Aug 24, 2021
Finally, Marketing Made Easy! From Branding to Social Media In Five Days with Elizabeth Pampalone
Whether starting a new business or spousing up an existing one, marketing should be one of the first pillars to get established. It's tempting to throw up something up with the best of intentions to come back and finish it up later. Don't put it off any longer Absolute Marketing systems will take care of all your needs in a week. Really!
About Elizabeth
Elizabeth helps clients achieve a unique, authentic brand that connects with their audience and customers on a practical and emotional level. Her unconventional approach has led to the successes of her many clients.
With client-focused ideas and business-friendly costs, it makes the partnership profitable for both her clients and their customers. With Absolute Marketing™ each pillar only takes one day to implement with Elizabeth’s easy-to-follow formulas. Many have praised her brainstorming sessions as “Gold Mines” for the non-marketer.
Elizabeth is also devoted to facilitating a perspective shift to aid clients through Business Clarity Coaching. Their dreams, fears, strengths, and achievements are brought out into the open to provide contextual clarity and a successful path forward.
www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com
Full Transcript Below
Finally, Marketing Made Easy! From Branding to Social Media In Five Days with Elizabeth Pampalone
Sun, 8/22 5:33PM • 52:26
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, day, marketing, business, brand, website, client, thought, elizabeth, months, solopreneurs, customers, ended, logo, social media, branding, person, years, started, knew
SPEAKERS
Elizabeth, Roy Barker
Roy Barker 00:07
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host Roy, of course, we are the podcast that brings you a wide variety of guests to talk about a diverse set of topics we want to help our solopreneurs entrepreneurs and small businesses be successful, maybe give you something new to think about. Or if you've got something that you'd like to work on, maybe present a professional that can help you out. So today is no different. We have a Elizabeth Pampalone with the She is an author, international speaker, successful entrepreneur and expert marketer. With over 20 years of experience, her innovative approach helps overwhelm business owners and burn out nonprofit non for nonprofit directors to achieve success and freedom throughout the power of absolute marketing. Elizabeth, welcome to the show.
Elizabeth 00:58
Thanks for having me,
Roy Barker 00:59
oh, had to snicker at the burnout. Because that's, you know, sometimes we all fall into that. It's like there's just never enough hours, never enough hours in a day to get the things done. We need to do much less the things that we want to do. So tell us, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get here? How do you find yourself in this marketing space?
Elizabeth 01:20
Well, I actually started about 15 years ago, as an entrepreneur, I graduated with a degree in programming was a software developer for about eight months, well, ended up getting married in the middle of all that. And then my husband left me after about three months of marriage. So I had to move back in with my parents, I lost everything that I had worked towards. And I couldn't hold my software job. It was too stressful for me. Yeah. So I ended up moving to Florida with my parents, which they were all moving right when all this happened, Oh, my gosh. So I moved to Florida. And I started a business because at that time, it was during the recession, and there weren't really that many jobs I was qualified to do. And the people that did have jobs, I mean, they were holding on to them. So no one was really moving around a lot. And so I just decided, you know what, I'm going to start something and I started a computer repair company. And then I started a training company for small businesses, my marketing agency, which I still have today. And I also had a networking company as well.
Roy Barker 02:22
Oh, my goodness, well, I mean, it's a sad, you had to go through that. But as you came through it, it sounds like you came through it on the other end. And I think that, you know, that kind of mirrors some things that may be going on in today's time, you know, with the COVID in the pandemic is a lot of people, maybe they didn't set out to be business owners, but now all of a sudden, you know, they had to be in business for themselves to just survive. And so then the next thing is, you know, when jobs open up, do we go back to work? Do we stay and try to grow this business? So I think that will be, you know, I think your you will be insightful into helping figure out how do we do that? How do we grow our business, and that, you know, part of it too, is we need to grow responsibly, because as we've talked about some previously is that, you know, we actually can outgrow ourselves, not having business is not the only is not the only way to go out of business. But sometimes, you know, I've seen instances of people that have had extremely nice growth, but they just couldn't handle it, customers got upset. And then there we go. So anyway, we just talked about that. But so what really attracted you to the marketing in?
