telling me, this is what you're supposed to do, this is what you're meant to do.

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You're not meant to go find another full-time job and keep one foot there and one foot in your business.

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You are both feet in.

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We're going headfirst, we're diving in, we're doing this, and that's how I, that's how I got into the entrepreneur life, just kind of unexpectedly, but yeah, yes, I love that.

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It reminds me hearing you tell that story.

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I mean, my head here is like you did it, literally just step by step, and it reminds me of that Martin Luther King Jr quote where he says you don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

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And I think that that's such powerful advice.

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I feel like when people tune into these entrepreneurial podcasts they hope to hear some miraculous.

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You know, one thing went your way and you made one strategic decision and the rest fell into place.

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The reality is, mary started with a side hustle, ended up with a career transition and you double down on yourself.

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You picked you and I love that part of your entrepreneurial story and let's transition, because hearing you say well, you realize you could help others with marketing.

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What is marketing, mary?

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I feel like, as entrepreneurs, marketing can be a distraction for so many people because marketing comes with a whole set of tools like Canva.

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We can get lost in all the cool sides of marketing.

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But what is marketing when it comes to growing a business?

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Yeah, it is essential.

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It's essential.

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You cannot grow your business without marketing, because marketing is the link between you and your customer and your potential customer, and those customers are what brings your business money and it's what brings your business more resources and how your business grows.

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It is essential, but it is also the one thing that people just do not have the time for.

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Business owners don't have the time to dedicate to all the things that they need to do to market their business, and they might have the money to invest in marketing, but they don't have the resources or the time to do it themselves, and so they're looking for someone who can do that for them and who can come in and understand their business and learn their business and their business's goals and help them grow.

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And I think that a lot of times businesses maybe are a little scared of marketing or they're hesitant to work with someone in marketing because it is kind of this mystery.

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It's hard to just put an exact definition or what do I need to do.

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And it's not an immediate results thing.

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Your efforts aren't going to be an immediate exponential growth in one month.

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It's not realistic.

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But it is something that over time, if you cultivate it and you work on it, it will bring some of the greatest, it yields the best results and it is that missing link between you and your customer and your potential customers, and to do it correctly and to do it at all is so necessary and it's going to help you against your competition right.

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Who is maybe not doing marketing, or they are doing marketing and you're falling behind from that.

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So it's to put you, you know, to get you in line with the competition, to get you over the competition and to get you to reach your, your target audience.

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Yeah, but, mary, hearing you talk about that, I can't help but jump to that gym analogy, which is you said it's it's not an immediate results business and it's the same thing of going to the gym is that we've got a million options when it comes to working out.

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We could go to the gym, we could play sports, we could go to all these fancy new companies that are popping up seemingly every week Barry's Bootcamp, f45, all these different options, but not all of them bring results.

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But none of them bring results if we don't go consistently.

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And that's where I feel like consistency.

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And the other thing I wanna throw into this conversation is the paradox of choice.

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If you jump from one thing to another, you will never get results.

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And, mary, I feel like so many entrepreneurs.

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They try I hate that verb in the context of marketing and business.

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They try using Instagram for a week, they try Google ads, they try all of these other things, but they never actually succeed with any of them.

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So walk us down that path.

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What's the antidote to trying in the world of marketing?

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Trying is a long-term process.

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It's not you try it and then it didn't work or it did work, it's try, and then it's a long-term and it's a just.

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It's a just, you're trying right.

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So I like to tell my clients the social media example that you gave.

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Social media is a lot of trial and error and there really is no magic recipe and it's going to be different for every single business that you work for, because their audience is different and it's finding that sweet spot.

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And the only way that you can do that is if you try.

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And if this post doesn't work or this time of day doesn't work, those are things that we just have to pull back and adjust.

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And that's one of the other things that I love about marketing.

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It's a constant adjustment.

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It's never the same thing.

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It's always exciting, it's always something different and it could be something for social media.

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It's working great for a while and then suddenly the engagement drops and we need to to figure out why and we need to readjust and we need to keep trying.

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And you and you're right, it's.

