BEing Profitable - the marketing roadmap for mindful entepreneurs
Are you a coach or entrepreneur struggling to make sense of marketing? In this eye-opening episode of The Mindful Coach Podcast, I sit down with John Watson, a sales and marketing coach with over 25 years of experience. John shares his journey from campaign-focused marketing to a holistic, systems-thinking approach that prioritizes intentionality and leadership.
The Power of Intentional Marketing
John reveals how his background in environmental science and geography shaped his unique perspective on marketing:
- Viewing marketing as an integrated system
- Focusing on the customer's journey through the business
- Bringing order and structure to the often chaotic world of marketing
Key Insights for Coaches and Entrepreneurs
- Understand your maximum cost of acquisition and sale
- Develop a clear value proposition and competitive distinction
- Create an offer hierarchy that aligns with your business goals
John emphasizes the importance of being an expert in your own business, even if you can't be an expert in all aspects of marketing.
The "Being" in Marketing
Discover how John's concept of "ways of being" can transform your approach to marketing:
- Be intentional about your goals and strategies
- Commit to your plan while remaining flexible
- Engage vendors and team members in achieving specific outcomes
Practical Steps for Success
- Start with the end in mind
- Create a roadmap for cultivating long-term customer relationships
- Regularly assess performance and adapt quickly
John's book, "Being Profitable," offers a comprehensive roadmap for business development that goes beyond tactics to focus on the fundamental principles of effective marketing.
Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your existing marketing strategy, this episode provides valuable insights into creating a more intentional, effective approach to growing your coaching or entrepreneurial business.
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we discussed the profound challenges inherent in marketing for coaches and professionals dedicated to mindfulness and helping others.
- We emphasized the necessity of aligning marketing efforts with one's authentic mission to effectively communicate the value of one's services.
- The conversation highlighted the importance of understanding the financial fundamentals of marketing to ensure sustainable business practices.
- Listeners were encouraged to approach marketing with a mindset of intentionality and commitment to their objectives for greater success.
- We explored how a well-structured marketing strategy can lead to meaningful engagement and profitable outcomes for businesses.
- The episode underscored that cultivating a clear understanding of one's target audience is paramount in driving successful marketing efforts.
Connect with John at https://accruemarketing.com/
And check out his book: BEing Profitable on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Being-Profitab...
If you'd like to connect with Brett and his work, check out https://themindfulcoach.com
Transcript
The Mindful Coach Podcast.
Speaker B:Hey, this is Brett Hill, the Mindful Coach, and welcome to this edition of the Mindful Coach Podcast.
Speaker B:I'm doing a little bit of a different introduction today because the audio where there's a snafu at the opening of the audio in this particular recording.
Speaker B:And so I'm doing a separate introduction to bring to you, to properly introduce you to an important conversation about something that's really hard for a lot of people in the world of being a coach or a professional that wants to help other people or any kind of entrepreneur, where your heart and your soul and your message, your mission is in what you're doing and you value mindfulness in your life and your work.
Speaker B:And so you're bringing into your work, you know, a quality of presence.
Speaker B:And you might even go so far as to say being into the.
Speaker B:The work that you do, into your manifestation of your efforts on the planet to help the world be a better place, to help your life be successful, and to enrich those in your world and your sphere of influence in your day to day life, both personally and professionally.
Speaker B:And to do that, we have to get the word out about what we're doing.
Speaker B:I'm talking about the dreaded M word marketing, which is something that so many people struggle with.
Speaker B:And, you know, myself included, I can, you know, sit at the feet of the best people I can find to try to learn about how to get the word out about what I'm doing with the Mindful Coach and helping people be who they really are and find the connection to this place where they can authoritatively.
Speaker B:And I don't mean like institutional authority, I mean like inward authority that comes from speaking from a place where you know you're connected to who you truly are and the importance of your mission.
Speaker B:And whenever you are connected authentically to that, the way that you talk, the things that you do, efforts that you put into the world, the things that you prioritize, they change because you're connected to something that's more meaningful than just putting dollars in the bank or trying to produce a product that is just another piece of plastic on the shelf that's going to be in a garage sale for somewhere or in a landfill, but rather we're talking about meaningful changes to people's lives.
Speaker B:And that's important work.
Speaker B:But you've got to get the word out.
Speaker B:You've got to let people know what you're doing.
Speaker B:And that's where marketing comes in play.
Speaker B:How do you communicate this in a way that is aligned with your mission?
Speaker B:And do so in a way that's fully integrated, that has integrity in your, you know, aligned with your ideals and doesn't feel reductionistic.
Speaker B:So often the words that we use to describe the services that we offer don't.
Speaker B:They don't align well, because words are kind of small things sometimes and we're connected to something that's bigger than that.
Speaker B:So it can start to feel a little bit small for what we're trying to do.
Speaker B:And so when I ran across my guest in this episode, which is John Watson, who's written a book called Being Profitable the Business Development Roadmap, John and I are kind of like in a lot of ways, and we have these technical background and so he really went into the analysis, a deep analysis, and how do I market things?
Speaker B:How does a person not I so much, or in case of his case, although it starts there, but how does a person, that's you and me in the world who want to get things done, do it profitably and do it with integrity?
Speaker B:How do you market your services?
Speaker B:How do you put together a plan from A to B?
Speaker B:And that's what he's done in this book, Being Profitable the Business Development Roadmap.
Speaker B:You know, he works with founders and coaches and other professionals and organizations to help them reframe the way that they talk about their work into a plan that's structured and helps people to actually get the word out in an effective way that helps them be profitable.
Speaker A:Because that's important.
Speaker B:We want.