Elizabeth 03:33
Well, I had always been kind of a creative and that way. And the reason I even got into web programming as a kid was I started with HTML at 14. Okay, so I was building websites, you know, on our computer locally, and trying to do little things for myself. And then I started working at 16, with some small business owners, and locally in my area, and my mom would drive me to their house and I'd work at their home office, I started to realize that I had this like bent for marketing as well, because I would go to help them with something, you know, menial type tasks, the filling bags, or creating filling orders or whatever. And then I would realize, well, there's no more efficient way to do this, and why aren't we marketing this this way? And why aren't we telling people about that. And so I started to share these ideas, and people started to kind of pick up those things up. And so I knew I had that in me. And I knew I would like to do that. And my mom was also an entrepreneur when I was growing up. So that was very much familiar with, you know, going to shows and selling and things like that. And so I liked that part of it. But when I was looking at actually going to college, I thought, well, what's gonna pay me the most money. And of course, programming was a little bit higher than a designer salary at that point. And so I thought, well, I'm gonna go with this skill. And I can always add the other skill later, right? I can always just pick that up as I go. And what ended up happening is, when I started my own business, I had to do all of it myself. I had to program the site. I had to design the site, the graphics, everything. So I really kind of learned on myself. And I developed a lot of formulas for myself that I ended up using in my agency about four years ago when I basically cleared my agency and just started completely over and started with absolute marketing, which is the system that I created, you know, back in the day for myself.
Roy Barker 05:20
Okay, great. So where are we, you know, things have changed a little bit, especially from the days of, you know, hard coding websites, some of us, you know, we use the WordPress to kind of, so we don't have to learn all of that. Still, it's helpful, but what are some things that you've seen that have changed? I know, the space, all spaces, they've just gotten so much more noisier? And I guess, you know, that's kind of the question I've been trying to get to the lot is, you know, what's making people stand out today. And then, of course, compounding that I think this last year for some people to stay home a lot, I feel like that that noise is probably just even gotten higher.
Elizabeth 06:02
It has, it really has, but one of the things that I do with our strategies, and this is something that I did for myself, for the first 1012 years of my agency in my businesses was I actually developed these formulas that cut through that, okay, and get to your right customer. And so with my customers, I'm actually doing a talk in a couple weeks, on how COVID has changed marketing. And my answer to that, and you know, I'll give you a sneak preview, it's going to be it hasn't, I think there are these core things that people were not really doing before, they were kind of ignoring, they're pushing to the side, because they weren't flashy enough or exciting enough. And they were trying to do all this stuff, which created all that noise. But really the people who continue to do real marketing, when I call real marketing, stable marketing, right, that those people are the ones who didn't have to change a thing, they actually were able to just keep going and actually grow even some in during, you know, during COVID. And during the end of last year. And it's funny, because some of my clients were a little upset that they didn't get the second round or the, you know, a PPP, because they had grown. They were like, well, man, you know, but in a way it was good, but also also in a way it was good or bad. But at the same time, so. So I think that's one of the things that I say that, you know, marketing really has not changed, because everything goes back to the psychology of why people buy things. And I think if you just look at that for whatever current age you're in, then you're going to have the right strategy, because it's about how do people buy things? Why do they buy things? And then how do I can, you know, not even convinced but persuade someone, that what I'm selling is better. And I think that a lot of that goes to your brand, and your message, and having a good landing space where people can actually land and sit. So you mentioned, you know, WordPress, no, you don't have to really know how to code to do a lot of these sites anymore. But what I find is that people who are inexperienced with websites, they'll get in, they'll build a website, then they'll do tons of social media marketing, they'll do tons of ads, they'll pay a ton of money on that social side of it. But their website is just killing them. It is falling so flat that when someone goes to that ad, they pay for that ad, you know, they're doing all these things that they're paying for. And then their client or their new customer comes to their website where the sale is actually happening. The sale doesn't happen on social media, but it's happening on the website, then it fails them. And then they wonder, Well, why isn't my social media working? No, it's probably because your website or your brand, even Yeah, even further back is not even working. So I think a lot of people kind of put the blame on the wrong party in some of those instances. And so we really have to look at, you know, the five pieces of marketing and really say, Where am I strong? And where am I weak? And I think having someone from the outside look at that doing some kind of audit, I do audits all the time. Okay, really is helpful to give you that real perspective of is my brand good? Is my website strong enough? Then? Is my social media working correctly? For me? Is my email marketing working correctly? And is my blogging, you know, actually ating and connecting all these pieces?