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It's like you can't just try something once and be like, oh well, that didn't work.

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It's try again, try again, try it differently.

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You know, try something a little, a little different, have a different strategy, maybe adjust the strategy and just keep trying.

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And I think that trying is a long-term thing.

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It's not one and done.

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Yeah, listeners, I'm going to call all of you out because we love hearing from you all, but how often on this show do we hear amazing guests like Mary come on and stress this is an iterative process.

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You are never done.

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I think that's part of the fun of running our own businesses is that we are always.

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I'd say, let's substitute trying with experimenting.

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We're always just experimenting having a hypothesis, testing it, adjusting accordingly.

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So, mary, I really love that overview, but there's one channel that went the deeper.

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I went into your work and you've got some amazing case studies on your website.

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I love how much this pops up is that you have such a strong emphasis still on email, and this is a platform that I'm a big fan of.

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Everyone has been saying so.

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I started my first business in 2008 and ever since 2008, everyone says every year, email is dead, but, mary, you keep coming back to it because you know that it works.

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Talk to us about the importance of email inside of a marketing mix.

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Oh, I love email.

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It hurts my soul when someone tells me like, oh, email is dead and I'm like, okay, well then, why are my email campaigns getting you know 60, 70% open rates if they're dead?

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No, I love email.

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And again, the great thing about marketing and you said the marketing mix and I love email.

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And again, the great thing about marketing and you've said the marketing mix and I love that is, marketing is not one size fits all.

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It's not one solution only, it's a mix and the way it's different points of different contact points for your audience.

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And we all are on email.

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We all have our email, we all open our email, we all look through and you know what.

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Think about the brands that you do open emails from.

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You're opening those emails.

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You get an email from a brand.

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You see something about a coupon, whatever it is, something entices you to open that email.

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And that's what I love about email marketing is that you can really entice someone to open the email and to click.

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And it's not dead because we are still using email.

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We still check our email every day.

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We're on it constantly.

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It's one of the things that a tab is always open on our browser.

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One of them is an email.

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So it's definitely, it's definitely still important and if your customer, if your target audience, is still on their email and they're still opening emails, then that is a place that you want to be right.

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You don't want it, you don't want to make it difficult for your customer to find you.

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You never want to do that.

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You want to meet them where they're at, and whether that's a social type of social platform, whether it's email and a lot of times it is email, and the thing about email is that it's kind of the same as print, right?

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Remember what happened to print, where no one wanted to send mailers, no one wanted this, and then, when everyone pulled back on that, the brands that were like, hmm, maybe we should send something in the mail got great results because it was something that had stopped.

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And now it came back, and now it was different, and now it was out there and obvious and customers were maybe picking up that flyer that was very heavy and felt good in their hands, and so everything does cycle around and so I don't think that we can ever say that.

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You know, email is, emails dead.

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We can't do email.

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Email is not going to work anymore.

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It will.

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It will always cycle back.

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Um, everything will cycle back, but if you stay with it and that's where your customers are, you don't really have to worry about following.

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You know the trend or like oh, email's back now.

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We got to go back to email.

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We were always doing it, and because we know that we can't just do one thing and then abandon it and then come back to it and then try and beat the competition again when we've pulled the reins.

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So much so it's to me.

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I love email.

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It's a great way to meet your customer, to get them to open, to get them to know your brand, you know, and it's a way for them to just learn more about you and if you are enticing them enough to open, that's going to be some conversions down the line.

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Yeah, I love that overview, especially because you highlight such an important thing.

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In the world of AI, everyone is feeling like I have to be mass producing all of this content, but you reveal when they zig you zag.

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And so if everyone's bouncing from creating human content, showing up on video, having more intimate content delivery, like a podcast, for example, everyone's worried.

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Oh, we're going to be able to just ask AI for all the answers.

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No, I think it's going to make podcasting even more valuable, email even more valuable, videos more valuable.

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So I love your attitude towards that, but I will throw this in there because I always love, as a podcast host, I think about the knocks that listeners might have on the things that we're sharing here.

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And, mary, someone might be saying well, it's easy for you to like email.