Speaker B:Part of my mission as the mindful coach is to help people be more successful, to help people who are called to do this work be successful.
Speaker B:It doesn't help us if we're out there struggling to make ends meet.
Speaker B:And the services that we're offering are the very services the world needs right now more than ever before.
Speaker B:So I'm on a mission, a solo mission, if you will, to help people like you be more successful in the world and to do so in a way that isn't smarmy and marketing and over the top hype, you know, to actually do so in a way that's connected to a deeper, more soulful, more connected, heartfelt place.
Speaker B:And so with that in mind, we're going to start the conversation with John Watson on his mission and the book Being Profitable the Business Development Roadmap.
Speaker C:I got involved in the personal development, leadership development arena, geez, 25, at least 25 years ago.
Speaker C:And so the whole mindfulness journey is part of that.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:You really.
Speaker C:So I started to really recognize marketing.
Speaker C:I mean, if you kind of go to brand marketing, even if you think about what brand is brand, another way of saying brand is reputation.
Speaker C:So how do you cultivate a reputation?
Speaker C:Well, you be a certain way that is worthy of the reputation that you create.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So I started to think of marketing more and more as the foundations of marketing as leadership.
Speaker C:It's really a leadership platform.
Speaker C:And so.
Speaker C:And if we are trying to cultivate a reputation and earn reviews and referrals, it really is about who we're being.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:How do we show up as a company for our customers, how do we facilitate, how do we cultivate relationships?
Speaker C:Which is all about how we show up.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And how we show up could be an individual thing, or it can be how we design procedures and how we train our people and our processes that we put in place, the language we use.
Speaker C:So it really is all about our being so we can choose that and as much in marketing as we can as individuals.
Speaker A:So you started off and you started to do this leadership development, and you said that that's kind of like, is about mindfulness.
Speaker A:Did I hear that right?
Speaker A:Or so in what way did.
Speaker A:Because I've seen leadership development, it's really all about here's what you do.
Speaker A:And, but somehow you encounter this as kind of how, who am I?
Speaker A:How do I show up?
Speaker A:Is the way language I put that.
Speaker A:So was your, was your training, did it incorporate that kind of a, of a point of view as well?
Speaker C:My initial foray into leadership training was a book called Leadership Effectiveness Training or LET by Thomas Gordon.
Speaker C:And it's really a book about active listening.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And, and, and active communication.
Speaker C:And so, but the emphasis on, on listening.
Speaker C:And so you have to be very mindful to not just sort of wait to, for your turn to speak.
Speaker C:Yeah, right.
Speaker C:If you start with, with understanding as the goal and then facilitating, you know, a relationship towards a positive outcome, that's really, you know, I, I would say leadership at its foundation is who do I want to be, how do I want to cultivate relationships, how do I get things done through others.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And you can go back to command and control if you're in the army, right.
Speaker C:Or you can go more of a collaborative, transformational leadership style and have it all be about how do I cultivate, you know, how do I, how do I engage and inspire action?
Speaker C:You know, that that leads to an outcome.
Speaker C:And so that's really how I would frame leadership.
Speaker C:And marketing is all about engaging people, you know, evoking emotion, trying to enroll them in a possibility to sound like leadership.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker A:You're trying to, like you said, enroll them in a possibility and some, and you know, the, the transformational story, the, you know, the arc of like, here's what's pot, here's your pain, here's the problem, here's the solution, here's why it matters and here's what becomes possible for you.
Speaker A:Like elucidating all that in an engaging way.
Speaker A:That's kind of my very top, high level view of what that's about.
Speaker A:Not that I'm an expert on this, but I have listened to some experts.
Speaker A:So what would you say then opened the door for you to be able to become a voice for your point of view here?
Speaker A:What was it that kind of led you into?
Speaker A:Because you said at first you were doing campaigns and now you're teaching other people how to do that stuff.
Speaker A:Is that right?
Speaker A:Am I making that up or is that really right?
Speaker C:I, I, yes, I mean sort of the, the practical hands on of marketing involves campaigns, but I tend to look at campaigns as sort of towards the tail end of marketing.
Speaker C:I see the, so absolutely, it's where the rubber hits the road.
Speaker C:But there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of preparation required in order for that to, to have a high probability of success.
Speaker C:I always looked at advertising as a very high risk activity.
Speaker C:And in fact that's sort of how I got started.
Speaker C:I started out as an analyst and my job was to look at the performance of marketing campaigns after the fact.
Speaker C:And I learned very quickly that most of them were just awful.
Speaker C:They were very poorly performing.
Speaker C:They, largely because they were poorly planned.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:They were executed.
Speaker C:Well, I would say from a, from a tactical execution perspective, they were, they looked good, they were executed properly.
Speaker C:They were, you know, I was able to track the results.
Speaker C:And yet the performance of the campaigns usually came up not just a little short, but a lot short.
Speaker C:A lot short.
Speaker C:And, and so I got a bit skittish about it.
Speaker C:I thought, geez, I'm just the bearer of bad news all the time.
Speaker C:And so when I, I was, I used to joke about my logo should be one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, right?
Speaker C:Because I was always riding in with.
Speaker A:Bad news, coming in with bad news, like, great idea.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker C:So I didn't like that.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I wanted to be the bearer of good news.
Speaker C:I wanted to say, look, you know, this has done really well and here's how, why and where.
Speaker C:And, and so I really started to dig into the mechanics and the, of performance around marketing.
Speaker C:And when I started My own company.
Speaker C:I was very skittish because I had seen so many failures.
Speaker C:And I thought, I'm a new entrepreneur.
Speaker C:I don't, I don't have a magic wand or any sort of great knowledge.
Speaker C:I just, I'm aware enough of failure because I had studied it that I wanted to try to avoid it.
