Month: July 2019

There is so much out there telling us entrepreneurs to build our business online and find our Dream Customer online. And that is a great idea that works for some people. But – BUT – growing a strong brand and customer base locally in your community can be a great move for your business.

 

As a marketing and design company, we wanted to work with clients who didn’t want to do the same old thing – place some ads and hope their message got across. We believed in engaging audiences and in providing experiences that provoked conversation and dialogue and moved people to action. So, we began to hold events that did just that. Our brand and business became known for those events, and clients would seek us out to achieve the same results for their projects.

 

When we launched SMRT WOMEN, we wanted help female entrepreneurs build the skills, support, and connections they need for them and their business to thrive - whatever stage that business is at. We again turned to events as a way to do this and build this community. While SMRT WOMEN is now also online, the events are still an important and super fun part of it!

 

Events are a great marketing tool because they provide an EXPERIENCE for your audience – something really tangible to engage with. They aren’t to replace your other marketing tactics, but to act in concert with them to round out your strategy.

 

My top four tips to ensure that your event is a success.

Because if you’re going to do an event, you want to do it right!

 

Set a goal for your event

Understand what you’re trying to achieve with your event and why you are hosting it. This is SO IMPORTANT. A lot of people have events without a clear goal, which makes it hard to plan it but also really hard to know if it was a success.

 

Know who your event is for

You event is not for everyone. It’s not for your Facebook Friends (seriously, stop inviting all your Facebook friends to all your events – that’s a topic for another time). Your event is for your audience. Maybe a particular segment of your audience. Get really clear on this. It will help you plan the EXPERIENCE part of your event – so that is really creates an awesome experience for your audience – and it is also a big part of marketing your event effectively.

 

Create an experience

Ok so I’ve mentioned an experience a couple of times – what the heck am I talking about, right?

 

When you’re thinking about your event, think about it as more than just the specific skills or thing you are sharing. The amazing thing about a live event is the potential to have many touch points and different things that collectively make the event memorable and that communicate your brand to your audience.

 

Let me tell you about one event that SMRT POP UPS did with the Yukon Transportation Museum. A blues band was coming up and there was going to be live music. That’s pretty cool in and of itself as it was a pretty cool band. Layer of an awesome unconventional space – the museum, it’s already gone from a live show to an experience. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have a dance party in a museum?

 

But we knew we could make it even more memorable for people. So, we brought in some blues dancers to do a mini lesson before the music started so people could dance blues to the blues. And we had a scavenger hunt and a photo booth with period costumes. And then there was a pop-up donut shop for a food vendor and a specialty cocktail courtesy of the awesome Yukon Brewing.

 

Promote your event

Now that your awesome event is all planned and the stage is set to create a memorable brand experience for your Dream Customer, don’t forget to tell them about it! Your event needs a marketing plan – use numbers 1-3 (goals, audience, and experience features) to create an event elevator pitch and content.

 

  • Create a consistent look for all your marketing outputs for the event – it should look like your brand but all the pieces should also clearly be connected and about this event.
  • Promote it consistently and pepper it in with your other awesome brand content.
  • Download my free event marketing workflow to get your audience out to your event!

 

So, there you have it – the why, what, and how of using events to build your brand and your business. Online is awesome, but there is something so wonderful about reaching your local audiences in person. And it’s something that will stand out for them as well. It gives you and your brand a chance to shine in a real and tangible way.

 

event marketing checklist download buton

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Running a business is so much more than offering the service or product that you offer. That is likely the part you’re really passionate about - the reason you started a business. But – and you’ve probably already figured this out if you’re along your business journey – it’s only one PART of your business.

 

Running a business is a lot of admin work, book keeping, marketing – all the behind the scenes stuff that actually makes a business a success. Now large businesses have departments and hired staff for all that. There is often a marketing department and a bookkeeping/finance department. There is often at least one office manager or administrative staff keeping things scheduled and on track.

 

But when you’re the CEO of your own business, you’re likely also the CMO, CFO, and so on. You’re all the things!!

 

You need tools and systems that help you wear all the hats without the headache.

 

A time tracking app

If you’re running a service based business, when you’re pricing your services and putting out quotes or estimates, you want to make sure that you’re pricing them right – meaning you want to make sure that the time you’re putting into a project is what you’re getting paid for. This is super hard for many of us, and it’s something that tends to cause a lot of unnecessary stress.

 

There is actually a psychological phenomenon called the Planning Fallacy where people underestimate how long a task will take them. If you’re working for yourself, this can really mess with your action plans and flow. But it can also mean that you’re not getting paid what you should be getting paid.