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You love writing.

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You've already confessed that to us.

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And so for business owners who are saying, mary, I don't want to be a writer, I'd rather make some social media content where I don't have to write so much.

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I'd rather post an Instagram story that's going to disappear 24 hours from now.

00:18:35.941 --> 00:18:39.068
I'm not a great writer, I'm not a great crafter of words.

00:18:39.068 --> 00:18:41.080
What is the importance of writing?

00:18:41.080 --> 00:18:52.516
Because I argue that we, as entrepreneurs, we all have a responsibility to ourselves, to our products and services, to our audience, to be able to convey a solid message about the mission that we're on.

00:18:52.516 --> 00:18:59.933
So talk to us about putting that messaging together with your writing hat on, because maybe not everybody loves writing or messaging.

00:19:00.481 --> 00:19:02.602
That is true Writing is.

00:19:02.602 --> 00:19:13.922
I come across a lot of clients that are like I just I can't do it, I'm not good at it, I don't know how to convey what I'm trying to say in a concise manner, and that's the key, right?

00:19:13.922 --> 00:19:19.112
That is the key with writing anything, any post, any email clear and concise.

00:19:19.112 --> 00:19:27.213
Keep it simple, right, because while we might be opening those emails, we don't really want to read a novel every time we open those emails, right?

00:19:27.213 --> 00:19:28.344
Customers don't really.

00:19:28.344 --> 00:19:29.428
They don't want to read that much.

00:19:29.428 --> 00:19:39.028
They want to be able to look at something and synthesize that data very, very quickly and be able to know exactly what you're trying to tell them, and they just want to get it really fast.

00:19:39.028 --> 00:19:51.087
And that is, I think, a key thing that people, when you were writing, you have to think about is being clear and concise, while also writing in a way that tells the story.

00:19:51.087 --> 00:19:52.570
You're not leaving anything out.

00:19:52.570 --> 00:19:59.952
You're just taking the most important pieces, what you want the audience to know, and putting that out there.

00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:07.227
And what I like to do is you know, if a client comes to me and they're like I need to simplify this or I need to write an email, you know, and they sometimes.

00:20:07.287 --> 00:20:19.326
Sometimes they give me they're like here's some emails you've done in the past and I'll look at it and it's just just paragraphs and paragraphs of words and I'm like, okay, you know, but this, this is what I love to do.

00:20:19.326 --> 00:20:21.489
I love that Please give me those emails.

00:20:21.489 --> 00:20:55.036
And for me, as as a writer, I love to be able to take something that is, you know, paragraphs and paragraphs, and shrink that down to like one or two and to just really focus on those key points, because that's that's the secret sauce to to writing and to getting you know your, your message out there is just clear and concise and focusing on like two to three maximum key takeaways that you want the audience to know, and to just clearly communicate that.

00:20:55.036 --> 00:21:00.791
And the way that I go about it, too, is I always think whatever I'm saying, whatever I'm writing it out, I can.

00:21:00.791 --> 00:21:10.535
How can I say this in less words, less sentences, without losing what it's what I'm trying to say?

00:21:12.119 --> 00:21:14.105
Yeah, mary, it's funny.

00:21:14.105 --> 00:21:15.569
There's kind of two sides of the coin.

00:21:15.569 --> 00:21:15.750
Here.

00:21:15.750 --> 00:21:16.372
Is that one?

00:21:16.539 --> 00:21:21.742
I feel like people have a tendency of being very wordy in their marketing and it reminds me I'm a big sucker for quotes.

00:21:21.742 --> 00:21:31.410
It reminds me of that Abraham Lincoln quote where he says if you want me to give a five hour speech, I'm ready to go right now, but if you want me to give a five-minute speech, I'm going to need five hours to prepare.

00:21:31.410 --> 00:21:40.721
And I feel like that's something that gets lost along the way in marketing and in business and in our own lives is that, yeah, it is harder to be more concise.

00:21:40.721 --> 00:21:50.648
And, mary, I feel like when people are forced with that challenge to be more concise, they revert back to social conditioning and somewhere along the way I feel like we were socially conditioned.

