episode 4
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to the Best Life Business Marketing Podcast. I am your host, Amy Lynn Denham. If you are not already familiar with me, I will let you know that I am an online marketer and I specialize in helping businesses find their right fit customers and clients and creating a magical space where they intersect to connect online and grow long lasting relationships that lead not only to sales.
But to repeat sales and loyal customer bases. All right, on with the podcast episode. First, I just want to say, wow, it has been a hot minute since I have done an episode. I had to take a step back from my business in order to focus on my health. Now that being said, I was still doing some work, but it came down to finding a way to make a good balance.
within my business. [00:01:00] And that's kind of what I want to talk to you guys about today, because I find that this is something that a lot of people struggle with in their businesses, especially if we're talking about, you know, like a side gig or something. A lot of people find that they just have a hard time keeping all of the balls in the air at once.
It's overwhelming. It can be frustrating and it can lead a lot of people to feel like they are failing. And so today I want to talk about tenacity. I want to talk about longevity. I want to talk about self care and I want to talk about prioritizing because that is probably the most important piece of this entire conversation.
Now, I'm not back into the full swing of things myself, so you're actually going to find that if you've listened to previous episodes, this one's going to feel a bit different. I'm not going to edit it like [00:02:00] crazy to make sure that it's quick and snappy. There's going to be like some pauses and some spaces where I'm trying to figure out what to say next or whatever, and there's going to be times where I trip over my own tongue because I have a tendency to do that.
Um, To take the extra time to edit the crap out of these episodes eats into my ability to do other things in my business. And so when I have plentiful time and I'm able to put out the best 100 percent level quality of something I can put out, I am about it. I'm going to be there a hundred percent for that.
But if I don't have that time, if I don't have that much self to give, it leads to a question of, okay, what do I want to do? Do I just not do the thing at all? Or do I do it as well as I can right now and just trust that that's good enough in the meantime? And right now I'm at a phase where I am trusting that it [00:03:00] is good enough, In the meantime, because I want to bring more content for you, but at the same time, I know that I'm still in a precarious juggling act, walking a very fine line between my health and my business.
And that's okay. And to be fair, there was like a month and a half here where I didn't even put out an episode, which is kind of hilarious when I really only put out three so far. So when you think about that, it's like, damn, where did she go? Right? Yeah. But I knew at that point I did need to focus on me.
I needed to make my health and my clients, my, my only two priorities. And that was all I had space for. I wasn't doing social. I wasn't doing my podcast. There was no newsletter going out. There were no blog posts that stuff just had to fall away to make space for my health. And that was able to give me some extra space.
to still do work for my clients who are [00:04:00] my number one. I got to say, maybe I guess I'm supposed to be my number one. They're my number two. But anyway, the point here is that sometimes we have seasons or transitions or whatever in our business where we need to change up the way that we prioritize things, where we need to change the way we approach things in order to keep going forward.
If we don't, then we run the risk of feeling like a failure, and you know, I can't do this, I'm not cut out for this, um, it's too much, I'll never get it all done, and it's a lot of the time the mentality that like, we have to do it a certain way, and if it's not done this certain way, it's not enough. Or we are not enough, or we're just incapable.
And this is especially true if we are comparing ourselves to some of the bigger names in whatever industry we're in. But these bigger names have worked [00:05:00] longer and harder, or came into it with more resources to begin with. They have teams. They have people like me that they're hiring to help with stuff.
They're not a one woman show. The way that a lot of us are. I assume if you're listening to this podcast you're probably mostly a one woman show or one man show or one person show, however you look at it. And if that is you, maybe you hire someone like me now and then, you know, or you bring in a copywriter.
Or whatever, but for the most part, you're juggling all the things. And if you compare yourself to someone who has a full time team of people working for them, you're going to find that you're always coming up short. So the first thing is that we really need to stop doing that. We have to stop comparing ourselves to other people, and start comparing ourselves to where we want to be, and then figure out how big is that gap actually.
Because if we [00:06:00] think of it like the gap's really small, but it's not, we're also not doing ourselves any favors. You know, if I'm like, Oh, I want to be a seven figure, you know, business owner and, and have summits and, and girls getaway weekends. And like, if I have all of these ideas and plans and stuff, and that's great, I can have those.