Speaker C:And so I went out and looked for all kinds of help.
Speaker C:I was a sponge, right.
Speaker C:I talked to 18 different agencies, business coaches, you know, sales consultants, you name it.
Speaker C:I every, but every time I sought help, what I got was sold.
Speaker C:And it was just like, this is what we do.
Speaker C:We're going to try to sell you what we do.
Speaker C:It's not really about trying to help me, it's just about selling me.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so I got tired of that.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I, so I really started to think about this from a leadership perspective in terms of I don't want to just be sold on things I don't really understand.
Speaker C:I want, I wanted a roadmap.
Speaker C:And so I started looking for guidance and, and really got very frustrated when it was almost impossible to find.
Speaker C:I'm an avid researcher, so I read everything I could find.
Speaker C:I talked to everybody.
Speaker A:So I'm gonna press pause on that for just a min.
Speaker A:One of the things I'm picking up in your language is that you, you're someone who knows how to dig into things and you like finding solutions.
Speaker A:So am I making that up or is that kind of the subject?
Speaker C:Well, that's pretty much how I show up.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So what was it about you?
Speaker A:So let's fill in the backstory a little bit there.
Speaker A:Like, where did you learn that about yourself?
Speaker A:Or how, how does that show up in your life?
Speaker A:Because here it is, you know, it's serving you well in this phase of your life.
Speaker A:I'm curious about other parts, where else this has shown up.
Speaker A:Like how do, what else did you do where you really learned, said, you know, I can really dig into this.
Speaker A:And you learned the value of that?
Speaker C:Well, I just, I.
Speaker C:My original, original background is environmental science.
Speaker A:Ah.
Speaker C:And geography.
Speaker C:And geography is the study of space and time.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And everything has spatial temporal distribution.
Speaker C:And that's actually how I became an analyst because looking at trade areas and, you know, the geography of the customer base and all of that is how I got into the post campaign analysis and pre campaign analysis.
Speaker C:But that training is holistic.
Speaker C:It really is about integrated systems.
Speaker C:So in.
Speaker C:So environmental has, you know, dozens of different inner systems interacting.
Speaker C:So I had that perspective.
Speaker C:I was bringing that to business and saying, I want to understand the interaction of.
Speaker C:I want to understand the systems and how they interact.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's a very holistic systems thinking.
Speaker A:And here you are at one end of this system going.
Speaker A:These results are not consistent with desired outcomes and there's got to be a.
Speaker A:So you really, really went after.
Speaker A:How does this work?
Speaker A:I love.
Speaker A:And I'm resonating with this because that's so what I'm about and why I spend all spent so many years like finding out how does this nervous system work, you know, how does this conversation work?
Speaker A:What are the dynamics of human interaction?
Speaker A:And became a, you know, a big focus for me for a big part.
Speaker C:Well, I grew up.
Speaker C:The other part of it too is I grew up in the Windsor, Detroit area and automotive, you know, Motown and every building you drive by has ISO something on the side, right?
Speaker C: ISO: Speaker A:And what does ISO mean for the people listening?
Speaker C:Well, it's really process management, you know, from a manufacturing point of view.
Speaker C:You know, I remember, you know, when the like right from the 70s, right where the Japanese started cars started coming in and the North American car industry was getting its butt handed to it.
Speaker C:There was this real push towards quality and quality management, process management.
Speaker C:Nowadays everybody talks about lean, right?
Speaker C:Lean this, mean that, right.
Speaker C:It's all derivative of, you know, Kaizen and ISO performance management.
Speaker C:I mean it's all this sort of practice around like originally from Deming back in the 40s, right.
Speaker C:Where it was all about process management, quality control and marketing.
Speaker C:To me, when I first encountered it was the exact antithesis of that.
Speaker C:It was absolutely uncontrolled, unmeasured, the biggest chaotic mess I'd ever seen.
Speaker C:I thought perhaps there's an opportunity to bring some order to this chaos.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:A little bit more accountability, a little more structure, a little more analytics.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I was really inspired by the Deming and the whole process management approach, which is now more like called Lean.
Speaker C:Everybody talks about Lean.
Speaker C:And so I wanted to bring that, that sort of sensitivity to the marketing conversation, which wasn't new.
Speaker C:I mean that's been going on for a hundred years.
Speaker A:But it wasn't necessarily right.
Speaker A:Like you said, it was kind of a mess out there, right?
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker C:And it's gotten a lot better.
Speaker C:I mean, in the 30 years I've been doing it.
Speaker C:It's incredibly advanced from what it was, but it's still, you know, what, despite having all the capabilities, doesn't mean that people are actually doing it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:The reality is, is that, you know, we don't take advantage of all the capabilities not even close and that are readily available for small businesses.
Speaker A:Amazing.
Speaker A:So I'm really, I can see, you know, the amount of passion you have for understanding these systems and bringing the systematic approach to this unstructured process and, and as a result of that, you know, hopefully having better outcomes.
Speaker A:So would you say that as a result of your research in what how do I get these results to be better, that you came up with some principles and practices that kind of tie all this together?
Speaker C:Well, one of the things I find with marketing is I've yet to encounter a discipline that changes faster.
Speaker C:That it's sort of an explosion.
Speaker C:Explosions happen in all directions and marketing has just gone light speed in every direction.
Speaker C:And so I didn't want to get caught up in the never ending change and the chasing the tactics and all the change.
Speaker C:It's exhausting.
Speaker C:And quite frankly I didn't find that that was what made the difference in the performance.
Speaker A:Oh, interesting.
Speaker C:I really found that what was most often the cause of the failure wasn't the tactic or the execution of the tactic.