00:21:50.769 --> 00:22:00.696
A lot of people see the overly salesy sales language and they see that you know, try my innovative new X and everyone ends up sounding like the same thing.

00:22:00.696 --> 00:22:02.781
How do we avoid that?

00:22:02.781 --> 00:22:07.084
Because so much of your marketing, even just going through your website, it has that personal feel.

00:22:07.084 --> 00:22:12.865
Even before you and I got on the air here today, I felt like I could hear your voice Talk to us about finding that voice.

00:22:12.865 --> 00:22:20.865
Talk to us about finding the right messaging and not sounding salesy in a world where everyone's conditioned to be very anti-salesy messaging.

00:22:21.826 --> 00:22:30.237
Yes, I have two responses to that, and the first is I love Donald Miller.

00:22:30.237 --> 00:22:46.946
He is the author of Brand Story and the way that he talks about talking to your customers and avoiding that salesiness is to just make sure that you put the customer first.

00:22:46.946 --> 00:22:53.769
So the customer is the focus of everything that you do, every piece of content that you put out there.

00:22:53.769 --> 00:22:56.201
Think of it from the customer perspective.

00:22:56.201 --> 00:22:57.944
Do they want?

00:22:57.944 --> 00:23:03.883
Here's what I do, here's my products, here's my service, here's why it's so great.

00:23:03.883 --> 00:23:09.904
Or do they want, hey, you've got a need or a problem, I've got a solution.

00:23:09.904 --> 00:23:15.184
Here's what it is and here's how I can resolve your issue.

00:23:15.184 --> 00:23:19.605
Here's how your life is going to be better with my product or service.

00:23:20.194 --> 00:23:22.944
You're putting the customer first, customer focus.

00:23:22.944 --> 00:23:33.183
And when you do that, the salesy tone kind of goes away on its own, because you start to think about yourself as a consumer, where you're like what email am I going to open?

00:23:33.183 --> 00:23:36.345
What Instagram post am I going to stop and look at?

00:23:36.345 --> 00:23:40.585
Am I going to look at the one that's like buy now, this is my product, is the best?

00:23:40.585 --> 00:23:49.119
Or are you going to be more inclined to stop and take a look at something that's like Hmm, okay, that hits on a certain need that you have.

00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:55.101
That's responding to a need that you have, and most likely the latter, um, and so I think that helps you a lot.

00:23:55.742 --> 00:24:33.807
And the second point and I have had to learn this, I've had to learn this you cannot separate your personality, yourself, from the business, and I think that also comes into play when you are speaking to customers in your content and in your marketing is that you, there is a person behind the entity, there's a person behind the business, behind the agency, and when you lead from that place of I'm, you know, I'm the face behind this, I'm a human, there's a human here.

00:24:35.809 --> 00:24:53.134
You tend to not be as salesy because you are leading from hey, I'm a person and I have this, this service, I offer the service, this product, but this is how it helps you, this is how I like to help you.

00:24:53.134 --> 00:25:17.442
This is what I bring here, and I think that when you try and separate yourself from the business, it becomes harder to convey your message, because you're looking at the entity as something separate from you, but you are, it is you, you're one in the same, and so you have to bring your personality, your person and yourself to everything that you do, to the content that you produce.

00:25:18.655 --> 00:25:21.021
Yeah, mary, I'll tell you what I really appreciate.

00:25:21.021 --> 00:25:29.941
That second point, because in a world where we're always talking about finding our differentiators, we overlook the biggest differentiator of all is that nobody can be us.

00:25:29.941 --> 00:25:36.079
I will never be able to sound like Mary when I write marketing content and nobody will ever be able to sound like me.

00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:41.229
And so by showing up as ourselves, not separating them, as you said, I think that's really powerful.

00:25:41.229 --> 00:25:52.785
And I want to go a little bit deeper into that first point, because when you talk about getting inside the customer's minds, I mean just knowing some of your clientele, from HR to car and limo services, mary.

00:25:52.785 --> 00:25:55.515
How the heck do we get inside the minds of our customers?