But if I'm thinking, I'm going to do that within the next 12 months. while still, you know, with not having extra cash to infuse, I don't have like an investor. Um, that's not really realistic, right? And so I'm always going to feel like, Oh my God, I'm not doing good enough. I'm, and, and I'm going to feel like I have no right to have an authority in my space, but that's just not true.
That is just not true.
So if you identify as someone who is running your business, mostly by yourself, if you are someone who is running your business [00:07:00] alongside having another job or, you know, raising small kids or being a caretaker to someone, et cetera, or someone with a chronic illness or disability, that's kind of slowing you down as well.
Then I want you to just take a second here and really listen to this episode. Maybe more than a second. I'm feeling like this one might be about a half an hour. I'm trying to keep them all 30 minutes or fewer. It's like, Hey, you're busy. Anyway, let's keep going. Let's talk about pacing. I really want to talk about pacing.
All right. So What pace are you trying to go at? Are you trying to go breakneck speed? Are you trying to go slow and steady wins the race? Or are you flexing that based on your current situation. Do you assess that on a regular basis in order to say, Hmm, how can I do this this time? That's what I'm trying to go for on my end of things.
I am like, I am going to check in with myself [00:08:00] at least once a week and be like, girl, where are you at? And if I am really overwhelmed, if I have huge client work, like just piling up on me, If I have health problems that are sneaking up, I'm going to be like, Whoa, okay. We are going back into slow and steady mode, you know?
But if I'm like, Hey, the sun is shining. I feel good. My health is on an upswing. I have a steady amount and pace of work that I can keep up with. I might be like, yeah, I'm going to start tackling something new and You know, add to my plate, which is something I'm great at, by the way. And I understand that for most business owners, adding to our plate, super easy to do.
Most of us are creative. We want to just see things grow and expand. And we can get ahead of ourselves in terms of like, what we want to see be a reality versus what we have time to do. So I fully [00:09:00] understand if you are faced with that. All I can really say there is do your best to rein that in, in those moments where you don't have that extra time.
Have a brain dump area inside of a Trello board or in a notebook or wherever. Just put all those amazing ideas down so you can come back when you do have that extra space and you do have that extra time and you do have that extra energy. Right now for me one of those extra extra things is the course that I'm building.
I am so stoked about this course I have been talking about it for months mostly to keep myself accountable. Like yes, I am making this it is happening The question is just when because at the end of the day it is a lot of freaking work to build out a course Especially something that's super in depth and is actually a rather large course.
Um, I'm going to need time to really build that properly. And if I come across a hiccup in [00:10:00] my health, Yeah, that's going to slow it down. Cause to be honest, it's one of the first things I'm dropping from my priority list. And I'm sitting here at my desk right now, and I'm looking at a teeny tiny little dollar store whiteboard that I put up on my wall.
And I literally just have my priorities Listed for every week top to bottom most important to least important the goal Obviously would be to get everything done. God, that would be gorgeous to just get them all done in a week It's never gonna happen especially since the last thing on my list is extra admin which literally is just A whole bunch of stuff that I thought about wanting to do, and that list will never ever be empty, so it's never gonna happen.
But I can look at this and it'll help me from getting sidetracked into doing things I shouldn't be, just because I love the idea of this course and just because I am [00:11:00] so excited to make it. And I know that so many of you have voiced wanting and needing this course. It makes me want to do it, right? But first I need to make sure, and I'm going to go through my list.
I need to make sure my client work is done for the week or at least scheduled and planned in a way that is manageable. Then I need to work on weekly content like this. And I'm sorry, above and beyond all of this, it is not on the board, is obviously my health, right? So that is paramount to everything. If I can only do one thing each week, it is to stay as healthy as possible.
Other than that, it's client work. And then after I know I have enough time, energy, and space for my client work that week, I can do weekly content like this or my blog post and I can put all that stuff into the third thing on my list, my newsletter and my social that is like my social media specific. [00:12:00] to my weekly content.
Once I know that I have managed all of those things, then I can start looking into other types of social media outreach, which to be honest, I've barely done any the past couple months because of how far down my list of priorities that really is. And that includes, you know, long term things with Pinterest through Tailwind and all of that.
Next priority is extra things I can add to my Facebook group because they are just the most amazing people and I want to be able to offer as much extra as I can for them. But it's not always possible. So my routine things are always running and then I pop in when I can with extra stuff after that is working on my course.