Speaker C:It was the underlying fundamentals weren't there.
Speaker C:And so because people have.
Speaker A:What's an example of.
Speaker A:I'm sorry, what's an example of an underlying fundamental.
Speaker C:Well, let's go right to the absolute bare bones basics is if I'm selling a product and let's say it's a thousand dollar product, if my margin is 10%, I've got a hundred dollars margin to work with.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:$100.
Speaker C:And so out of that potential $100 of earnings or profit, what percentage of that am I willing to spend on for cost of sale?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So let's just say I take half of that and so I've got $50 to make that sale.
Speaker C:So what tactic could I execute or which tactics could I execute where there's a reasonable chance of being able to generate a sale for $50 or less.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Kind of a fundamental.
Speaker C:What's my maximum cost of sale just on that sale.
Speaker C:Now if we, you could also take lifetime value into account.
Speaker C:You could say my normal customer, if I get a new customer, let's say over the course of a year, might spend, let's say, let's say 10 times that, say $10,000.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And out of that $10,000, there might be a thousand dollars in margin if we keep that 10% margin.
Speaker C:So then maybe I'm willing to spend half of that to acquire the new customer.
Speaker C:So that gives me $500.
Speaker C:Now what channels can I use that given A reasonable set of assumptions would generate a profitable.
Speaker C:You know, I could acquire a new customer for $500 or less.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So real fundamental stuff.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I mean, that's about as basic as it gets.
Speaker C:And vast majority of people choose campaigns without awareness of or, you know, using those max cost of sales or cost of acquisition as a determinant of whether or not a channel has any hope of actually producing that.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker C:There's lots.
Speaker C:I mean, this is the.
Speaker C:The very first thing you can do is stop doing campaigns that haven't got a hope of ever producing a sale or a new client within a reasonable costs.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:It's like if you eliminate those right off the bat and just focus on the ones that actually have a hope of doing that, you're.
Speaker C:You're way ahead.
Speaker C:And then because you already know there's potential, then you can focus on them and not be ricocheting around trying this and trying that.
Speaker C:You know that these have potential to work and to work well.
Speaker C:So you can focus on making them work.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Just because they don't work initially doesn't mean that could be anything.
Speaker C:It could be any number of factors.
Speaker C:And so how do you start manipulating that process that, you know, has lots of potential in such a way that it actually does start to work?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So it generates a little bit more confidence and commitment to the channel because, you know that it is.
Speaker C:It's worthy of the effort to try to refine it enough to make it work.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So those are the kind of fundamentals that I've found that make the biggest difference both in terms of the profitability, but also the.
Speaker C:The intentionality.
Speaker C:Intentionality around it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:This.
Speaker C:Who.
Speaker C:How are we being.
Speaker C:Are we.
Speaker C:Are we trying this and trying that, hoping for the best, or we know that these are a good choice and we just have to stick with it long enough and refine the process well enough until we get it working.
Speaker A:Yeah, I hear that there's a.
Speaker A:There's a.
Speaker A:There's so much wisdom in what you're saying.
Speaker A:I, I have invested quite a bit in my own marketing and have learned, like you say, a lot of things that don't work, and some of them you don't find out until the end.
Speaker A:Like, I spent a bunch of money on trying to market a product for coaches, and I found out at the end something that nobody told me.
Speaker A:I had a very effective system set up, and it was recruiting well.
Speaker A:But what I.
Speaker A:No one told me and you don't find out is that the cost of acquisition for each of those coaches exceeded the value of the purchase.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:And you don't know how much it's going to cost until you actually do it.
Speaker A:Because at least in my case, because I just don't have the resources.
Speaker A:No one said, oh, by the way, when you try to sell to coaches, you're really going to have a very high cost per acquisition because everybody in the world is starting to market to them.
Speaker A:That's just not advice that you hear.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:But doing this, a little bit of fundamental sales funnel modeling.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Even if you don't know, like everybody starts without knowing.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:We all start with guessing.
Speaker C:And you can use industry norms and say, look, in a normal case, this campaign type would have this kind of response rate and it would be reasonable to look at this percentage of engagement in a reasonable percentage of that turns into sales.
Speaker C:And if you follow the math down through that, you can very quickly go, gee, this is looking tight.
Speaker C:I have to be really careful in order to make this work.
Speaker C:Or there's tons and tons of margin here.
Speaker C:And then we absolutely should do this.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And, and just doing that exercise might take you 20 minutes.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And but what, even if it's wrong, what you're getting is a sense of, sense of sensitivity around it.
Speaker C:It's like, geez, you know, even using industry averages, you can see very quickly, this is not something I should pursue.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Or it looks super promising.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And in either way, what it does is, draws you into that conversation where you're, you're thinking about, geez, if it is tight, what am I going to do to, to sort of how do I fix it?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:How do I, what do I change in order to really lift the conversion rate here or reduce my costs here?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And it really draws you into the process rather than just trying this and trying that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of conversation around like the pricing of coaches, coaching packages and service packages because you know, there's not often a lot of delivery costs.
Speaker A:So, so it's a matter of, you know, should I be charging $100, $200 an hour or $5,000 for a workshop and how you package all of that up.
Speaker A:There's just so much advice and it.
Speaker C:Even draws you back into your offer hierarchy.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So if it's like, geez, if I'm going to have a much higher cost of sale than I anticipated or acquisition costs than I anticipated, how do I densify my offer hierarchy to make it easier to recoup those costs over a shorter period of time?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So it Draws you right back to the fundamentals of the business to look at your offer hierarchy and your pricing model.
Speaker C:And really how am I going to.
