494 - The One Marketing Secret Everyone Needs to Know

0:00Thank you.

0:30Marie Forleo:Thank you. Yes, I was so excited when I heard about you and your company. So we wanted to have you on the show. So tell me about your question, and we are going to do our best to give you some answers. Sweet. So my question is, my award-winning wine and craft beer company is really small by design, and I've worked hard to keep it that way. When your entire business is based on your personal brand, reputation, and reviews, How do you bring in others without ticking off potential guests? For example, I work seven days a week for six months straight in the summer. And when I tried to take one day off for my 25th wedding anniversary, my potential guest said, I only have one day in town and it has to be you.

1:20Marie Forleo:Woman, woman, woman, woman. So a couple things. First, I need to acknowledge you. like 25 years married. Can we just give Terri hello? And all these years that you are in business, and I will say too, just the fact that, and I know this isn't healthy and we're going to talk about this in a few minutes, but just the fact that you're like, you know what? I work seven days a week for a good portion of the year. As someone who's a crusher myself, I just commend you because a lot of people, you know, they'll shy away from that type of drive and that type of commitment. And I actually think it's awesome.

1:53Marie Forleo:Now, that said, I do understand the crux of your question. I love that you keep your business small by design, and obviously that's creating a little bit of conflict for you right now because you never feel like you can take off. That's not a good thing. So what I would encourage you to consider, Terry, is to start thinking about, okay, if I could have this situation be any way I want, what would it look like? So your company would probably remain small, but if I'm hearing you correctly, you may want to have someone who's perhaps under you, like one or two other people that could give craft tours so that you could take off a day or two here or there, or have a little bit of growth that isn't always dependent on you.

2:34Marie Forleo:Is that accurate? That is absolutely accurate. Okay, cool. So we're going to stay small, but we're just going to get just a little bit bigger so that you can have more freedom. Now, the way to start doing that is think about your ideal person that you would love to hire, right? So if you're familiar with my work, we teach something in B-School called the ideal customer avatar, where we're understanding who our ideal customer is so that we can do a better job of attracting them and taking care of them and just wowing their pants off in the best way possible. For this particular task, we want to do an ideal employee avatar, starting to dream up who this person would be.

3:15Marie Forleo:What are their strengths? What are they looking for? What are they passionate about? What are their values? What is their attitude towards work? How flexible are they? So that you, my friend, can start putting out the feelers to get this person to join your team and your company. Now, I understand that you've built your entire reputation up until now with all of you in terms of, oh my God, Terry gives the best tours. Everything is about Terry, Terry, Terry, Terry, Terry. Now, that's the precedent that you've set, but that doesn't have to be your future story. You can start to change that. You can start to use language like we.

3:54Marie Forleo:You can start to create an offering where perhaps your tour is even more expensive than the one that people underneath you get. What that does is it starts to create some psychological separation so that you're the founder, you're the person. You even get to have higher profit margins, right? And the people underneath you, one or two people, that might be a better economical option for some of the new customers that are going to come in. But realize that as a business owner, you get to set the boundaries and you get to set the stage for expectations of how people can work with you. This is just going to be a little bit of a transition, but it's totally possible.

4:34Marie Forleo:What you're going to want to do too is think about this strategically. So when you do find that person, and I have every confidence that you will and you can, you're going to want to do everything in your power to have them do their tours and then very strategically start to have those customers leave reviews on whatever review site about those humans so that you can have proof and evidence that you're not the only capable person, this isn't how the business runs anymore, and it is growing. Awesome. And so - I'm looking forward to a day off in the summer. Yeah. So let me ask you a question. Is your entire business seasonal?

5:18Pretty much. The wineries in our area close down at the end of October, although there are some breweries that I can utilize year-round and one winery.

5:29Marie Forleo:Awesome. So knowing that, I was just curious that there was no reason for that in terms of answering your question. I just want to give you one more idea. I want you to really do an idea, like, excuse me, an ideal visualization of your perfect business. You know, what would that look like in a year or two if you had your business exactly as it was? You know, maybe in the summer months, there's just days that you have to set a good boundary for yourself. You know, on your 26th wedding anniversary, you're like, screw this. I ain't doing a tour no matter what. Ain't no amount of money gonna tear me away.