And after that, is extra admin work. That's a lot of stuff in a week for one person. And I, like I said, I'm not necessarily getting all of it done. [00:13:00] Lately, I have only managed number one client work. Now I'm slowly adding in my weekly content again. As I'm getting my health better under control. It's all about flexing like based on what you have happening.
And within that, I'm like putting out this podcast where I have not edited all of the mistakes I've made talking or gaps in time where I'm just kind of like crickets in the background. It just is what it is because that's the only way I'm able to get it out right now. So there's a level of, needing to embrace imperfection in order to just keep it going.
And that's okay too.
Every week when I decide what I'm going to talk about, or, well, okay, I do this way before the week actually begins, I have like a list of things I'm like, I want to talk about that! And to be honest, by the way, sometimes I have a random thought in between, I'm like, [00:14:00] nope, need to talk about this next week.
So my list is always shuffling. But either way, I am keeping notes of little teeny tiny descriptions of what I want to talk about, and then I just kind of ramble on from there. I'm a talker. It's kind of just natural for me. I have a lot to say and I have a ton of opinions. So that format works well with this podcast.
This week what I had written down was slow and steady wins the race. But whose race are you running? I wrote more, but I want to stop on that because it's true. We do need to remember to slow and steady everything. You know, we can pick up speed like I've been saying, right? When you have that extra oomph.
go for it, but slowly building out your business and building out your marketing, especially to find those real connections, right? So I'm going to come back to my home [00:15:00] marketing place that I live. Um, in that sense, it's, it's, you can find a fast sale. We can build out a, a contest or a different type of promotion really quickly and attach it to ads and get you a few really good quick sales.
And sometimes that's important. Sometimes you need that quick cash infusion, but for the most part, it is those long term relationships you're building with your customers and clients that actually matter. Those are the people that you. Those are the people who see a very similar product or service and choose yours.
instead. Maybe yours even costs more even though they're, like, very similar things and quality and all of that, but yours gets chosen because you've built a relationship, there is trust there, there is recognizability there, Um, and there's just this feeling of like, yeah, you're my people, like we [00:16:00] vibe and building that in your business is not going to happen quickly.
That's not going to happen through a quick sale or quick promotional campaign. Those things can draw people to you. Or if you've already built a great relationship, then you run a sale or a promotion. The people who already know, like, and trust you are like, yeah, I'm going to totally jump on that because that's a great deal.
And I already want your stuff, you know? So there is a place for quick marketing, but there's definitely a place for slow and steady. And that applies in that marketing part of your business, but it also applies just in building your business, right? And that's kind of what we've talked about so far, but now I want to ask you, whose race are you running?
And that's back to this idea of who are we comparing ourselves to? Who outlined how it has to be done? Are you [00:17:00] wanting to just plug and play someone else's strategies? Sure, that can be great, but maybe it's good to tweak things. specific to you, specific to your vision, specific to your lifestyle, specific to your goals, your health, your energy, your product, your service, whatever your uniqueness is here on a good side and an upside that might be frustrating for you.
Like my health can be for me, your race might not be the same as everyone else's. So as you're building out your slow and steady processes, To build your business if you build your marketing all of that Consider how you can make it specific to you and remember that if you're starting to feel like you're falling behind Like it's not good enough or anything like that that you might be in that space of comparison And you might be in that space of [00:18:00] inflexibility and where you're trying really hard to just do it one particular way, but maybe you just need to kind of shift.
For me, that is knowing the priorities, having my priorities on that whiteboard on my wall that I'm really staring at right now and knowing which ones I need to scratch off if I can't keep up. If I am too sick, if I mean we moved across the country, so in the summer sometimes we get guests who want to come and stay for a week or so.
And they stay in my office. I dismantle everything. We put a bed in here and it's great. That definitely impacts my workload. Fine. You know, how often do I get the chance to make those memories, especially since we moved so far away, I'm going to have to drop a few things. I was going to do that week.
That's fine. You know, my business is going to build a little slower. Okay. You know, but my life is fuller and that's a big piece [00:19:00] of this best life business marketing. In terms of building your business in general, obviously I talk more about creating marketing systems that work with this ebb and flow in your life, um, but overall to build a business that serves your best life is to know what is unique about your situation and to build something that works with it, not something that pushes back against it.
