It’s a veritable hodgepodge of marketing tips in this week's episode. From how to reach out to past clients, how to build momentum in your business, avoiding feast or famine cycles and what do CATs have to do with confidence. Listen in to find out. 

Drink of the week….Corona Sunrise 

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This year I faced something in my business I had never faced before,

a slowdown, and not just any slowdown, a slowdown so swift that it made me

nervous, it made me question some of the business decisions that I had made.

But it also gave me a lot of time to think about how I was communicating

with past and potential clients.

Welcome to episode 163 of This Shit Works, a podcast dedicated to all

things networking, relationship building, and business development.

I'm your host, Julie Brown, speaker, author, and networking coach.

And today I am joined by Elise Benin, who, in addition to being

the founder of marketingmentor.

com, is the author of seven books.

A national speaker and the new business coach for the Savannah

College of Art and Design to discuss money, business, and competence.

I met Elise through a very good friend of this podcast, Terry Trespicio.

In fact, we were all together in Nashville recently speaking at

the How Design Live conference.

After hearing Alyse speak, I began following her on LinkedIn and also via

her newsletter, and let me tell you, there is gold in her quick videos,

newsletter, and online courses.

You know, it's funny how sometimes it takes another person to succinctly put

into words what you need to hear in order to motivate yourself into action.

This is a true story.

I had a potential client that had gone cold.

And I was nervous that I had lost the project.

I wanted to reach back out, but I didn't quite know what to say.

So I watched one of Elise's quick videos on three strategies to get more

work from existing or dormant clients.

I picked one of the strategies and refined it for this particular

client and bada bing, bada boom, they responded and I closed the deal.

What was that strategy?

And how many more tidbits of information can we delve into?

Well, let's welcome Elise to the podcast and see where we end up.

Elise.

Hi, thanks for being here.

Thank you, Julie.

It's lovely to be here.

And I love that story.

Yeah, so I bet you're wondering, like, what strategy was that that I used?

Okay, so you had put out an email, um, or actually a video, a video

on LinkedIn, I believe, that I saw.

So, as I mentioned, I had this client that was not responding, and we'd talked

a lot about, um, this particular thing that we were going to do together.

So, I took a take on one of your emails.

Your email was...

You know, reach out to a cold client and say, are you still thinking about

creating that white paper on X, Y, and Z?

Except I changed it and I said, are you still thinking about creating

a program on networking for your company, employee resource group?

And then that worked like a charm.

So obviously if you put together these three strategies for reaching

out to cold, or past clients, people are having trouble doing

it, I was having trouble doing it.

So why do you think people are held back from reaching out to past

clients or, leads that have gone cold?

Okay.

Well, first I just want to give credit to the person who I got that one

from, and his name is Ed Gandia, and actually that whole video series, there

were three of them, and I just took, uh, language from three other people and

passed it along, so I just always want to give credit for those things, and

because it's a very common problem, right?

I mean, we all have various words that we say or that work or, um, you know,

the thing is timing is everything, right?

And so it kind of doesn't matter what you say.

That's why what you said worked, what you wrote worked.

It could have been any of the other three that probably would have worked also, but

people Get, find this roadblock, right?

That's your question.

What's the roadblock?

It's about ghosting.

People feel ghosted.

And I wanted to ask you, did you feel ghosted when you didn't

hear back from that prospect?

No, so I know, so I always teach people in networking and reaching out

to people that if you don't hear back from people, it's not usually about you.

So I try to re instill that, like it's not about me, it's not about me, these are

busy people with lots of things on their plate, so I was trying to remind myself.

That they were busy, but also give myself the permission to say, yes, they're busy.

But, you know, we are in the middle of a conversation about this potential,

um, event, this potential project together and giving myself permission

to be pleasantly persistent, I think is a good thing to say.

Yes.

I love the alliteration there also.

And yeah, I mean, it's all about timing.

It doesn't matter what you say and people are busy.

And the bottom line in my mind is that almost nothing is about you and that's.

Kind of the point is you have to make it about you if you want what you're

talking about what that conversation about To materialize because as you

say they're busy and they've got many things on their plate and the thing

you're talking about You don't know where it is on their list of priorities

But if it's important to you, you want to bring it up and keep reminding

them that you're interested, right?

often people forget That their interest in their enthusiasm, their

enthusiasm has a lot of value.

And if you bring your enthusiasm, that was the thing I love so much about your

approach is that your enthusiasm comes through in everything you say, and that

really does have value for people and it makes them want to do something with you.

But if the timing isn't right, they're not going to, and

they may not even respond if.