Roy Barker 09:11
Yeah, I don't think you can stress that audit enough. Because, you know, it's, I'll be I'll throw myself under the bus and say, you know, we get wrapped up in what we do, or what we know, that sometimes we don't see, you know, it's just we don't know what we don't know. And somebody may be like, hey, and a good example is, you know, used two years ago I did. I did these interviews on Skype, and then it got to be so difficult for us to connect that we it's been 30 minutes getting the connection then everybody's like, I'm worn out, I can't even do an interview. So quit doing um, just went audio for a while and then you know, with the resurgence of zoom. I never really thought about it. But you know, I had a guest on we were talking and he's like, you know, putting these episodes up on zoom. I'm like, that's something I just knew I didn't think about it. So that's the good thing about an audit that can walk you down some paths that you never really thought about, or that you maybe didn't realize how important that was.
Elizabeth 10:12
Yeah, absolutely. And I, I love to do these because you know, even when I speak, I'll do a website talk or branding talk. And I'll spend the last 30 minutes of the talk, pulling up websites and going through them and tearing their first page apart, because that's the thing that's going to help them it's not going to help them for me to say, Oh, your website's beautiful, good job. Okay, moving to the next one, like I am there to Gordon Ramsay it right? tear it apart, tell you all the things that are wrong, tell you the good, good, good pieces, the good bits, but also say, look, this is what this is why you're not gaining the traction. This is why you're not getting the sales or the calls, or whatever it is you're trying to attract there.
Roy Barker 10:51
Yeah, and we could probably even take a step further back removed from that and talk about branding for just a minute because it's important to, to really think that through and I know we can change on the dime, you know, anybody can throw any logo up at any time. But I always feel like, personally, it's good to give that some thought prior to your launch. It's just for the consistency factor. But I'll get your opinion on that. And then also really sitting down and thinking about, you know, because I've heard a lot of different sayings your brand is you know, what people think about you or say about you when you're not around. But you know, really thinking about who you are, what do you sell, and your product, your service. Given all these things, some thought and again, hiring an expert, I think like yourself, to walk us through this things that we need to think about Anyway, I'll let you comment on the branding aspect.
Elizabeth 11:42
Yeah, branding is the most important piece, I actually use it as the first day of my five day system. So we do branding, in a day website in a day, 12 months of social media in a day, 12 months of blogging in a day and 12 months of email marketing in a day. So we've got all that stuff to do. But I'm like, No, no, we're spending an entire day just on. Yeah, yeah, because it's that important it
Roy Barker 12:04
- And it's like, you know, coming up talking to a gentleman the other day about logos and how they, you know, can actually invoke thought, and he had a really cool one that you could look at a few different ways. So you know, coming up with clever, I think it just makes people remember you. And then of course, you know, the iconic brands that we know, today, you know, their logo really precedes them.