Speaker C:Can change my communication practices to try to move people through that, that hierarchy faster?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what, that's what you were saying, the fundamentals.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The work before you even start your advertising, like getting all that put in place.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I like to call it pre marketing.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Or pre selling.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's put this, figure out the system and really understand the performance criteria that, you know, which levers do we need to pull to really make this work?
Speaker A:So tell me about, you know, it seems like you've got this nice, really well considered framework.
Speaker A:And I'm, I'm gathering that this, that's what's in your book, that, that's the framework that you describe in your book.
Speaker A:So, and, and the title, the, the being part, it's like, how does that being component inform the framework?
Speaker A:Like, what is it?
Speaker A:How do those things come together?
Speaker C:Well, I think the general premise that I have is that most people are not marketing experts.
Speaker C:Even marketing experts are not marketing experts.
Speaker C:Marketing is an enormous field.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's huge.
Speaker C:It's so multifaceted, it's not even funny.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And so you can't possibly be an expert in everything.
Speaker C:I've been busting my can for over 25 years, like relentlessly learning, and it never stops.
Speaker C:And so, you know, being an expert in it is, is very challenging to achieve.
Speaker C:And so I think given that you can't, given that you have to step back and say, well, I can't be an expert in all of this.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:What.
Speaker C:But what I can be an expert in is my own business.
Speaker C:Yeah, I can, I can understand my needs really well.
Speaker C:I can understand how the system is supposed to work.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:What my objectives are.
Speaker C:And if I can be really clear about my objectives, then I can actually go to vendors and say, look, I don't want you to just execute this.
Speaker C:I want you to help me achieve these outcomes.
Speaker C:Which is an entirely different question.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Most of the time it's like, oh, I want a website or I want to advertise on Facebook or I want to do some, you know, whatever.
Speaker C:And you know, you get busy doing it without really, you know, the goal is just to get it done.
Speaker C:It's like, okay, I've reached the is done.
Speaker C:I tick that box instead of saying, look, I have a bunch of criteria that I, I figured out what I need.
Speaker C:Yeah, I may not know how to do it, but I can describe my Needs very clearly.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And I like to call that being intentional.
Speaker A:I've heard about that.
Speaker C:And, you know, intentions are good, but then being committed to those intentions is even better.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So the first step is to be clear on the intentions.
Speaker C:And then the second step is, second way of being is committed.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And so I can have strong intentions, but if I haven't done any homework on it or validated my assumptions or really kind of made sure that I'm thinking right, I'm probably going to be hedging.
Speaker C:I'm going to be overly cautious and I'm not going to commit to it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I'll experiment and do all kinds of stuff because I have.
Speaker C:I'm not committed.
Speaker C:I might, I might have really clear intentions, but I haven't done the homework to be committed to my plan.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And so, and I'm not saying you have to be like, ridiculous about it, but you should do some validation to confirm that what you're, you know, you're barking up the right tree.
Speaker C:And so, so those are the, the two first things that I focus on is do I know what I'm trying to achieve and am I committed to the plan that I put together?
Speaker C:And that doesn't mean that I'm going to ride that plan till the end of time.
Speaker C:It's a matter of I think it's worthy and we're going to measure it every step along the way and modify it as we need to.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But it's worth investing in.
Speaker C:And, and so it's that.
Speaker C:That's the kind of where ways of being are all like that.
Speaker C:There's 20 of them, and they are mapped out in a sequential sequence through.
Speaker C:I like to group them as, you know, design, build and grow.
Speaker C:There's nine of them in the design stage.
Speaker C:And design, what I mean is not graphic design, but business design.
Speaker C:And then build is what are the mechanics of the business.
Speaker C:And then the grow is all the classic marketing stuff, which is various promotional aspects.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Which.
Speaker C:There's five of those.
Speaker C:And it's again, it's all about intention.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Every single one of them is.
Speaker C:I'm clear what the intention is in each of these 20 ways of being.
Speaker C:And I'm aware that there's a.
Speaker C:There's an order of operations that if I try to do step 20 before step one to 19, it's probably not going to work very well.
Speaker B:I see.
Speaker C:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:They start with step 15, right.
Speaker C:Most people start with step 20.
Speaker C:Like, if I had to say at least 90% of the people I've met have started on step 20 and wonder why they start.
Speaker C:Why it's such a pain.
Speaker C:And it's sad, it really is, because when I inevitably dive into their numbers and I typically do audits, a lot of the starting point is often an audit.
Speaker C:But where are we?
Speaker C:How's it working?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker C:And you know, most of the time they've done step 21st.
Speaker C:And then you start looking at the numbers and it's like, yeah, this is pretty grim, right?
Speaker C:And it's very disappointing because they put a lot of effort and time and money into it and, and it's usually not a great success story because it's all done out of sequence.
Speaker C:And, and so I've really tried.
Speaker C:So going back to the fundamentals and these sort of ways of being right, if you can just sort of stay focused on, look, I can't do all this myself.
Speaker C:A real opportunity is to become really good at describing the requirements and, and then inviting your team to say, look, I don't want you to just do this for me.
Speaker C:I want you to engage in the process and help me figure out how to achieve these specific objectives.
Speaker C:This is what I need to achieve in order to make my business work.
Speaker C:It's entirely different conversation that most vendors would probably be somewhat confused by because they're used to just showing up and getting things done.
Speaker C:Yeah, tell me what to do.
Speaker C:I'm an expert.
Speaker C:I know how to do this technology.
Speaker C:I don't want to know what your needs are.
Speaker C:I just want to, I can get this done.
Speaker C:I get for you done real fast and cheap as possible.
Speaker C:And I haven't got a clue what your goals are and I really don't want to know.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Fortunately, it's, it's sad, but that's, that's what we encounter all the time.
