1682 – Why Does Jonny Hate Marketing? Exploring the Solopreneur’s Perspective with Jonny Hates Marketing’s Jonny Cooper

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 johnny cooper johnny you are found on the web at johnny hates marketing.com and johnny by the way spelled j-o-n-n-y to our friend that's listening to our conversation just click around in your podcast app you'll find where we've got the notes for this episode the direct link if you want to follow along johnny it's great to have you thanks so much for joining us. It's great to be here, Josh. You're a legend in the podcasting community. Thank you. That's high praise, as we say. So, Johnny, give us an overview of your work, and please tell us, why do you hate marketing? Hey, you know what?

1:41Great to be here, Josh, first of all. Thanks for inviting me on. Some years ago, I decided that I wanted to work with online solopreneurs, so-called coaches, therapists, consultants, you know, people are rowing their own boat, trying to try to make, carve out some influence online and make a name for themselves. And I came up with this sizzling brand called The Success Party. I called it the successparty.com. I thought that was great. Nobody else agreed. It didn't really take off. Maybe it wasn't just the name but you know names are important aren't they um so uh i was on a podcast interview in early 2017 i'm guessing now and uh the podcast host and i were talking about rubbish marketing ideas things that we you know just didn't respect we thought were not good things to do you know not best practice to say the least and um we we got to the point where we'd made such a list of things that we didn't like about marketing that he said to me spoiler alert Johnny hates marketing I just went wow say that again that sounds like a brand and uh yeah within a couple of days I just rebranded everything to Johnny Hates Marketing because you know what my community and I'm going to say probably a lot of yours as well Josh you know um they want to just get on with business they just want to serve clients that want to make products on ship um marketing for them is oftentimes not just a blind spot but it's a pain in the neck it's it's i hear we would like to wave a magic wand and have it all done for us it's like a necessary evil right so that's the thing i have to do so that i get to do the thing that i really really want to want to do you know if i'm an expert in accounting or something like that.

3:38Why on earth would we expect, you know, that they, you know, that they should, you know, be all of a sudden degreed in best practices for demand gen or lead gen or whatever it is. And certainly, I mean, those are a lot of extra skills that don't come in eight, you know, that requires. Totally, totally. I mean, they're learned skills, but I often say, you know, it's, if you're in your example, a skilled accountant, you know, it's another channel of learning you have to do, which is just as difficult as becoming an accountant, becoming a skilled marketer. You know, there is so much to learn. And what's a real kicker really these days on social media is it's a changing landscape.

4:20All the time, there's new stuff happening. I mean, what about the AI explosion, which is this year, isn't it you know and uh if we expect our you know our overworked therapists and life coaches and consultants to learn all that stuff as well as all the stuff that they're still not doing very well you know it's it's a huge thing so when we say you know johnny hates marketing they they uh they arrive on my doorstep and go i i get it i hate marketing too so it kind of works yeah well if we are not marketing johnny then what are we doing you caught me taking a gulp of coffee there that's all right watching the video will have seen that i thought it was gonna be a longer question it's a gulp of coffee for the audience uh acoustically as well it it truly is isn't it just just to show our authenticity you know We're not AI robots.

5:16We drink coffee like humans. So if not marketing, well, I would fall back on one of the greatest definitions of marketing that I've ever seen or read by the fantastic Seth Godin. And in his book called This Is Marketing, he defines marketing. He says marketing is the generous act of solving someone's problem. once you start to regard it like that you start to think well if it's not about me if it's not about self-promotion if it's about helping somebody then the task becomes slightly different and sharper in focus I would say because all you've got to do is you've got to understand your ideal client and what's keeping them awake at night and stuff paying other challenges what they leap out of bed for in the morning which is their hopes and dreams and aspirations and all the rest of it.

6:10And if you can define those things, then it becomes quite simple to communicate with them, to outreach and to speak their language, to enter the conversation that's going on in their heads. Whether you're doing that with landing pages or campaigns or emails or face-to-face on Zoom with actual words and questions and that kind of thing, as long as you're under their skin and you understand your ideal clients, then marketing becomes a whole lot easier. and it generally doesn't feel like marketing. You know, we've got our community to the point now we've got nearly 7 ,000 coaches and therapists in our Facebook community.

6:47And I just show up every day and talk to them. I just speak their language. I ask them questions that I know will resonate with them. They're questions they're probably asking themselves right now. And, you know, you kind of eliminate the kind of massive fog in front of you that's got an M on it as marketing just by saying, well, how about if we make it all about them and not about us? We're not marketing our services. What we're doing is we're helping them to solve their biggest problem. And, you know, if you can do that, you solve the marketing puzzle in one, haven't you? Yeah. So what might be some examples of kind of giving a lot more value on the front end and or communicating in a way that's very customer-centric as opposed to consultant-centric, right?

7:36Where the consultant or the coach or the service provider or the agency, they just want to earn that business. What would be maybe an example of a before and after? Yeah, well, the before would be, you know, constant sales posts, regular sales posts just blathering on about the product, about the join this, join this now, two days to go, sign up now, you know price goes up on Thursday all that kind of stuff versus entering the conversations going on their heads and you know another way to think of this is that if your ideal client can come across you uh on social media where on your website and their first instinct is that people like them work with you then you're kind of halfway there and this is another another goading quote He says that what your ideal clients need to feel is that people like us do things like this.