You'd be a nine to five. See if that was fine for you. You know, if you were the type of person who could just go in, punch a clock, do a thing, punch a clock, go home, then you probably wouldn't be trying to build your own business. You would just be doing that. You know, so whether it's because your life is unique challenges, or maybe you're just a creative who absolutely can't stand the idea of being confined into that world.
Why confine yourself further by trying to define the way you build your business by somebody else's [00:20:00] model. Build it your way. And when you're feeling like giving up and when you're feeling like this isn't working and when you're frustrated and when you're looking at how many months you've spent on your business or how much money or how much time or.
Whatever, and you're going, man, maybe I should just give up. This was the other note that I made in my, my description notes for this podcast was keep showing up. Even if you think no one is listening, even if you think no one is shopping, even if you think no one is looking and that might be like, Oh, it's easy for you to say it's not.
It's not. So I have this marketing thing that I do, and I'm, I'm doing well at this. This is my business that I have already built. It is established. It took me time. And trust me, it keeps getting dismantled a little bit every time I have a huge health flare up. So I've rebuilt it and rebuilt it. But at the same time, [00:21:00] I'm an artist and I am building out an art business on the side.
Very, very slowly. And I myself have those moments where I'm like, lots of people are saying, I love your stuff, but like, nobody's buying it, you guys. Um, and I start to feel all of those, Oh, maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe it's a waste of time. And then I remember how much I love it, you know? And so at the end of the day, even if all I get out of this is the pleasure of sitting in my studio and making something amazing to me, That's fine, you know, but I do believe I will get somewhere with it, but it is slow because I don't have massive resources and a ton of time to devote to it.
I'm running this business, right? And I'm taking care of my health. So it, I know that feeling, I know that feeling of like, ah, maybe they just, maybe it's not the right thing. And [00:22:00] to be fair, there are times where we should step back and assess our businesses. We should assess what it is we offer. We should assess our brand position.
We should assess our voice, the way that we connect with our ideal market, and the way that we then convert those leads into sales, et cetera. There are a lot of places where we could have a great thing and just be approaching it wrong. So I'm not saying keep doing the thing that's not working, but keep coming back, keep showing up and keep trying new things.
are watching. People will find you. It's just a matter of helping to bridge the gaps between you and those people. And this is where I also put in my description. Think about your favorite band, whoever that is, or artist or whatever. Think about those, those people. I'm going to go with a band here, just because the metaphor works better.
Uh, think about your [00:23:00] favorite band. and ask yourself what if they didn't keep showing up? Because I will tell you if you went around and you talk to most bands, and I'm not, not like, you know, boy bands built in a, you know, studio somewhere. It's like, yeah, we pick you. Um, An actual band. Um, You go go pull them if you know any go out and pull them and ask them, you know Like if you could do that, they're not going to be like, yeah We woke up when you were like, let's start a band and then like the next week we were just like famous, man That's not how this works, right?
They had to keep showing up. They had to keep doing shitty gigs They had to play for their parents and probably nobody else in the audience They They had to play at things where people maybe didn't even like them. They did opening acts. They did so much before anything actually came of what they were offering the world.
And if they had have gone, well, shit, I don't think anybody likes this. Nobody's listening. This [00:24:00] sucks. I'm not worth the time. I'm not worth the effort. They never would have succeeded, obviously, right? But they kept showing up. They believed in themselves. They kept trying whatever they needed to in order to get to where they wanted to go.
And then eventually they made it into your ear holes. And now you get the benefit of listening to that amazing thing they created. So think about that when you're starting to feel like, oh, you know, when you're starting to get down on yourself. Consider that. So if all I'm leaving you with is one thing today, I will leave you with slow and steady wins the race, but consider whose race you're running, build your business your way, but maintain flexibility because life is unpredictable and keep showing up.
Even if you think nobody is showing up with you, they will find you eventually.
All right, that is it for this [00:25:00] week. I am going to leave you with a couple things to think about because they might be helpful for you. Uh, this is the worst pitch in the history of marketing, but I don't care because we are doing this. We are showing up whether it's raw or not. I am showing up. Um, I have a couple of things that I want to bring to your attention.
One I have talked about before on this podcast, but the other is something that Some of you are going to want to jump on like now. Um, so first of all, I will bring to your attention my, uh, business brand marketing kit and the associated training. Um, so it is basically, I will give you a brand kit that you can fill out in order to have a very clear idea of your brand and your brand position, which is also something that you can hand to anybody you hire into your business.
