1657 – Putting Life First with Annelise Worn

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now it's annalise warren annalise uh you are a marketing consultant uh an expert um strategist and you are found on the web at annalise warren.com i should also point out that you are a fellow podcaster i'm gonna have you tell us about it in a moment but first give us an overview of your work and impact in the world today. Thanks for having me. Sure. I'd love to. So I have a marketing agency that I've been running since 2017 and that got started, went really well. And I started teaching women how to DIY their own marketing. Now, what that looks like, you know, six years later is I work with a lot of men and women on business strategy and really designing their business in a way that puts life at first, because I think a lot of us get caught up in the sweep of our business.

1:59We love it. We get into burnout and we kind of create this monster. So it's about putting some scaffolding around that and actually making your business work for you, not the other way around. Yeah. Where do most people trip up on this? Oh, goodness. So many ways. I think my experience with women is not to be too stereotypical, but I work primarily with women and that's my lived experience. So I'm going to speak to that is a lot of us love what we do and we want to some sort of freedom. And that's why we start our business and we start and we say yes to everything because we want to be everything to everyone and we don't charge enough and then we end up drowning in client work and we've created effectively this prison for ourselves instead of this vehicle to freedom and so I think it starts there wanting to start a business and so we say yes we can do it we figure it out later we're resourceful we you know we get something together and we haven't put the structure in place a lot of the time to make it actually serve us.

3:07Yeah. And so how did you find yourself in this role in wanting to mentor other women business leaders? Like, what was that transition? What were you doing previously? And like, okay, I need to step up because I see some good I can do in the world here. Yeah, initially they came to me. So I started a marketing agency, maybe two years in. I brought my husband home from work and we got to be home together with our young family. And so people started asking me, how the heck did you do that? And so I taught them how to do that. And then I realized it was more of a mindset game. And then I started working with women who weren't just at the beginning starts of their business.

3:47And I realized it was a common theme that burnout was something that so many of us got into for different reasons, or we'd run up the mountain, got to the top of the mountain and realized we didn't kind of like the view from there. It was, it wasn't as shiny as, and as amazing as we thought it was going to be. So I, I got to that place as well. And so now that's where I focus in helping people to systematize their marketing, their sales, you know, every single element of their business, but also prioritize their wellbeing and use their business to make an impact in the world. so that there's a reason to keep growing.

4:30Yeah. In marketing today, what trends have you been noticing or what things are you seeing in marketing that you're most excited about right now?

4:44I'm excited about a return, I think, now to more relationship-based marketing. Heck yeah! We got to a point where everyone was like, I don't even want to talk to people. I'm just going to automate it. I'm going to have the funnel, which is great, right? I'm all for automation. I think we both use the same all-in-one marketing sales CRM. Like that's brilliant. You need that. But it's kind of nice now that after that boom and the changes in the economy and everything and everyone are making, people are being more discerning now with their decisions. and we need to found it based on relationships and real substance.

5:26So if someone says to you, but Annalise, I was told I'm just one funnel away, how would you caveat that or how would you massage that for that person? Yes, you might be, but you can't just rely on paid advertising and a hands-off format anymore. There has to be something of you that nurture period is what we need to focus on. So if you think about marketing, we can simplify it really, really, really, you know, distill it down to we need to be getting in front of more people. We need to be nurturing those people and we need to be selling to those people. And I think the balance of the three of those things is where the magic is.

6:17and that's where we're going to find the best success. And I think a lot of us in the past have been able to shorten that window when automation was, you know, people were home, people were buying, people like the economy was just a little bit different. A couple of years ago, things were different. And now we really, as people are being, you know, there's lots more options on the market. People are being careful with, they're choosing, they're still spending. They're just deciding in different ways and really caring about the values. And so that piece and you need to really come through a little bit more, you know, the values piece needs to come through more.

7:02Yeah. And Annalise, the obviously one trend that's been huge this year, you know, is AI, right? And using tools like ChatGPT. where are you seeing brilliant executions of AI technologies and platforms? I think it's making things faster for people. The people that are using it well are just doing, are getting, achieving things in a way that is more efficient. The people that are using it badly are going here, write my blog post here, right? Spit out 10 social media posts, please. But the people that are using it well, the people going here, give me 10 ideas, 10 questions around this topic. And then they're using that to inform their content planning, or they're using it to give some of their older content for their SEO, some new life.