They just can't focus on it right then, and you can't take it personally.

Yeah, I think I've been in business long enough to have received enough emails

back that were, that said something to the effect of, I'm sorry this took so long.

I, you know, I had other things on my plate or whatever and,

And thank you for staying in touch.

thank you for staying in touch.

Thank you for, and I've gotten that exact thing.

Thank you for staying on top of this.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Um, so I'm part of your newsletter group and you sent out a newsletter,

I think it was last week or the week before, and it was all about momentum.

Yeah.

Momentum in your business.

And I know that I've felt that way, that like, You know, stuff is just coming

in and you're like, wow, everything's going really, really fast and going

after work can almost feel effortless because there's so many leads coming in.

But you said that momentum, like we have to create, create the momentum.

So an object in motion tends to stay in motion, but like we need

to pull it, push it into motion.

So how do you, when you work with people or when you're coaching people, tell them

how to build momentum in their business,

It really is about baby steps.

It's about consistency.

And it's about doing something every single day.

And so my advice through my newsletter, which I call quick tips from marketing

mentor is to do 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever you can, but make it small

so that you won't avoid doing it.

Oh, I don't have an hour to focus on my marketing, but do you have five minutes?

Because often five minutes.

Kind of turns into 10 30.

And that's where the momentum begins to build.

But the more you avoid it, the more you put it off, the more you give

into that procrastination or that voice in your head that says, Oh,

they don't want to hear from me.

If they wanted me, they would reach out to me.

No, that's not true.

And you have to counter all of these different things that are

happening basically in your head and focus on the reality of.

What you can do, right?

And I call these internal goals that we set for ourselves as

opposed to external goals.

So the internal goal is I'm going to work five minutes, 15 minutes on my business,

doing my marketing on LinkedIn, reaching out to people, whatever the thing is.

Every single day, as opposed to I'm going to get two clients by the end

of the month or the end of the year.

That is not anything you can control, but what you can control is what you will do.

And so I just try to focus always on the actions that you

can take within your control.

And then everything else is kind of a byproduct.

And so you're not focused on the result or the outcome.

You're focused on what you're doing.

And that's how you build momentum.

So, say somebody's starting out and they're like,

I really don't have any time.

And you just said, okay, what can you do in five minutes?

What do you suggest people start with?

Say, I'm new at this, I'm going to do five minutes a day, because

that's all I can, you know, stomach.

What do you suggest they do with that five minutes?

What is the highest and best use of those five minutes?

LinkedIn, I mean, LinkedIn is the place to be these days

for almost everybody, because that's where the market is.

And that's where you can do the three main tools that I recommend,

which I'll tell you what they are.

So strategic networking, which is going where your prospects and

clients and market your people, right where your people are.

And most people.

in business are on LinkedIn.

So that is the place to be.

The second tool is what I call high, high quality content marketing.

And on LinkedIn, you're creating content, whether you're passing

along other people's content or you're writing a post or you're

doing a poll or any kind of posting.

is a form of creating content and that increases your visibility in front of

your people who are there on LinkedIn.

And the third tool is targeted outreach where you hand pick the

people that you want to work with.

And build relationships with and you just reach out to them

and stay in touch with them.

And that's also something you can do on LinkedIn.

So to get started, I would just recommend start with the feed and just go through

the feed and observe what other people are doing, which things are getting

likes and activity and engagement, and then just start commenting and.

Jump into the conversation basically, which is networking and content

marketing and outreach all in one.

And you can, I think the key is consistency, and so even if you only

spend five minutes a day commenting, being consistent with those five minutes

a day, you'll start to work the algorithm.

The algorithm will start to recognize you and start, um, when you do

start creating your own content, if you do, which I hope you do.

It will push that content because you're seen as a good partner on the platform.

And as we said, timing is everything.

So if the people in your world on LinkedIn are in or near their moment of need.

At the moment that you happen to comment on something and they see it, that

by itself can turn into a prospect, which could convert into a client,

but only if the timing is right.

And only if you're doing something,

Yeah, I mean, and I think also, I'm not an expert on LinkedIn,

but the algorithm on LinkedIn is different than like Instagram, where

Instagram you're constantly posting.

LinkedIn doesn't like you to post more than once a day.

So that

Oh no, like twice a week is recommended, but

that's not commenting, right?

That's posting.

posting, right?

I mean, I think you should comment, you know, as much as

possible, but your own post.

So like, don't, don't freak about, oh, I, oh, I have to make all this

content because LinkedIn only wants, like you said, only wants you to

do it twice a day, twice a week.