Speaker C:And so I think being a self advocate and saying, look, yes, I want it done, but I need it.
Speaker C:I need to focus on these outcomes, not just getting this thing done and then enrolling people in that, in that challenge.
Speaker C:How are we going to go about achieving this outcome?
Speaker C:Like, how do you put a lender on Mars?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Well, not that marketing is that hard, but, but it really is a matter of walking through the steps and going how we're going to start with the end in mind, we're going to get to Mars.
Speaker C:How do we go about doing that with all of these various challenges?
Speaker A:So for the people listening out there who are like, maybe trying to grow their business, and for either coaches or professionals, it's like, what, what would be examples of outcomes that would be specific enough to drive this kind of an approach.
Speaker C:They're not that hard, actually.
Speaker C:I'll go right back to where we started.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Is who am I trying to sell to?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:What problem am I trying to solve?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like really basic marketing stuff.
Speaker C:And then what's my maximum cost of acquisition?
Speaker C:What's my maximum cost of sale?
Speaker C:What's my offer hierarchy going to look like?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Why would anybody, buddy, why would anyone buy from us versus our competitors?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Having a really solid value proposition and a good competitive distinction.
Speaker C:I mean, these all sound pretty so sensible, right?
Speaker C:They're.
Speaker C:They're not rocket science.
Speaker A:No, they are.
Speaker A: in new clients in: Speaker C:Well, that's part of it too, Right.
Speaker C:That would be the next step.
Speaker C:So once I've gotten clear on the parameters, then it's a matter of what's my budget, what's my timeline, what's my risk tolerance.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:How many partners do I have?
Speaker C:How do I even make decisions?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:And how do I even.
Speaker C:How do we prioritize the rollout?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And how do we, you know, how do we get into sort of a lean or agile sort of approach where we're assessing performance in really short intervals and rapidly adapting.
Speaker C:One of the things that drives me crazy about marketing is it's often still people set up to make it perfect.
Speaker C:They run the campaign for weeks or months.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:They have, if they can have performance data after a day or two.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But they'll continue to run the campaign for months and months when they, they learn the second day that it isn't working.
Speaker C:It isn't working.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I like this orientation around, let's be agile, let's have some adaption points, let's have some gates around.
Speaker A:We're making decision, yes, no, go hump the heat, turn it off, you know, along the way, that's just, you know, sort of the kinds of things that you do in engineering context pretty regularly, but not maybe not so much in a marketing one.
Speaker C:So that's really, well, engineer.
Speaker C:You can engineer marketing the same way you engineer anything else, right?
Speaker A:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker A:So it's like, I mean, that's your, you know, your systems thinking, coming from your background and putting that in.
Speaker A:That's the part that a lot of people miss, though.
Speaker A:They think it's just like, you know, visions and messaging.
Speaker A:But there's really a lot more to it than that.
Speaker A:There's a, you know, there's so many steps and stages.
Speaker A:I'm sorry to have another thought here, but there's so many steps and stages to this.
Speaker A:It's like, is that what motivated you to write a book, to kind of like codify a process?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:That's exactly what I, when I was frustrated about is I wanted to understand the system and I couldn't find a systemic roadmap for first business development.
Speaker C:And I thought, how is this even possible?
Speaker C:They've been running businesses for at least a few thousand years.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And you'd think that there would be a logical rollout sequence and I certainly couldn't find one.
Speaker C:I looked all over, asked everybody and it's getting better.
Speaker C:There's a few sort of systems out there now that you can reference.
Speaker C:But even then it's usually really a short time frame.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And if you.
Speaker C:I like to, I wanted to look at it as what's my customer's journey through the business?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And for some businesses that journey is going to be pretty short.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It could be a single sale and then they're done.
Speaker C:Other businesses, I mean, I have clients for 10, 15 years sometimes.
Speaker C:And so what is the duration of the relationship that your business is cultivating?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Whether it's a year or two years or three months or whatever.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Just like what is the goal?
Speaker C:How do we cultivate these relationships and maximize the earnings potential in those relationships by shepherding the customer's journey through the business.
Speaker C:So what does that actually look like?
Speaker C:And if you don't have a roadmap again, I'll go back to start with the end in mind.
Speaker C:If that end in mind is a long term customer relationship with multiple know waypoints along the path, how do we create that?
Speaker C:How do we do that intentionally?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:As opposed to hoping for a repeat sale, how do we cultivate a repeat sale?
Speaker C:How do we cultivate a happy client?
Speaker C:How do we cultivate a referral?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's so when you start with, well, I want to, I want a positive review, I want a referral, I want a repeat sale.
Speaker C:I'd like them to buy across in different, you know, in a different line.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So share of wallet sort of thing, if that's the intention, then you can set that as the goal and start asking, well, what's the roadmap that I'm going to put together to create that?
Speaker C:And so the book really is meant to be a roadmap.
Speaker C:It's meant not to be a how to, it's just, it's like this is the sequence this is the headspace, the leadership headspace you want to be in and all the steps along the way so that you can engage in a thoughtful conversation with your vendors and your staff and start to engineer the marketing to achieve the outcome that you want.
Speaker C:And it's two sides.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Part of that is for the business, and part of that is for the customer's experience.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So there's this duality of it where the leadership side is all about.
Speaker C:Well, it's both.
Speaker C:I have leadership on the.
Speaker C:On the internal process development and leadership on the cultivating the relationship with the client.
Speaker C:So the system you're creating has to do both.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So it really is in that ways of being, you know, the system we're creating is.
Speaker C:Is meant to give somebody an experience.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:That, that grows, that, you know, endures and.
Speaker C:And expands.