00:25:56.278 --> 00:26:00.295
Mary, how the heck do we get inside the minds of our customers?

00:26:00.295 --> 00:26:16.202
Yeah, this is probably one of the things that I love the most about marketing is the psychology piece and the need fulfillment piece and becoming that customer and kind of what you have to do is put yourself in their shoes, become them.

00:26:16.202 --> 00:26:19.438
Okay, I need I'm an HR business, right?

00:26:19.438 --> 00:26:20.961
Or I'm a limo service.

00:26:20.961 --> 00:26:23.907
Why do my client, why do people come to me?

00:26:23.907 --> 00:26:24.516
What do they?

00:26:24.516 --> 00:26:26.039
What are they paying me for?

00:26:26.039 --> 00:26:27.544
What do they need?

00:26:27.544 --> 00:26:29.027
What is the service that they're looking for?

00:26:29.027 --> 00:26:36.820
Okay, and then from there, why would they choose me over a competitor?

00:26:36.820 --> 00:26:42.385
Because, if you think about limos, there's so much ride share.

00:26:42.385 --> 00:26:59.539
We've got Uber, we've got Lyft, so a limo company has a lot of competition in that space, and so it's kind of like you really need to think about the physical need.

00:26:59.539 --> 00:26:59.961
Is what they Is what?

00:26:59.961 --> 00:27:02.368
What they need a ride, they need a ride, they need a car, they need to get somewhere.

00:27:02.368 --> 00:27:03.776
So you fill that need Great.

00:27:03.776 --> 00:27:08.667
Now let's think about what other needs are we filling?

00:27:08.667 --> 00:27:16.728
What can we bring to the table that our customer will choose us over someone else?

00:27:16.728 --> 00:27:25.676
One of the great things, one of the great ways to do that is, to look at your competitors or to look at your industry and see what do people not like about it.

00:27:25.676 --> 00:27:28.246
Right, what are the pain points?

00:27:28.246 --> 00:27:33.082
Think about when you, for example, I'll keep with the limo company when you get in an uber.

00:27:34.365 --> 00:27:36.452
What are some of the things that you are concerned with?

00:27:36.452 --> 00:27:37.737
Are you concerned with safety?

00:27:37.737 --> 00:27:42.128
Are you concerned with overwhelming cologne air freshener?

00:27:42.128 --> 00:27:45.657
Right, are you concerned with this person's driving?

00:27:45.657 --> 00:27:47.961
Are they more of a reckless driver?

00:27:47.961 --> 00:27:53.857
And talk to your customers from that perspective.

00:27:53.857 --> 00:28:04.505
Right, talk to them about how we can alleviate those concerns, how we can fill those needs in a much better way.

00:28:04.986 --> 00:28:06.930
Right, you know our cars are clean.

00:28:06.930 --> 00:28:09.175
Yes, they just smell clean.

00:28:09.175 --> 00:28:16.480
Our drivers are not spritzing on bottles of cologne every morning and you know you can breathe in our cars.

00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:17.984
Our drivers are vetted.

00:28:17.984 --> 00:28:23.647
Right, they go through an interview process, they are checked out, they have their licenses.

00:28:23.647 --> 00:28:40.019
We check on that, we do background checks, so you know when you're getting in that car, someone that we are vouching for is driving you, and then you know that you're going to get their safety because we as a company, uphold the highest safety standards.

00:28:40.299 --> 00:28:58.969
We check our vehicles on the regular, we replace them on the regular and we make sure that all the things that you are concerned with getting into a competitor's vehicle are no longer a concern when you get into one of our vehicles, and that's what I love.

00:28:58.969 --> 00:29:01.479
That's what I love when you get into.

00:29:01.479 --> 00:29:22.881
The mind of a consumer is focus, try and focus on the things that they don't like about whatever product or service you're offering or what's on the market currently, and speak to that, because that is going to reach them in such a better and different way than if like okay, yeah, you need a ride, we do that.

00:29:22.881 --> 00:29:37.806
Yeah, okay, great, but tap into those pain points and you are going to speak to them on their level and they are going to be way more inclined to use your services in your business.