Elizabeth 12:30
And branding is, you know, logos of that. So I think the brand is a multifaceted right item, or asset. And your logo is just that visual representation of your brand. And I like the idea that that will provoke thinking mode. And when I see a certain color on a logo, when I see a certain font, I'm going to feel a certain way about a brand, regardless of what I know about them. If I know anything different about them, it doesn't matter, right? I'm gonna feel this way. And so you know, if I look at there's a brand, here locally, I'm not sure if it's national or not. But it's 511 tactical or something like that. And they're I mean, it's it's the tag word tacticals in the name, so that's one thing, but their colors are orange and black. And the the font is very heavy and bold, almost like what you'd see on you know, on like a typewriter type of font, and it's just really heavy, really thick and very bright. And it reminds me and when you say tactical, I'm thinking okay, guns, and you know, hunting equipment and things like that. And it that's what they sell. And that's great. But at the same time I get this sense of, you know, this masculine sense from that brand in general. Like she right like the orange and the, you know, the big numbers and everything. And so then when you look at something like la petite Paris cafe, you know, and their font is scripty. And it's light blue, and everything looks very feminine. There's a chandelier is their logo, like it's very, it's what you would think Paris cafe would look like. And and it gives you that feeling. And you almost hear the music in your head, right? Like it's all there, you can smell the croissants like so even the name itself, the words evoke some kind of emotion or some kind of memory, but also the colors and that feeling of it. Now, if the opposite parents had their font in orange, and it was bold and typewriter looking. And I wouldn't think the same thing about that. I wouldn't have that feeling initially. Yeah. And so I feel like that that branding, and especially the visual representation of that is really important to get that right. And I see so many brands, I'll actually turn away companies that do not have it right yet. I'll say either work with me and we'll get it right or you need to go away and fix it and make it right before we can move forward because your website is then built on that your your social media is built on that. And when you have that message that goes with the visual representation, you know who you are, what you do, and who you're sharing it with. If you have All those pieces, that is just like a magic combination so that when you go to do that website, that's easy like that just pops right off the page. You don't have to think about it. When you go to share stuff on social, you're not wondering, what do I share? When do I share it? You just know because it all comes from that brand.
Roy Barker 15:15
Yeah, no. And you're right about the different colors, the font just, sometimes that messaging, it just gives you a feel. And people like to do business with people they feel comfortable with people they like. And so even if you were in the market, if you felt it was just too in your face and too masculine, it may actually steer you to go somewhere else. So that's something else you brought up, though, too. That's interesting is the name of the business. And and the reason I bring that up is because a lot of times professional solopreneurs, they just work under their own name, which it's not, I guess, in my opinion, it's not a problem. But I think that we have to think about the end game is that if we ever want to sell that business, if we ever want to, you know, might maybe even step back and have somebody kind of be the front, it's what I have personally ran into, I will just say this is a personal opinion that people wait, if you're going under Elizabeth, people want to speak to Elizabeth, because that's the name of your business. And if I have to speak with Amy, or Joanne or anybody else, I'm not speaking to Elizabeth to the business purse, so speak to the name. And then you know, kind of that working under somebody's personal name versus developing the an actual name for a company?
Elizabeth 16:35
Well, I had many names in the beginning of my, I could not sell on one. And I actually ended up working with a brand or myself because I was that scattered on my own business. Yeah. And this was for my computer repair company. So this wasn't even this before I even kind of started my agency. And I had, I had just struggled so much I was I was eh technologies. I was I mean, I just had all these weird names, ie three technologies, I was all these things. And then when I worked with a brander, she really asked me a lot of questions which I asked my clients today I've incorporated a lot of those things into my system that provoked me to to actually think about my brand in a personal and a business way. So it wasn't that I was gonna use my name, particularly, but I wanted to be enough of me in it because I was the face. I was the only one out there. And then what ended up happening was a good thing. Because I named my company, the jacks computer chick. She said, you know, you knew this one thing she just instilled in me initially was you have to say who you are, what you do. And for me, it was a regional thing. So I really could only go so far in a day. So I had to say I'm in Jacksonville. It wasn't something I could really do remotely. And so Jax I had to be in there, or the Jacksonville name. I was the computer person and a lot of my clients called me that computer girl. And so I thought, okay, we're just gonna check because it sounds different. Nobody else has that name. And there was actually another company in town called the Jack's computer guys. Okay, so I had to differentiate right had to be other the other one. And when I started that company, I didn't think it would be anything but being I didn't think it was going to go anything beyond that. I