Speaker C:What does that look like?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so in this work that you.
Speaker A:You're doing, where you're, you know, helping educate people about this entire process and, and taking through this, what's.
Speaker C:What do you.
Speaker A:What's your favorite part?
Speaker A:Like, what part lights you up the most about the process?
Speaker C:The beginning.
Speaker A:The beginning.
Speaker C:I like the beginning.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:I love the energy that entrepreneurs bring, the passion and the energy and the enthusiasm and the, the, you know, and all.
Speaker C:I'm like that, too.
Speaker C:I'm, you know, I am excited about what I do.
Speaker C:I like helping people.
Speaker C:I like solving problems, and most of us have it writhing around in our heads, and we think we're way more clear about it than we are.
Speaker A:That's so true.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:I like your.
Speaker A:What you said about, you know, being able to have a clear idea about what it is you're trying to do?
Speaker A:And so that leads to, like, a test.
Speaker A:Can you tell me what it is you're trying to do?
Speaker A:And if you can't have a concise answer to that, then maybe you haven't done enough work on it.
Speaker A:Would that be a fair assessment?
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So how do you refine that?
Speaker C:How do you create clarity from that?
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:And that's where people get stuck.
Speaker C:So the seed of an idea, I mean, there's usually something in there, and I love to dig that out.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:What is it exactly that has you so passionate?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You can't describe it yet, but it's there because you're.
Speaker C:You're sort of bouncing off the walls.
Speaker C:Exciting.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You're all lit up.
Speaker C:What is it?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:What's got you so passionate and drawing that out and turning that into an actual business is that other people can get excited about as well.
Speaker C:They said where they see the same thing as you and get excited about it.
Speaker C:I mean, how hard is mindfulness to describe?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:To somebody who's never heard of it, it's.
Speaker C:It's like not just jumping out as obvious.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And so trying to get that across in a way that moves and inspires people to go, wow, that sounds really powerful.
Speaker C:How do I.
Speaker C:What does that even look like?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And it's.
Speaker C:And I get it.
Speaker C:Like, I have had so many extraordinarily powerful experiences in the, you know, my understanding of mindfulness and the practice of mindfulness.
Speaker C:I'm a total fan and an advocate.
Speaker C:Hey, I get the power of it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And so the trick is, how do we help other people see.
Speaker C:See the power of it?
Speaker A:Well, that's a real problem.
Speaker A:It's a.
Speaker A:It's a classic marketing problem for the people in the field.
Speaker A:You know, it's like, because we look at our clients and we look at the world and we go, well, we know the benefits.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But they're kind of.
Speaker A:They're the kind of benefits that you have to experience to really fully know what it means.
Speaker A:And seeing the words on the page don't really quite grab you until you actually have that moment.
Speaker A:And then you go, oh, my God, this is so much bigger than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker C:Well, it is.
Speaker C:And that's why I think coaching is so important.
Speaker C:Whether or not it's mindfulness or marketing or business development.
Speaker C:It's because we can't see it until we feel it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:In many cases, you need somebody to just say, you know, yeah, I've been through this.
Speaker C:I can walk you through the steps.
Speaker C:We could do it in a, you know, whatever pace makes sense for you, that you're comfortable with these, you know, and then roll it out in a logical, safe, you know, manner that meets their needs and with them, not for them.
Speaker A:Right, right, exactly.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker C:And it's the.
Speaker C:With them that I think really allows them to start to feel it and own it and to embrace it and sort of make it their own.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And it does.
Speaker C:Can be a little slower sometimes because there's the learning curve to get over.
Speaker C:But it ultimately, I think, is very empowering.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You're trying to sort of enroll them in a way of approaching things that ultimately will serve them long term.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And my.
Speaker A:In my experience with teaching and helping people through this process, it's, I think, in my own course development, the things that I should.
Speaker A:I Build.
Speaker A:I try to build in early rewards, like really quick early wins that kind of hook them, hook people into, oh yes, this is really good.
Speaker A:And I like it.
Speaker A:And then they have enough positive association with what they're doing to kind of get through the, the more of a, of a grind which comes up.
Speaker A:I'm using kind of strong language, but you know, kind of just getting the work done.
Speaker A:Like you've got to get back on the bicycle and fall off a few times before you learn how to ride.
Speaker A:And that is not fun.
Speaker A:And you don't lead with, I'm going to help you fall off gracefully.
Speaker C:But that's really what marketing, it's, it's like I go back to what I was saying earlier is oftentimes when you're doing the post campaign analysis, one of the channels probably where they spend the most money can be excruciating.
Speaker C:You look at it and say, geez, or you have a $50 margin here and you spent $2,000 trying to generate that.
Speaker A:Right, Exactly.
Speaker C:And if you look at this other channel, you know, it's, it's working, right?
Speaker C:You're, you're actually generating profitable sales and you look at the amount of money you spent doing this over here that you threw away versus what's possible over here.
Speaker C:And that's an early win, right?
Speaker C:That's one of those.
Speaker C:It's like Gez, this is where analysis actually shows you the benefits of.
Speaker C:Look, you're, you, you like this channel because it's cool and exciting, but it's, you're losing money hand over fist there, over here.
Speaker C:That's boring.
Speaker C:And you know, it seems like.
Speaker C:Right, but look, it's actually the most profitable thing you're doing.
Speaker C:It just happens to be boring, right?
Speaker C:So let's do more boring.
Speaker A:Let's do more boring so you can then fund the more interesting stuff.
Speaker C:Well, it just, it just gets you excited in a different way, right?
Speaker C:And, and to me, the early wins are usually just pointing out.
Speaker C:It's like, you know, you're killing yourself over here, right?