I would do it more than that.

yeah.

Um, and I think, how do you convince people to have fun with their marketing?

I love my marketing.

I have, I, I think it's easy when you own your own company to like, have,

have free reign for your marketing.

But you're not going to do it if you're not having fun with it.

So how do you help people like find their voice and how, what

they're, how they would have fun in their, in their own marketing?

So I would say it's all about experimentation.

And this is where the baby steps come in again.

And I like to also say, use your business and your marketing as

a laboratory for your growth.

So that's personal growth as well as professional growth.

And so you want to experiment in this laboratory and try all different things.

So try commenting, try a question post, try reaching out to people.

I've got people who say, Oh no, cold calling.

I could never do that.

I would hate that.

But then they start to do it and find their voice and find also, like

there's this confidence that comes Through doing things, especially

things that you thought you wouldn't be good at and thought you couldn't do.

And the more you do it, the more you get this attitude of like, well, I

don't really care if people respond.

I'm just going to start reaching out there and getting more

and more irons in the fire.

And there is a momentum and a confidence that builds through

that activity more than anything.

And that's what is fun in my opinion.

But it's all about just experimenting to see what's fun for you and not going

with, like, your fantasies of what you may or may not think is fun, or what

your father did, or what your mother said, or what your best friend said.

Like, you gotta get rid of all of that.

Yeah, I mean, I love people who obviously listen to this podcast

probably out there following me on LinkedIn, but I love that my marketing

is sort of irreverent, like my videos and, you know, they're very much me.

Um, But I love when people say, I love your video.

Like, when people say, I love them, I look forward to them,

I love reading your newsletter.

So, like, make it as fun for you as it is for them.

Because, like, if it's fun for you, it's gonna be fun for them.

And I think the other point you've made there is bring

yourself into your marketing.

A lot of people leave themselves out of their marketing for some weird reason,

thinking I should be more like this or I should be more like that person, or it has

to be formal or it has to be professional.

No, be yourself.

You do want to attract the people who will be attracted to you as you are.

And you do want to repel the people who are not going to like, you know,

you're cursing, for example, if people don't like cursing, they're not going

to be a good, uh, companion for you.

Yeah, I think that is a lesson that you have to learn on your own, that

it is okay if people don't like you, because we want everybody to like us,

but the truth is, is I'd rather have the group of solid fans and followers that I

have that really love me versus everybody being like, eh, she's alright, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I started off the top of this podcast with a very honest.

thing that happened to me this year.

I switched my business model.

I changed from a consultancy into just professional speaking

and not just, but only totally professional speaking and workshops.

And it, it, it, it's taking me, um, some time to backfill the revenue from the

consulting that I, that I let go, um, and it was certainly a lesson learned,

um, and I'm still learning it because I'm still changing my business, it's

what I want to do, but you, you say that you can teach people through marketing,

uh, you know, how to build a business on their own terms, meaning avoiding.

Feast or family.

I think that happens a lot in business.

You're either too busy or you're not busy enough Um, so i'm

kind of asking for a friend.

Um, How can we do that?

Like how can we avoid these big swings in our businesses?

Yeah.

I mean, marketing is the answer.

So I'll explain what that means.

So first of all, um, feast or famine is big ups and downs, right?

You can avoid that definitely by just having lots of irons in the

fire and more people coming to you than you can say yes to, which means

you have to learn how to say no.

And that's a huge problem for a lot of people.

But again, you get used to it and you get good at it.

And you, you become also very generous because if you have more work than you

can handle, then you can either scale your business or you pass it along to

your colleagues, which means they're going to pass things along to you.

And it's just good for everyone.

But the thing I want to emphasize is that you're not ever going to avoid

the waves because being self employed when no one's sending you a paycheck

every single two weeks or a month means there are going to be ups and downs.

And I've had several clients actually lately who have weathered some

downs and it was very precarious.

For a couple of months, but they also have their marketing in place

and kept doing their marketing.

So they knew not to freak out.

Basically, they did not have to freak out when things got slow and they

didn't have that voice in the back of their head that said, Oh my God,

this is the beginning of the end

right

because that's what people, that's where people go

when things suddenly slow down.

And if you don't have any marketing in place and you don't know what to do, it's

too late basically to put it in place.

I mean, not too late cause you have to start somewhere, but if you keep

going and what that means also is that when you're really busy, you have to

carve out that regular five minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes a day, even if.

Someone is going to respond and say, Oh yeah, we need you.

And you're going to have to say, well, no, I'm sorry.