6:00Marie Forleo:And that day is just booked. And whoever calls up and says, I need Terry, you could say, well, you're just gonna have to sit down and be humble because Terry ain't around. So that's going to be part of it is you also setting really strong boundaries for yourself about what you will say yes to and what you won't. And then also just really having a clear vision of your ideal business so we can start to bring it to life. That's what I need to do. That in a nutshell. Bam! Well, I hope this was helpful. Was it helpful, Terry? Absolutely. I can only aspire to one day take two weeks off at a time like you do.

6:36Marie Forleo:Oh, yes. And I'll tell you, put that in the calendar, put it on your ideal vision of your business, and I promise you, you can work towards it. Because even though we're in very different industries, there was absolutely a time a few years ago where I was panicked. I did not think we could close down. We're a digital business, and in this particular world, it's like everyone wants you creating content and engaging and being everywhere at once, 24-7 and never sleeping. And I was like, this is bullshit. I don't want to do that. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable for my people. So I need to take the reins back and get all of these societal ideas out of my head.

7:09Marie Forleo:I get to write the rules for my business. I get to kind of push against all of those assumptions and I get to create the business that I want, which is exactly what you get to do as well. Thank you so very much. Everything you do. Aw, thanks, Terri. Well, we're wishing you luck. Keep us posted and thank you again for being on the show. Okay, enjoy the rest of your day. You too. Bye, Tara. Bye now. It's kind of nice not being available too. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, people always want what they can't have. What would an extra quarter million dollars do for you this year? Pay off debt, buy a new car, finally take that dream vacation, or just stop stressing about money?

7:50Marie Forleo:If you're ready to create real financial freedom through your business, you only need one thing, a clear, profitable offer. I built an app that does it for you in 90 minutes. Here's how. You enter a few details about your business. It generates 20-plus custom offer ideas. You pick your favorite. Instantly, it shows you market demand and the three segments of customers most likely to buy. Then it builds everything. Pricing, sales page, positioning, bonuses, guarantee, plus seven high converting emails ready to send. The price? $47. One sale covers your investment. Everything after that is pure profit.

8:35Marie Forleo:Go to marieforleo.com slash 250k. That's marieforleo.com forward slash 250k. Good morning. Is this Mandy? Yes, it is. What's up, Amanda, it's Marie Forleo and the whole MarieTV crew. How are you doing? I'm great, Marie. How are you? I'm so good. We're so excited to have you on the show. So let us know your question and we will do our best to help you out. Oh, absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you. I've been following you for years. I'm a huge fan. Oh, thank you so much. And I'm an entrepreneur and artist and have been doing this for way over 20 years. And I do okay, but truly I'm a real creative at heart.

9:24And that is my passion and that's what I'm best at. And what I struggle with is finding help with marketing. I feel like marketing to me is like trudging through quicksand in the dark. And I also know it's just not the best use of my time or my talent. But I've struggled with how do I find the best marketing help?

9:48Marie Forleo:It's a great question. And, Mandy, first of all, I want to congratulate you for doing what you've been doing for 20 years as a creative. I just admire and appreciate that. Every time I meet artists of any kind, folks who do the kind of work that you do, singers, musicians, writers, you're my people. So I just want to acknowledge you for that. And two, I also want to tell you, you are so not alone, and especially when it comes to the marketing bet, right? And feeling this sense of resistance. Yes. But I'm laughing right here and I see, I just want to let you know, because I know you can't see us, but I see Elsa in the back raising her hand, who is my stylist.

10:27Marie Forleo:I see Zach who's sitting next to me right here, who's a designer going, they're nodding their head and raising their hands that yes, the marketing piece is hard for them as well. So here's what I want to share with you. One, you want to ask yourself, are you happy with the level that your business is at right now? And I heard what you said about, you know, you said you're doing pretty good. So I'm curious to hear if you feel like you want to see more growth in terms of your financial revenue, in terms of your profit, in terms of your work getting out there in the world. Absolutely. Okay. Yes on all of those.