Whether it's a marketer like me, um, or a copywriter, [00:26:00] anything, a social media person, you can hand this to them and they will have everything that they need to know in order to get started working without having to have a super long conversation with you first. In addition, I will also give you a workbook that helps you fill out that brand kit because you can grab a brand kit somewhere and it'll be like, here, you know, write your about me.
If you don't know how to write a good about me, that doesn't matter. Right? So I'm going to walk you through how to actually create this content, how to actually define a brand position, how to actually understand the uniqueness of your audience and find that super cool place where you guys crossover.
And I'm going to do that in the workbook. I'm going to do that in the brand kit. I'm going to do that in your inbox with videos, because I'm going to walk you through it and show you exactly how to use those things that I'm sending you. Uh, and it's free. Yep, it is [00:27:00] free. So you can grab it. I'm going to throw in the show notes.
Hopefully there's a place you can click the link. Cause I always forget how this works. Literally I do this, but I always forget how it works. I'm going to throw a link and you're going to click it and you're going to get this awesome stuff for free. We're going to connect in your inbox and I hope you're going to hit reply on some of those emails so I can get to know you.
In addition, I have something new that I'm offering that I want to introduce you to, and it is a custom marketing assessment. And if you have been listening to these, I think you already know my approach to marketing might be a tad bit different, but basically it is inbound marketing. meets relationship marketing.
So I will, for your custom marketing assessment, which is only 99, you get a, basically you get a one to one experience with me for under a hundred bucks, which I mean, you can't even get groceries for [00:28:00] under a hundred bucks anymore. I will go into your website. I will take a look at your email marketing. I will send you a freaking ton of questions and have conversations with you as well.
And I'll take a look at your long term marketing strategies. I will see how well they are functioning, where there are holes and give you personalized on improving them. And if you're sitting there going, but I don't think I have any long term marketing, that's fine too. I will look at your products and your services, your website, all of your socials, all them places, all that stuff, and give you personalized feedback and suggestions for how to create a long term marketing strategy.
And if you're like, what the hell is a long term marketing strategy? I got you. That is, it's an inbound marketing workflow. So that is people finding you. It's people searching something up or scrolling through Pinterest or being on social and finding you [00:29:00] organically, knowing that they like what you're offering, seeing that you have an opt in sort of thing to get onto your mailing list.
getting them on there, then nurturing them once they're there and helping them move toward the right purchase for them. On top of that, it is creating a website that is flawless and easy to use, a checkout experience that just wows people. It's using things like behavioral economics, website SEO, um, and affiliate marketing.
If you're doing that, I'll even check out your affiliate marketing. And what I will do is create a full length video report of all assessments and all suggestions and your suggested next steps. I will give you this in your inbox. Well, I'll probably give you a link to it because that would crunch your inbox.
I will give you a link to this and you will be able to devour it and see exactly what I'm seeing when I look at your marketing and [00:30:00] when I look at the future of your business. For under a hundred dollars, I will give you all of that personalized feedback from a marketing professional who is focused on building long term and lasting relationships.
with your customers and clients. Also, if you have a loyalty program, I will check that out too. You just let me know what you need me to look at. I am there because I want you to have this knowledge. If you're able to take it and and build from it and build your own business, your own marketing, all of that yourself.
I have done something great and I am happy with that. If you see the suggestions and you're like, Holy crap. I don't have time for that. And you want me to help you with those I'll build out custom quotes for you as well. But it's not necessary. This isn't a step toward another purchase. This is a standalone thing that I'm offering that is well below what it costs me to create it, to be [00:31:00] honest.
But I want to offer this to you because I know how freaking hard it is. I know how many people out there need this assistance and just can't freaking afford it. So I am offering these for 99 right now. I can't say this is going to last forever. I love to change things up and try new stuff, but for now, at the time this, this podcast is going out, you will be able to grab a link and it'll take you to my website where you can book a free consult call to start.
So you'll get to chat with me completely free. We'll take a look at what your goals are and make sure that this is the right thing for you. All right. That is everything. Get your brand kit, look into your custom marketing assessment, and grab all that stuff in the show notes. Stay cool. Stay calm. You got this.
Slow and steady wins the race. I'm out of here. Peace out. Have a great week. Oh, it's eclipse day. I'm recording this on eclipse day. So happy eclipse [00:32:00] everyone.