00:29:38.795 --> 00:29:39.718
Yeah, I think that's really.

00:29:39.718 --> 00:29:45.221
It's powerful, but it's also really cool to see it here live on the air together is that?

00:29:45.221 --> 00:29:53.455
You just came up with on the fly marketing verbiage and obviously you've worked with this client before, but still the way that you're thinking about it is as a customer.

00:29:53.455 --> 00:30:00.845
0% of that was salesy is what I think is the really cool part of that, and it comes from thinking about the alternatives.

00:30:00.845 --> 00:30:05.982
It's something that I remember when I was writing the book that started this podcast, entrepreneur to Entrepreneur.

00:30:05.982 --> 00:30:15.661
What I was doing was I was hopping onto Amazon other entrepreneurial and business related books and I was reading the negative reviews and people were saying, well, it never talked about this.

00:30:15.661 --> 00:30:17.644
I use that to my advantage.

00:30:17.644 --> 00:30:23.300
So the fact that you think about that and you think about the alternatives, what are the other decisions that consumers may make?

00:30:23.300 --> 00:30:24.664
Let me address those.

00:30:24.744 --> 00:30:30.675
A lot of people want to avoid those as if they're an elephant in the room, but you just directly address here's what makes us different.

00:30:30.675 --> 00:30:34.162
So I really appreciate those insights into the way your mind works, mary.

00:30:34.162 --> 00:30:44.467
But I want to ask you because a lot of listeners will say all right, I understand it, but what do I do with it now and, of course, that's where we go into the strategy stuff, that's where we go into the entire marketing mix.

00:30:44.467 --> 00:30:47.346
Mary, what does a strategy look like for you?

00:30:47.346 --> 00:30:53.079
Because we already talked about the importance of consistency and discipline and sticking to whatever strategy we develop.

00:30:53.079 --> 00:30:55.363
What does that time horizon look like for you?

00:30:55.363 --> 00:30:59.488
Do you sit down with your clients and say, okay, for the next six months to a year?

00:30:59.488 --> 00:31:04.642
Here's the different channels we're going to be on, here's the different messaging, here's the.

00:31:04.642 --> 00:31:08.700
Do you get micro and you say, day by day, here's the content we're going to produce?

00:31:08.700 --> 00:31:11.988
What does an actual marketing strategy look like?

00:31:12.615 --> 00:31:18.159
Yeah, so I do sit down with them and I do go over the whole strategy.

00:31:18.159 --> 00:31:21.942
I usually put together like a nice little PowerPoint for them so they can see.

00:31:21.942 --> 00:31:39.775
But once they've agreed, you know, to work with me and I've addressed their pain points right, because as a business, they have pain points too and they have goals and I need to address those and I need to have solutions for those and that's what my strategies do to address those and I need to have solutions for those and that's what my strategies do.

00:31:39.775 --> 00:31:45.425
And as they're telling me their pain points and their goals, the wheels are turning in my head of like, okay, how am I going to address that?

00:31:45.425 --> 00:31:47.593
What tactic is going to address this?

00:31:47.593 --> 00:31:51.083
How are we going to get to those goals and timeline?

00:31:51.083 --> 00:31:59.083
And for me, I then, you know, I put that all together and I will show them, like, let's say, I'll break it down into a service.

00:31:59.083 --> 00:32:02.714
So if, let's say social media, we'll use that as an example.

00:32:02.714 --> 00:32:15.405
If that's something that I'm doing for them, it's, you know, okay, here's the platforms that we are either on currently or that we need to be on, and here's the strategy that we're going to do for each of those.

00:32:15.405 --> 00:32:21.205
So here's our LinkedIn strategy and it's X number of posts per week.

00:32:21.205 --> 00:32:25.144
And here's our Facebook strategy X number of posts per week.

00:32:25.144 --> 00:32:29.125
At the end of this week, this date, let's give it.

00:32:29.275 --> 00:32:30.459
I do for social media.

00:32:30.459 --> 00:32:31.564
I usually do it month by month.