11:03Marie Forleo:Okay, great. That's awesome. So, that being said, what I think is going to help you most is first, not even finding someone to help with the marketing. We can get to that. But I also truly believe in my heart that having a reframe around marketing itself, right? Because right now, and I loved your analogy, your metaphor, you're like, gosh, it's like trudging through quicksand and it just feels so arduous and it's not a good use of my time. I'd like to invite you to revisit that and to reconsider that as an artist, as a creative, yes, it might not be the best use of all of your time, but if you can flip that mindset and start to embrace it, so perhaps it's a little bit less like trudging through quicksand and maybe actually it's a little like walking on a beach, right?

11:53Marie Forleo:So rather than thinking, you're like, you know what? This could actually be kind of fun and I'm going to see some beautiful things and this could actually invigorate me and help me reach some of those beautiful goals that I have. Because one of the things that you'll need to do, even if you don't execute on all the marketing yourself, you need to understand it. You need to educate yourself about it so that you can hire people who will do a great job and you have the intelligence and understanding to realize whether or not they're good at what they do. So for me, here's what I would recommend. And I'm going to say this very plainly because as you know, I'm a plain spoken woman and I don't hold things back.

12:35If you haven't done B-School, I would encourage you to strongly consider it.

12:41Marie Forleo:I think one of the best gifts that I have in the world is my ability to take people who feel about marketing the way you feel about marketing and literally give them an inner transformation where not only will you understand how it can serve you, but for your goal of finding people that would be able to help you, you're going to be able to spot them a mile away. Now, you can go read books. You can do any other thing. So if something else resonates for you, awesome. I want to see you get educated no matter what. I just know my product. I know my people. So I feel utterly confident that I can help you transform this whole thing.

13:20Marie Forleo:I just can't vouch for other people because I don't know what the hell they do. But no matter what, my friend, you're so talented. You have the stamina. You've been doing this 20 years. You understanding marketing and changing your mindset about it is what's going to open up a whole new world. And you don't have to do it 24-7. You don't have to leave your creative act. And I also want to tell you one more thing. And this is something I don't think most people understand about marketing. Mandy, marketing when done right is the ultimate vehicle for your creativity. It challenges you in ways to think about connections, to think about beauty, to think about emotions, to think about pulling things together in fresh new ways that inspire people to pay attention to you, to care about your product, and most importantly, to buy it.

14:10Marie Forleo:So I think there's so much opportunity for you in this that it's crazy. And so my invite for you would be the next time B-School comes around to really at least pay attention to all the free videos because those on their own, that'll help you start making this mindset shift. And then if it feels like the right fit, come join us. I guarantee you we'll flip the whole thing and you'll probably find the right people to help you. Fantastic. Thank you, Marie. You're so welcome. I hope this was helpful. Keep doing what you're doing. And keep looking for opportunities and ways that you can start to fall in love with marketing because it's possible.

14:46All righty.

14:47Marie Forleo:Awesome. Thanks, Mandy. Thank you, Marie. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye. It is a universal problem for artists, you know, whether it's the financial part or the marketing part, you know, anything outside of the thing that we're so passionate about that drives us. Yeah. But there is something like when I've been working on like, you know, I sometimes need to send out like to potential clients sort of like a little bit about me. Yes. And after like writing it, you know, and definitely you're making it sound like the best part of you. You're not going, yeah, but I could have done a little bit better. You just feel so good about yourself and your craft.

15:23Marie Forleo:Yeah. I got to say, I am so happy that Mandy and Terry called in with those questions. because as someone who's been there, it is terrifying when you're trying to find the right person to hire and grow your team. And that's because growth is never easy, right? But remember, going through the discomfort of growth is essential for our fulfillment and our wellbeing, and it is critical for your business's success. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, subscribe to our podcast, and it would mean so much to me if you shared it with a friend. But most importantly, stay on your game and keep going for your big dreams because the world really does need that very special gift that only you have.

16:06Marie Forleo:Thank you so much for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Marie Forleo Podcast.