8:32And this speaks to the heart of a community rather than a transactional business where you're just kind of shifting product. If you can get people into a community where they understand the ethos in there, they feel comfortable in there, they feel safe and nurtured. And they feel that you're the leader, you're the authority. that they're then prepared to hang on your every word, including the words that you'll speak to them about your products. And, you know, the necessity for them to actually buy your products. They're going to believe in them. So it's all about building communities. And that's what we do for our clients.

9:09You know, from day one, we say, look, we get what you do. We've heard what your skills are, what's in your toolbox, what your modalities are. What kind of people will benefit the most from that? and let's build a community of those people so that you're umbilically connected with your with your aims with your values with your ethos and it then becomes almost second nature just to just to sell stuff every now and again or even consistently to sell stuff to people because because they trust you and they believe you and they feel like they're part of something important part of a mission i guess you know yeah yeah um how do you work with your clients um so that you can help them achieve these things yeah my clients are generally uh josh uh coaches and therapists who are perhaps pivoting from another profession uh you know work with a lot of people who are packing in their jlb and uh want to go out on their own we also work with coaches and therapists who's been at it for a while, you know, in some cases, years, and they haven't cracked the code of client attraction.

10:17So what we do is we build that business from the inside out. You know, we start from these really important questions. One, what is it you do? That's the first pillar. And in words that people understand, you know, not coachy kind of jargon, but what is it you actually do for people? What do they feel you do? Secondly, what kind of people then would benefit from that? So who are these people? And then thirdly, we help them to build their offer, their signature program. So it's three simple pillars, what, who, and how. How are you going to deliver what it is you do to those people? And with those pillars in place, the rest is detail, as in, you know, which social platforms could we use?

11:00Which bits of software might we need? You know, what kind of product stack are we going to build around that? But it's really, really important for anybody, you know, wanting to make a foothold in online therapy or coaching to just develop this signature program. You know, you guys have probably heard this many, many times. You know, one offer, one audience and just get on with it. And everything becomes simple with that kind of clarity. So, you know, I guess what we do, what we deliver is simplicity and clarity. try and bust through the marketing overwhelm that most people feel and say, look, you know what, it's simpler than you making it.

11:40Yeah. Johnny, you've got a group. I know that it's quite popular, a Facebook group, but to someone that's been listening to our conversation, let's maybe give them some, let's start by giving a couple of action items that require no connection whatsoever, You know, things that you would recommend that they start doing. Maybe it's, you know, kind of reviewing their language or their copy, whatever it is. And then let's give them maybe a couple of action items where maybe they could start connecting with you. Yeah, that's dead easy. Those first two pillars, you know, what it is they do and who they serve.

12:20Let's cover those with action items. So with the first thing, all bits of social where you appear, all your profiles and your groups and that kind of thing should be all about them and not about you. It pains me still after all these years of best practice and information out there online. So many people seem to just be setting up their social profiles as online CVs, you know, trained here, worked with this person, did this at this college, you know, went to school here. all that kind of thing nobody cares about any of that josh you know that's not what they want to see that's not going to draw your ideal clients towards you knowing that you went to some you know high school in chicago 27 years ago you know so it's got to be all about them and you know most social profiles allow you to put a simple headline in there that says you know this is who it's for and this is what it is.

13:15So start talking about them is the first thing. And then understanding literally who they are, who is your audience. It's been said so many times for so many people that I guess a lot of online practitioners are just weary of it and they see it as a cliche. But you know what, the niche, as you guys call it, or the niche as it's correctly pronounced in French, the niche is twofold isn't it it's the outcome niche what is it you actually do for people and the client niche you know who do you do it for and with so those are the those are the two action points just go away with a blank sheet of paper if you have to scribble down some ideas about what people get from working with you and you you know the the easy way to do this is looking your back that's all to see what what people have achieved when they've been working with you you You know, how have their lives been changed from before they met you as a practitioner to when they'd worked with you?

14:16You know, what did that journey look like? Write that down and then describe that in your socials because then other people like them will see that journey and go, yep, that's what I need. And then, you know, make some effort at least to define a client niche. You can be a little bit loose on that to start with. You can kind of narrow the niche as you go on. We call it inch wide and mile deep, this process. You can start on the surface and then find sub niches and sub niches of sub niches. If you just take a stab at it to start with, you know, just slice the global population down at least a little bit.

14:53Even if it's just, you know, I work with overworked women, middle-aged women or something like that. You've sliced the population in half at least. So those are the two deliverables, you know, work out what it is you do on the basis of the transformation. you've created already for people. And then decide what kind of people you're going to go after and who he's for. Awesome. Again, your website, johnnyhatesmarketing.com, J-O-N-N-Y, hatesmarketing.com. In the upper right-hand corner, there's a button that says join the Facebook group. It's free. There is. And what happens in the group? Well, in the group, we have daily conversations through a simple little question that we post first thing in the morning that gets the brain cells going, gets them thinking about their life and business.

15:43We also have regular live trainings. So on a Friday afternoon in the UK, that's 4pm UK, which is accessible to most Americans. It's 8am West Coast, that kind of thing. We do a training called Thank Flip It's Friday, where I flip a commonly held belief about marketing businesses uh turn it through 180 and you know state the truth as i see it which hopefully makes people's lives easier so that's quite a lively session it lasts about 45 minutes each friday and they're all strewn into the groups you've got to be in the group to to actually experience those so yeah just join the group it's where all the where all the fun uh starts basically Yeah.

16:30Awesome. All right. Johnny Cooper, aka Johnny Hates Marketing, your website, johnnyhatesmarketing.com. Johnny, it's been great having you. Thanks so much for joining us. It's been awesome, Josh. Thanks for inviting me.

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