 

To help me solve that business problem and take the stress out of the “how long will this take” question, I use Paymo, a time tracking tool.

 

I use it to track everything I do and I break the projects down into task types. And then I use that data for future projects so that I know how long a project will take me. I then use that data the next time I am creating a quote or deciding when I am available to take on a project that comes up – or if I even have the availability.

 

If you’re running a product based business, knowing how long tasks take you is equally important. If your product takes you 20 hours to make and you’re only charging $100 um…you need to know that so you can increase your prices RIGHT NOW.

 

Quickbooks: the book keeper of your dreams

Let me share with you one of the most embarrassing things that I have done in my business because of how much I hate bookkeeping admin. I have not billed clients – more than once. I’ve finished the project, they’ve been ready to pay me, and I just ghost them. Like never sent them an invoice and then ignored all their emails and never spoke to them again because I was so embarrassed.

 

Bookkeeping is one of the most annoying business admin things that we need to do as an entrepreneur. Tracking expenses, remembering which clients have paid and which haven’t, following up with the right ones, billing billable expenses to clients, categorizing everything, reconciling bank accounts and blah blah bleh.

 

When I work with clients on their businesses, bookkeeping is something that comes up a lot.

 

I am so excited to tell you that there is a better way. I use Quickbooks. I love Quickbooks. It has taken like 90% of my bookkeeping stress away. It means that I actually DO my bookkeeping, which is an amazing win in and of itself.

 

Yes, it costs money. I pay about $40 a month. Something to know about me is that I am capital F Frugal. I don’t like spending money on things. I hate subscription products. And I’ll usually put in 8 hours of time finding workarounds on a free product rather than pay. But for me a good bookkeeping software is SO worth it. Plus it saves me money because:

  • I record my expenses, which means I can report them for tax time
  • I can track my invoices to ensure I'm getting paid
  • I no longer pay late fees for being late on my GST

 

A social media scheduler

When I lead social media workshops or work with clients on their social media strategies, I’m often asked about scheduling. Hey, I get it, you can’t always be at the ready to post on social media. Even when you’ve planned it all out and batch created your content and are good to go - stuff comes up.

 

There are a whole whack of scheduling tools out there to try out. I use Hootsuite. The free version lets you have three social media profiles connected so you can schedule your posts, tweets, grams, ahead of time. So, you can schedule to your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and so on. If you’re looking to stay on top of your content strategy and put out consistent content, you’ll want to check out HootSuite.

 

Workflows

This one I’m about to share is a game changer. It’s my absolute favourite tool. It’s actually a system.

 

It’s not only going to save you a ton of time and make you feel like the most organized on-top-of-all-the-balls CEO ever, but it’s also going to eliminate a lot of human error that can cost you money or lead to things not going as smoothly as they could go.

 

Workflows.

 

Workflows are like having a project manager on your team. It’s like having a full time executive administrator making your life easier and watching out for all the small details that you with the millions of things on your plate might miss.

 

Creating workflows for your business is all about taking those big tasks you do and turning it into a sequence of events. It:

  • captures all the details and it captures when things need to happen and in what order so that you can stay on track and not forget anything.
  • anticipates any questions or issues that might come up and acts as a preventative measure.
  • breaks down big overwhelming tasks into step-by-step action plans.
  • Plus, if it is a task you do more than once, it saves a ton of time because you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every single time.

 

One workflow that I teach in my Content Marketing workshops is all about streamlining how you create content. For an example of a super simplified workflow for this...

  1. Looking at the month, fill in any important dates (sales you’re having, holidays, events you’re hosting, “national days”, and so on.)
  2. Using placeholders, map out which content pillars you are sharing when
  3. Map out where your “sell” messages will go
  4. Brainstorm ideas for content for each of the placeholders
  5. Write the content
  6. Find visuals
  7. Proofread
  8. Schedule all your content for the month

You can use workflows for client onboarding, you can use them for when you’re training new staff, you can use them for your monthly book keeping or quarterly business evaluation. Any task that you do somewhat regularly and you want to streamline, you can use a workflow for.

 

I teach how to use and create workflows in detail and much more fully in the Business Foundations Bootcamp. Plus, in that program, I share a bunch of my workflows so you get full access to project systems you can copy and paste for your business.

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If you’ve been reading, listening, viewing – whatever – anything business, you’ve probably heard a million people telling you to NICHE. To really focus on one specific audience, one specific service area, and so on.

 

This can be a scary thing, and is something MANY entrepreneurs struggle with.