Speaker C:Flailing around and trying to make it work.
Speaker C:And it's never going to work because it has no hope of ever working.
Speaker C:It's fundamentally flawed.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And over here, this other thing that you just find less interesting is working great, right?
Speaker C:It's like, what can we do to make this more exciting?
Speaker C:Because it's really working, even though you don't like it.
Speaker A:So lean into what's working, I think is the message here, right?
Speaker A:That's right, exactly.
Speaker C:So, so, and mindfulness is like that too.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:You can choose the things that are actually working for you or you can, you know, you can spend all your time in your stories and spin off and completely the wrong direction.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, that's a really excellent point.
Speaker A:It's sort of like what is real?
Speaker A:Who am I really versus what, what's my story?
Speaker A:And let me, let me just spend all of my time reinventing that, reconfirming that.
Speaker A:That's my story.
Speaker A:And there's just, you know, at least a lot of suffering usually.
Speaker C:So it happens like the exact same scenario.
Speaker C:Plays out in marketing a lot.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Have to be doing this.
Speaker A:I can just imagine.
Speaker A:It's like I just can't.
Speaker A:I just can't make this fun thing work.
Speaker A:But I'm making money over here in this boring thing.
Speaker A:But I really.
Speaker A:I'm the guy or the girl or the business.
Speaker A:We just can't do this fun thing.
Speaker A:We just can't seem to make it work.
Speaker A:And you identify with that and then it doesn't matter how many iterations you do, it's just never going to work because you're not in the right mindset.
Speaker C:You just have to say, well, we're going to do a little bit of that because it's fun.
Speaker A:Well, we need to.
Speaker A:We need fun, right?
Speaker A:We do need fun.
Speaker A:Yay.
Speaker A:So what.
Speaker A:So, so tell us again the title of your book and where people can find it.
Speaker A:I'll also put it in the show notes so that people can.
Speaker A:Can connect to it directly.
Speaker C:It's called Being Profitable.
Speaker C:You can find it on Amazon currently and it's also on my website.
Speaker C:My website is accruemarketing.com, right?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Accrue as in accounting accruals.
Speaker A:I happen to have a Samurai Jack here on my desk.
Speaker A:I'm big name, right.
Speaker C:J.
Speaker C:But I have, you know, if you go to my website, I've got a.
Speaker C:The first chapters available for free for download and there's a whole bunch of other free resources as well.
Speaker C:So I.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:So acre marketing.com I'll put a link there.
Speaker A:Being profitable the book.
Speaker A:And so we're talking with John Watson who has this incredible roadmap for or how to get your business kind of elucidated and framed in.
Speaker A:In such a way that your marketing can be effective so that you can be more effective in the world on your mission.
Speaker A:And John's mission has been so well said here today about helping people more successful because, wow, you put so much work into it.
Speaker A:I'm really, I love doing this podcast Because I get to meet people like you who have really, really done the work of digging in and coming up with something that's really valuable to people and then also valuing mindfulness and letting that inform the process along the way.
Speaker A:So I just, you know, we're just from one entrepreneur to another who's trying to do the right thing in the world.
Speaker A:I just really appreciate that.
Speaker A:And so thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you on behalf of the world.
Speaker C:I think what people have to realize is the fundamentals may feel hard, but they're really not.
Speaker C:Like, once you kind of get into it and you realize, geez, it's just unfamiliar.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that doesn't mean.
Speaker C:Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker A:No, I was just gonna say, and I love what you said.
Speaker A:It's like, you can't be an expert in anything, in everything, but you could be an expert in your business.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And that's just.
Speaker A:I just think that's really beautifully framed to kind of.
Speaker A:Okay, yeah.
Speaker A:You don't have to solve every problem in the world in the marketing world world, you just have to know your business well enough to take an action.
Speaker A:So an effective one.
Speaker A:So, you know, last words of advice to people who are listening or saying, how do I get started with this?
Speaker A:Where do I even begin?
Speaker C:Give yourself a chance to do a little learning, right?
Speaker C:And everybody's so eager to rush in and to test their theories in the market, and it's just so expensive.
Speaker C:You spend a couple hours reading and really playing.
Speaker C:Like, roll out your thinking in a spreadsheet.
Speaker C:Just even if you're not good at it, right.
Speaker C:Just scratch it out.
Speaker C:Don't try to make it perfect.
Speaker C:Just validate your thinking.
Speaker C:Roll it by somebody else if you need help, and you'll save it.
Speaker C:Like, literally.
Speaker C:It cost almost nothing to do this kind of work.
Speaker C:It really is a tremendous eye opener that can change how you think about your business and how you approach it, how you prioritize things.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's a really small initial investment to get tremendous sense of purpose and direction for moving forward.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:I love that very much.
Speaker A:In fact, I'm inspired because I have the Mindful Coach association, which is, you know, an association of coaches and people who like to do work.
Speaker A:Mindfully, I'm inspired to consider putting out there some sort of a business discussion group.
Speaker A:Like, let's have just invite the coaches to come in and give them a safe environment to say, well, I'm thinking about this, and let all the other people in the room reflect on it and offer guidance in helping them shape these things.
Speaker C:What is it saying is none of us are as smart as all of us.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:So that's beautiful.
Speaker A:Well, thank you so much, Johnny.
Speaker A:It's been a pleasure talking to you, and I wish you great, good success in your work.
Speaker C:Well, thank you.
Speaker C:You're.
Speaker C:I know you and I have a lot in common, so I've.
Speaker C:I've.
Speaker C:I enjoy our conversations.
Speaker A:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:The Mindful Coach Podcast is a service.
Speaker A:Of the Mindful Coach Association.