00:32:31.564 --> 00:32:36.000
So after the first month I'll pull the analytics and then so I'll show them that strategy.

00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:37.652
After each month I'll pull the analytics and then so I'll show them that strategy.

00:32:37.652 --> 00:32:52.258
After each month I'll pull the analytics from that month, show you what our efforts are doing, the results that they're yielding, and then from there I will either make more recommendations, I'll make adjustments, or I'll maybe.

00:32:52.258 --> 00:32:54.223
My recommendation is let's keep going.

00:32:54.223 --> 00:32:56.442
Things are great, let's just keep this momentum.

00:32:56.442 --> 00:33:09.528
And so for me, the strategy is here's the tactic, here's the goal, here's the pain point and here is each tactic that we're going to take to address that pain point.

00:33:09.528 --> 00:33:29.969
And here's how I'm going to measure it for you and here's when I'm going to give you those analytics, those metrics, and I'm also going to hopefully sit down with them, especially in the beginning, and go through it, because sometimes part of the analytics and stuff and the strategy, a lot of clients, they just want to go, they just want the result.

00:33:31.397 --> 00:33:32.161
They just want the result.

00:33:32.161 --> 00:33:36.997
And some of them it's like go forth and conquer, do what you need to do, get me this result.

00:33:36.997 --> 00:33:39.883
And it's some of them it's like go forth and conquer, do what you need to do, get me this result, and that's and that's fine.

00:33:39.883 --> 00:33:47.476
But I also like to explain to them how we got there, because I want to make sure that they are understanding the value that I bring right.

00:33:47.476 --> 00:33:51.345
These results are not just something that popped up overnight.

00:33:51.345 --> 00:34:02.849
These this was a you know, month long effort that I've put together, that I've been doing, and I want you to see the value in what you are paying for as well as the result.

00:34:02.849 --> 00:34:10.559
So the result is valuable, but I want you to see what goes into it.

00:34:10.840 --> 00:34:55.918
And then, from there, I also like them to just kind of have realistic expectations as well, because I know, in my know, in my experience, especially with I'll keep the social media example a lot of times when you are doing nothing on social media and then, all of a sudden, you have a strategy in place and you start to post engagement like spikes and sometimes it really spikes and so I like to show them like, okay, this is a crazy jump in engagement, but let's set a realistic expectation where this is why, right, like you've gone from literally nothing to X number of posts per day per week, and so it's going to spike a little bit.

00:34:56.519 --> 00:35:00.704
What we need to focus on now is where it kind of levels off.

00:35:00.704 --> 00:35:04.739
Right, because in the next coming months it's probably not going to be spiking that high.

00:35:04.739 --> 00:35:06.983
It's going to come down a little bit and that's okay.

00:35:06.983 --> 00:35:16.664
And then we just need to make sure that it's not continuously going down and that when it does kind of level off, that we are still seeing some sort of increase, just maybe not this crazy spike.

00:35:16.664 --> 00:35:38.677
So for me, the strategy is not only here's what I'm going to do to address the pain points and to reach your goals, it's also I'm going to show you numbers and I'm going to help you understand what we're doing, why it's working and what we need to do for adjusting, going forward or anything like that.

00:35:39.418 --> 00:36:03.186
Yeah, mary, I really appreciate the way that you articulate and that you share so transparently your approach to putting together even a strategy here in front of us today Because you use the word realistic but I'm going to also add to that is it's just such a grounded approach to marketing, and when we came across your work and we were so excited to invite you here on the show today is that that's the word that we kept using with you is that your marketing approach is so grounded.

00:36:03.186 --> 00:36:08.804
And when you talk about these spikes, I feel like we live in a dopamine world and everyone's constantly chasing these spikes.

00:36:08.804 --> 00:36:16.503
But you so clearly show us and you've shared with us here today really the long-term focus and that's why, obviously, you're into health and wellness.

00:36:16.503 --> 00:36:24.844
I love using that gym analogy and I just think that that's a way more grounded approach that's going to lead to sustainable growth in all of our businesses.