7:54And there's some ways that you can use it. So Annalise, looking at your social media, one thing I've seen you post about frequently or recently is the concept of an irresistible offer. And I'm curious about your observations about maybe in work with clients, you've looked at like where their offer was, maybe you gathered some data and you were able to provide some tweaks to that. Are there any patterns that you see in terms of like maybe offers that aren't well optimized versus things that you're like, yeah, that tends to work really well today? Yes, there are definitely some trends. One trend is we do way too much research and then we, that's why we look across the market and we see all of these kind of carbon copies of really similar things.

8:44and the second one is I think a lot of the time the offers that we put out there are band-aid solutions and we're not always thinking about what is the ultimate solution for this person to fix this problem it's just going to get them like another step of the way whereas if we can create something that is going to totally transform that problem that is going to take them all the way from A to B where they want to go, then that is where we're going to have be able to make it more expensive. We're going to enjoy delivering it more. We're going to get them better results. And then we're going to get referrals.

9:28We're going to get great testimonials. So I think a lot of the time I lean towards a higher ticket solution that is the whole, like actually the ultimate solution to their problem, because it's really good for everyone, better results, better referrals, better testimonials. Yeah. Annalise, who do you work with? And more importantly, who do you not work with? Typically, I work with service providers, mostly service providers who are solo or have small teams and are looking to scale. And they've created a little bit of a monster and we really need to transition their business from what does that mean created a little bit of a I'm sorry to interrupt what does that mean uh created a little bit of a monster uh where like I find that businesses are a little bit of a monster right like their time and energy and money insatiable like so they'll they'll take as much as we as we will give them and seriously right like when's when can you ever close your computer and be like oh yeah like I've done like it's enough like Like I've done all of the things.

10:41You've probably never done all of the things. But I got to a point in my business where the client work was overwhelming. I wasn't getting paid enough because of my own fault. I'd built a team of juniors so they couldn't support me in the way that I needed to. And I think a lot of people get to some version of that where they're stuck in what they're doing and they can't grow. They can't work on their business. They're like in this place of just their hands are full. They're juggling all of the balls. That's what I mean by kind of created a monster. If they're feeling stuck and overwhelmed and they know something has to change in their business with the structure or with their offer or with their pricing or, you know, some things they can't grow anymore because they're full, then they're typically the kind of people that I work with.

11:29Yeah. And what does that look like? Like what, how does engagement, like how do you start? And do you typically it's just kind of, you know, creating a new plan with them and you do that within period of time, you work a little bit more ongoing. Yeah. So I've got a, I've got a program, a six month program for people who are wanting to build agencies specifically. It's a group program and other people I work with one-on-one. So we'll typically work together over three months and create a strategy. and I'll work with them over three months as they begin to work through that. And then if we're doing one-on-one coaching, then that can continue on or they can join a group program from there.

12:09But it'll either typically start in one of those places where we create a 12-month strategy for them or they join a group program because their goal is to build an agency with other people that are doing the same thing. Yeah. Your website is annalisewarren.com. um what what would you recommend for someone that's uh wants a little bit and i also want to know before let me ask before i get into that let me ask you about your podcast um so you have two is that correct mom style business and impact business show i have just actually combined them okay good good and so now it is just called the name is the podcast very original the podcast with Annalise Warren.

12:52I like it. I like it. Well, so to our friend that's listening, just, just search Annalise Warren in your podcast directory. You're going to find it. And so in addition to that, your website, AnnaliseWarren.com, what would you recommend that folks do or like, where do they go from here? Any pillar piece of content, anything that you'd kind of recommend if they want to kind of dive more into your world? Yeah. So when I was talking about systematizing the different elements of your business, I talk about seven different systems, which is we've got the traditional five marketing, sales, service delivery, people, and then I just love finance and legal in one, sorry, finance and legal people.

13:35But then from there, I add in a wellbeing system and impact as a system, as like fundamental pieces of your business. So if you'd like to know more about that, if you're in that place where you are feeling overwhelmed and like you need some structure, then you can go to analisewarne.com forward slash seven, the number seven systems. And you'll find that you can download that there. You can learn a little bit more about me there. And yeah, look forward to meeting you. Annalise Warren, again, your website, Annalise Warren, the spelling of all of that in your podcast player, you just kind of click around, find where we've got the show notes, Got a direct link, Annalise, to your website.

14:18It's been great having you. Annalise, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

14:30Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur in Facebook. I'd love even if you just stop by to say hi. I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day.

15:14Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes each day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.