I'm not free until two months from now.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, I just, it's one of the hardest things about being a business

owner for me is that embracing the downtimes because I can work on

other things when I'm not crazy busy.

And then when I'm crazy busy reminding myself that this, this too shall

end, like I need to back, you know, backfill, even though I'm crazy busy.

I know one thing, you know, so I gave a keynote, um, uh, two days ago.

So we're talking on Thursday.

I gave a keynote on Tuesday and this particular group wanted me to focus a lot.

So I always, obviously only talk on networking, but they wanted me to focus

on the confidence behind networking.

And, and I thought about it, you know, there's a lot of different

ways confidence can play into things.

There's confidence in walking into a room full of people you don't know.

There's confidence in understanding what you do and being able to talk about it.

There's confidence in your ability to make friends or build relationships.

But you had something very curious to say about confidence.

You, you said confidence isn't what we need.

It, there's something else we need.

So, and I don't know what that is because I haven't asked this question of you yet.

So I'd love to know what you think we should have instead of confidence.

All right.

It's a brand new idea, so I haven't talked about it too much yet, but first

let me preface it by saying, I think there's more than one kind of confidence.

The confidence you're talking about, I think, and that most people

are talking about when they say I don't have the confidence to do X.

Number one, there's a, a fallacy there, which is that you need

something in order to do that thing.

I don't think you do, right?

That's why the three things that I'm going to tell you, which, uh, the acronym

is CAT, uh, is what you need instead.

But there's another kind of confidence.

So the kind of confidence you're talking about is rooted in experience.

And history, and practice, and competence.

And so if you're doing something new, or starting something new, you have

none of those things, and therefore, you must not have confidence.

Well, that makes no sense to me.

Like, you lose confidence every time you start something new?

No, I don't think so.

So there's another kind of confidence, um, that I think is rooted in

what I call enjoying surprises.

And that phrase, I'll credit my friend, Lauren, who gave it to me and his idea

was that if you trust yourself enough to enjoy surprises and not need to know

what's happening at every moment or what's coming or that you can control

it, then you have this confidence that says, well, I'll figure it out,

whatever happens, I'm just going to figure it out and it will be fine.

And that's the kind of confidence I think everybody could have at all times,

whether you are new at something or trying something for the first time, or you

forgot how to do it, or it's a brand new client that's freaking you out because

there's some personal baggage that you're not even sure what it is that causes you

to lose this thing called confidence.

If you just know, Oh, Whatever happens, it'll be fine.

I'm fine.

I'm smart.

I know, I know what to do, right?

And, and if I make a mistake, who cares?

You know, there will always be other opportunities.

So, two kinds of confidence.

That said, I don't think you need confidence.

All right?

I said that.

All right.

I love to contradict myself.

I think instead you need CAT.

And what CAT stands for is courage, autonomy, and trust,

Okay.

and they're kind of built into what I've just said.

So courage, instead of confidence, is not a fearlessness.

It's not like, I don't care what happens, or I don't need anyone.

It's more I'm just gonna try.

I'm afraid, yeah, I may miss up, but I have the courage

to do it anyway, basically.

That's courage.

Autonomy is this idea that's not independence.

It's the idea, so independence is, I don't need anyone.

I'm fine.

I'm self sufficient.

That's not really true.

It's not realistic.

We need everyone, so autonomy is, I don't need anyone.

Right?

I don't need that keynote to materialize.

I don't need that project to happen.

I need everyone.

I need all of my irons in the fire so that I know I've got enough out there

that something is going to materialize.

I just never know what.

Kind of like when you are, uh, planting a garden and, and I think you garden, right?

You have a

garden, so yes, come on with the gardening analogy.

So, you know, that you never know which of the seeds is actually

going to come up and which is not for whatever reason or why, but you

trust that you've planted all these seeds and something will come up.

So that's autonomy, right?

Trusting that something will come up and trust is there also as the

third piece of this puzzle, which is essentially trusting yourself.

I trust that I'll figure it out, whatever happens, trusting the

universe, that the universe will provide, something will happen that I

can work with, that I can deal with.

So I think if you have courage, autonomy, and trust, then you don't need confidence

because confidence is a byproduct of all of these other things that happen,

not a precursor to you doing something.

Yeah, I, so I, I was asked in the question and answer on Tuesday,

I was asked by a woman, she said, you clearly are very confident.

And I was a little taken aback by it because I don't view myself

as this uber confident person.

And I think I almost answered her remark in, in, in a kind of a same way.

And I said.