00:36:24.844 --> 00:36:26.367
So I really appreciate those insights.

00:36:26.655 --> 00:36:35.945
You've been such a wealth of knowledge that I always find I'm guessing it's difficult for guests when I ask this question, because it is broad and it does come after so many good things that we've talked about.

00:36:35.945 --> 00:36:46.418
But what's the one takeaway, mary, for so many listeners who can adopt that grounded approach that you've shared with us today to their marketing, and I'll extrapolate that to their businesses and to their lives.

00:36:46.418 --> 00:36:54.916
What's that one takeaway, the one actionable thing that you hope everyone walks away from today's session and says you know what Mary made me think about this differently.

00:36:54.916 --> 00:36:56.018
What's that thing for you?

00:36:57.559 --> 00:37:05.570
I would say to stay true to your brand and to remember to meet your customers where they're at.

00:37:05.570 --> 00:37:19.400
I see so many businesses that come to me or are hesitant even to work with a marketer or a brander because they think that it's going to change their story.

00:37:19.400 --> 00:37:22.893
They think that their story is just going to go away, and it's not.

00:37:22.893 --> 00:37:36.405
We're taking that story and we're making sure that customers hear it and see it and breathe it and see it all that good stuff and we're doing that where they are.

00:37:36.405 --> 00:37:40.981
So we're taking you and your brand because you got into business for a reason right.

00:37:41.021 --> 00:37:44.599
All these, all of my clients did, and I love that story.

00:37:44.599 --> 00:37:48.666
We all have a story and we all have values.

00:37:48.666 --> 00:38:00.110
We all have a vision, and it's marketing is not to come in and completely change that and make you something that you're, not to get you more clients.

00:38:00.110 --> 00:38:12.150
It's to convey that story, communicate who you are, who you truly are as a brand, and meet your customers and communicate that to them where they are.

00:38:12.150 --> 00:38:17.632
And I think that that is so important, because we can't make our clients try and find us, we can't make customers try and figure out where we are, and I would think that I think that that is such so important because we can't.

00:38:17.632 --> 00:38:23.617
We can't make our clients try and find us, we can't make customers try and figure out where we are or if they have a need.

00:38:23.617 --> 00:38:29.818
We want to be right there with the solution, and we can only do that if we are where they are.

00:38:30.780 --> 00:38:34.065
Yes, really well said and in typical Mary fashion.

00:38:34.065 --> 00:38:37.396
I feel like that is a grounding piece of advice and takeaway.

00:38:37.396 --> 00:38:47.416
So, listeners, anytime you feel like you're in the franticness of running a business and all of these different options and the paradox of choices hitting us, come back to this advice from Mary.

00:38:47.416 --> 00:38:55.161
I think that's the power of grounding is that it re-centers us, it brings us back to what's important, and that's such a poignant piece of advice from you right there.

00:38:55.161 --> 00:39:02.559
So, mary, I really admire how different your approach is to marketing and how results-based it is in that long-term, sustainable way.

00:39:02.559 --> 00:39:10.878
So for listeners who want to check out all the cool things that you're doing, as well as the real-life case studies that I've personally enjoyed from on your website, drop those links on us.

00:39:10.878 --> 00:39:12.625
Where should listeners go from here?

00:39:20.295 --> 00:39:23.280
Yeah, you can go to my website, which is maximastrategiesllccom, or you can go to our Instagram.

00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:35.005
Our Instagram has a lot of my content, and then you can reach some of my clients and some of the work that I've done through the website, and I have links to all of that on there, so I walk my talk.

00:39:35.947 --> 00:39:45.764
Yes, I love it and, listeners, you already know we're making it as easy as possible for you to find all of those links that Mary just mentioned down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode.

00:39:45.764 --> 00:39:51.115
So, mary, on behalf of myself and all of our listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

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Thank you so much for having me hey it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.

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If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

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Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at the entrepreneur showcom.

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And I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

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There's a reason why we are ad-free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

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These are not sponsored episodes.

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These are not infomercials.

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Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

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They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

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So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

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We also have live chat.

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If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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Initiate a live chat.

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It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.