Why you need a business niche

 

 

There are a lot of fears and limiting beliefs that underlie niching, and that make it such a struggle for entrepreneurs.

 

There can be a fear or concern about limiting one’s income. We fall into the trap of thinking that if we are choosing to niche our audience, we are limiting our audience. If we choose to just talk to and create products and services for women, well aren’t we just cutting out 50% of the market and our potential income?

 

Another fear that underlies this struggle is one of limiting ourselves. By committing to a niche, we can feel that we are trapping ourselves in a box. Sure, we may want to offer life coaching now, but what if we want to teach yoga later? We often have many passions and skills, and choosing to focus those can feel scary.

 

So yes, niching can feel scary! It can be scary and daunting to feel like you’re saying no to potential customers. It can be scary to feel like you’re limiting YOURSELF and your passions.

 

But, niching is a game changer for your business.

 

When you niche, you choose your audience. You choose the people you are most passionate and excited about helping. And they will see that you choose them. Think about when you get a service or product: do you want something that is trying to please everyone and anyone? That’s general and vague? Or, do you want a business that specializes in you? That is skilled and experienced and focused on solving your problem and meeting your specific needs?

 

When you niche, you get to become really good at working with audiences that you are really excited about. And, what’s great is that there are enough of them. When you build your niche based on research, you can feel confident that there is a big enough audience for you to make your business sustainable and scalable.

 

Niching isn’t about limiting yourself or your business, it’s about clarity. It’s about getting really incredibly beautifully CLEAR on your business and your audience. This clarity will make it easy to build a brand you love and one that feels RIGHT. It will make it easy to build a website, to create content, to choose what services and products to offer. Being this CLEAR is essential if you want to be able to build something meaningful and successful and not get bogged down in overwhelm and the inability to make decisions.

 

Let me repeat that one more time: Niching is NOT limiting yourself or your business. It’s setting the stage for success.

 

And the amazing thing about having a business is that it is always growing and changing. Throughout the business lifecycle, you will constantly be measuring and tweaking your services, products, and approaches. This means that as your business grows and scales up, you may expand into new audiences and have new products and services.

 

Niching isn’t about limiting yourself. It is about focusing your efforts for success and pivoting and tweaking as you learn and grow.

 

Find your niche with these three questions

Ask yourself these questions to figure out your niche – or where you should focus your efforts. Download the free worksheet.

What do you love doing?

Like love so much that you are happy to make it your whole life – learn about it, wake up and read about it, talk about it all the time, and do day in and day out.

 

I always use this example when I am recommending my financial advisor to people – which I do a lot because he is awesome. Feel free to PM me if you want to know who he is.

 

He literally wakes up in the morning and reads about finances. THAT’S HOW MUCH HE LOVES IT.

 

You aren’t going to love what you do all the time, but if you’re building a business that you’re passionate about, you want to make sure that you are incredibly interested in it and want to learn about it and do it all the time.

 

What are you doing when you feel the happiest and most fulfilled?

Are you creating? Are you helping people feel healthier? Are you creating fitness plans or are you motivating in person a group of people and watching them get stronger every week?

 

I still remember my one yoga instructor who so clearly loved teaching a group of students, correcting their form, watching them be transformed through the class. I went back every time I could and I still miss him years later after moving because it was so obvious how much he loved it. I’ve also been to yoga classes where the teacher did not seem to love it. I’m sure they loved yoga but it felt like they didn’t really love teaching a class of people doing yoga – they weren’t modifying anything or checking alignment or helping any of us get better. Teaching classes probably was NOT a great focus for them.

 

What is the thing that makes YOU feel happy and fulfilled? Think back to jobs and projects that you have LOVED and ask why you loved them so much.

 

Who do you love working with? Who would you feel jazzed to work with day in and day out?

For example, if you’re a fitness coach, do you love helping young athletes excel and get to the point where they are competing? Do you love helping body builders compete? Do you love working with people who want to be healthier?

 

I was working with a coaching client in the fitness industry around this very thing. Once she realized that what really excited her was working with women who wanted to be healthy and were motivated to follow through but wanted her expertise and her motivating abilities to get them there, we could focus her services and her marketing.

 

That is the power of this question.

 

Really visualize who you enjoy working with and how you enjoy working with them. What is it that you’re helping them with? How are you making their life better?

 

Takeaways:

  1. Niching isn’t about limiting your potential; it’s about focusing your efforts for success.
  2. Niching is a game changer for your business.
  3. Niching will help you to cut through overwhelm and indecision.
  4. Ask yourself three questions to help find your niche!

 

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