I said, I've been doing this for a long time, and I know it works, and I know what

I just told you will change your career.

That's why I'm up here, and that's why I'm so passionate about what I'm saying, and

if that looks like courage, I'm so happy that that looks like courage, but it comes

from repetition and, and knowing that what I say will make a difference, so.

and I often say that the people who appear most confident

Don't feel that way, certainly, don't see themselves that way, and are

often the most humble people, right?

They're not the arrogant people, they're the humble people, and they

don't need to be talking all the time, because they know they're just fine,

Yeah, yeah, um.

This was great.

I really, I like, we actually covered a lot of stuff here.

We covered reaching out to dormant clients.

We covered marketing momentum, we covered feast or famine,

and we covered confidence.

I don't exactly know what to title this podcast episode because it should

just be potpourri with Elise Benning.

I think that's what I'm going to call it.

Um, I want people to get onto your newsletter because like I said,

there are gold, there's gold in the newsletter, but also on your quick

little videos that you put on LinkedIn.

What is the best way for people to connect with you?

Yeah, just go to my website, which is marketing mentor.

com.

That's the hub for everything.

And there you can sign up for my quick tips and I offer a free download also for

something called the magic money formula.

So sign up for that and then you'll be kind of sent, uh, and

provided with everything else.

Perfect.

Okay.

I'll I you've said it and I will reiterate it in the show notes.

Um, and thanks so much for being here.

This was wonderful.

Thank you.

It was a lot of fun too.

See.

Courage autonomy and trust.

I like that acronym.

You know, and if I'm being a hundred percent truthful with

you, I have to tell you that I struggled through this interview.

A couple hours before, at least, and I hopped on the zoom to record.

I wasn't feeling well.

So I took a COVID test.

And there it was.

A positive result.

I couldn't believe it.

I avoided this for three and a half years.

I've never gotten it.

And now.

Boop headache, body aches, stuffy nose, complete difficulty

focusing just utter dog shit.

You can probably hear in my voice that it's a little off.

Well, what does this have to do with this popery of an episode?

Well, nothing.

I just wanted to be honest with you because I'm a little off my game.

But I really did enjoy my conversation and I love that Elise gave us permission

to just start small five minutes a day.

Just dip your toe in the marketing and outreach pool.

See what comes of it.

But, you know, be consistent with your five minutes a day.

Every day and see what the results are, build that momentum for yourself.

I bet they lead to bigger and better things than you can imagine.

You know, I have to be honest.

I can't.

I can't even think of a drink of the week right now.

Oh, my God.

I I'm, uh, I can't believe I'm like the thought of a

cocktail is like turning me off.

I haven't lost my taste, my sense of taste or anything like that.

I just don't have an appetite really.

Um, Today.

So like coming up with a cocktail.

Oh, I'll soldier through for you though.

Um, This is if I can come up with one, I mean, Honestly, years of

isolation and social distancing.

Sure.

Did.

Phil the internet with COVID inspired cocktail recipes, and I found a

bunch, but this particular one is a take on the tequila sunrise, which

is one of my favorite cocktails.

We actually talked about.

The tequila, sunrise and his origins in a previous episode, like way, way, way back.

Um, so this cocktail, this cut to the week is called the Corona sunrise.

And yeah, it's made right in a Corona bottle.

Here's what you're going to need.

One bottle of Corona beer, one ounce of tequila, one ounce or so of

orange juice, a splash of grunted.

Granted Dean and a lime wedge.

What you're going to do is you're going to drink or pour out the Corona down

to the top of the label of the Krone.

Actually, I don't even think there's a label it's like etched on that.

On the bottle.

And then once it's down there, add the tequila.

Add the orange juice halfway up the neck, and then add that splash of grenadine.

Then squeeze the line, you know, the lime wedge into the bottle and then plug it.

You know what to do, you know, plug it with your finger and flip it over once.

Remember this beer is carbonated.

Don't shake this shit.

Just flip it.

So flip it over, push that lime down in it and enjoy.

Sorry.

I'm not feeling good.

All right, friends.

That's all for this week.

If you liked what you heard today, please leave a review

and subscribe to the podcast.

Also, please remember to share this podcast to help

it reach a larger audience.

That would be really great if you did that.

If you want more chili brown, you can find my book.

This shit works on Amazon or Barnes and noble.

And you can find me on LinkedIn.

I Julie Brown BD, just let me know where you found me when you reach out.

I am Julie Brown underscore BD on the Instagram, or you can just pop on over

to my website, Julie Brown, bd.com until next week when I am, hopefully COVID free.