ended up getting remarried. And my husband ended up coming to work for me after we were married for two years. So this was our only business our only income. And because he did that, and he said he worked for the chick. That's the day I worked for the chip. I was like this fun little thing. And everyone knew he was my husband. And they were more comfortable because he was kind of a part of me, in a way an extension of me. Yeah. And then we ended up and hiring another woman technician as well. And then also another male technician. So we we had all these people and they just worked for the company name it was Jack's computer chip. That's, that's who they work for. And so it didn't really matter who was in it or not. But that was the name of the company. And it worked out really well because we ended up selling the company to one of our employees. But then when I branded my agency, I was just Elizabeth pampelonne. For the longest time just it was the Elizabeth pampelonne you just go to my website, everything was there. And what I found was that I knew I wanted to bring in more people. Eventually I knew I wanted it to move, you know, move and grow and all that kind of stuff. And I was not there yet with the name. I still couldn't figure that out again. I was what for yourself. It's a lot harder, right? And so I worked with a coach, and she was helping me with speaking engagements actually. And when I started working with her, she started to draw out of me this this offer that I had these five days that I had that I was doing, I just hadn't put it all together. And that's what you see today is as absolute marketing. And that's when four years ago, I just was like, You know what, I just need to do this. This is the only thing that really is the most impactful thing that I'm doing. It's the most helpful thing and it's also the most exciting and One thing that I get to do, yeah, so that's when absolute marketing was born. Because I want this system to be like, the only thing you need, it's the absolute thing, right. And so using that word, you know, going through that process that I use with my first branding person I worked with, going through that same process again, for myself, on my own, and finding that word absolute was very important for me, the word marketing can be thrown to anything, right, you can attach it to anything, almost. But I knew it, no need to say marketing, but it had to have something else to it. And so using that specific word was important. And that's built an entire, I would say, little Empire, if you will, of products and all kinds of stuff. But starting with that brand, is what got me to this place where we have a membership, we have products, we have services, we have coaching, we have all these things, speaking engagements. But if I hadn't started with that brand, I would not have all these other things that were able to easily flow out of it and become successful.
Roy Barker 21:02
Yeah, that is awesome. Because it is such a nice umbrella that you can put a lot of things under it and still stay true to you know, your mission. And I think you also brought up something else is that collaborative pieces. It's invaluable, especially when you're brainstorming, things like names are that creative for me, I'm not, I'm the non creative guys. So you know, numbers in a spreadsheet, I'm all good with that. But when we start talking about this creative stuff, it's like, it's nice to sit down and bounce that off of people. Because you know, sometimes we can be too close, if it's our own, and just having that output from somebody outside the organization. very beneficial.
Elizabeth 21:42
I always say even coaches need coaches, even branders need branders.
Roy Barker 21:47
Exactly. Let's talk about something else that you talked about for just a minute. As you know, our customer, I think it's important to at some point, you know, sometimes we start out, maybe side hustle doing this, and that, but when we want to get serious, and we want to really focus, talk about building our, you know, consumer avatar, or our consumer model for just a minute, because I think it's important to, you know, before we can really build a website and put words on it before we can reach out on social media, we really need to know who are we trying to reach? And what is our message to them?
Elizabeth 22:25
That's absolutely correct. And I that's why when I start with the brand, it's those three things, who are you? What do you do and who are you sharing it with. And if you have those three things down, the rest of it all comes actually really easily. And even though you might think those other things are hard, the website, social, whatever, it's actually a lot easier if you have a good a good brand. So now that you know you know who you are, you've got that name, you might even have done the logo, you're kind of putting all that together, that that message needs to go to someone. And I always look at what people are doing. And a lot of times no one, really then they'll say no one, but very few people will start a business, just to start a business of nothing, they have something they have no idea. start a business they go, I've never owned a restaurant, and I really don't like to eat out. But guess what, I'm going to start a restaurant, right? They're going to start a restaurant because people told them their food is amazing, they should definitely be selling this. And they've had this encouragement, but they've also had these customers, right? These free customers, even if that's the case, or someone's been starting a coaching, you know, job or you know, business, or they're starting, they're going to be a plumber, it doesn't matter what it is you're going into, you've had customers could be your mom could be your sister could be your friends, it doesn't matter because you've helped someone with something. And that's how you know you're good at it. And so once you've kind of decided what that is, and you know what the thing is you're actually going to be doing for people, then just look back at all those people you had as customers, who were your, you know, free customers, those initial people who told you you were good at something and say, okay, who are they? And why did it work so well with them? Was it because they were at a certain stage in life? Was it because they were male or female? Was it because you know, because if you're going to go into custom brazing ears, you don't want to be working with a lot of men probably it's not gonna be your man. Right? Right. So you're gonna go with that women population. So those kinds of things you have to know who were those customers that you've already worked with? You've already had success with, even if it was just that they said, Oh my gosh, your food is amazing. Okay, those are people that like Asian food. There are people who like Thai. They're people who like Mexican, they're people who like Italian, whatever that thing is, even if your food is kind of off of those things are not you're not pigeon holing into one right. But they're all these people also liked, you know, Mexican food or all these people also liked Italian food. Then you're going to say okay, now I'm going to go after people who like Italian food, because the People find it really similar and they really like it or whatever the answer is. So you want to go after the people you've already actually worked with that has been successful, or people have told you, this is the thing you're good at, okay? And that's a really great way to start, then you can start to branch out from there. And as you get more and more customers, you'll find customers that you go, I don't want to work with them again, I want to work with a client like that again. And you can really say, was it a certain stage of life? Were they not ready? Did they not have the finances? Whatever was that case that made it difficult to work with that person? They should be at the bottom of the list of people you say yes to? Obviously, we all say yes to people, we shouldn't, because we need to at some points in our lives and our businesses, but at the same time, that should be at that low. And, okay, this is the low hanging fruit, if I really got to do it, I can, but is difficult, right? So then we pick that high, high performing person that we were like, these are my favorite people, I have to work with this person again.
Roy Barker 25:57
Yeah, and you just jot down, you mentioned, you know, basically, unfortunately, as professionals, sometimes we have to fire clients, and I think you bring up a good point is that you really have to think about that person you want to work with and evaluate them. Because sometimes they can be such a drain on your resources or your time or just your emotions, that it's like whatever they're paying, it's so not worth it. So, you know, give that some thought. And, you know, like you said, In the beginning, sometimes we can't be as picky as we would like. But at some point, it is a much better path to pick your customer and work with people that you really, really want to lead, the outcomes will be better, because, unfortunately, sometimes the people that are difficult to work with, they just seem like they hang around for way extended periods where you know, when the job ends, or when it should be over with, it's like, you're still dealing with that.
Elizabeth 26:54
Yeah, and that's one of the things I've actually had to learn how to do this year, which was not fun. But I had a five figure job that came along, it was, you know, on the heels of the pandemic, I'm thinking, Okay, this will be good, we can get ahead of ourselves a little and, you know, move forward. And it was a great opportunity. It was not the type of client I like to work with I they had a lot of issues that I don't usually deal with, I can deal with them very equipped to do it, but don't like to don't, it's not part of my wheelhouse anymore. And I told them, yes, I did a five day session with them. We only completed four days, because it ended up we were supposed to do one day on each thing, just like, you know, our system works, right, we ended up spending four days on their website, because it was not one that I typically take on. And they had very specific ideas that were not accomplishable the way that they had things set up. And I tried to explain that it was just one of those things where you're just like, Why don't do this to myself, and why did I do this to them? You know, just tell them no, and make it better for everybody. And so I ended up telling them at day four, I was like, you know what I have to leave? I can't even do day five, I'm gonna refund you, you know, the days that we didn't do, but I can't do it. Because I'm not helping you. Yeah, I can't in good conscience, take more of your money. After I've tried and tried and tried and tried. It's not going to be what you need it to be. Yeah. And so I gave them some instructions on like, try these things. Once you get to this point, we can revisit all this. And they're they're still not quite there yet. But they're getting there, that it was one of those things that was really hard for me to say, you know, and this is an ego thing to as an entrepreneur, you can't fix everyone. Exactly. You can't fix everything. And having you know, hindsight saying no, initially saying no upfront, would have been better. And I had a client come along a couple of weeks ago, another very large, you know, job, really great info, you know, just great stuff like just oh, this is going to be amazing. And I said no, because their brand wasn't right. And they didn't want to do the brand with us. And I said you've got to fix the brand, when you fix it come back. And they haven't come back yet. But I have hope for them. But at the same time, I didn't let them down or myself down because I knew the limitations of how far I willing to go in certain circumstances.
Roy Barker 29:15
Yeah, it's important that you mesh just like, you know, friends that you go out to eat with, you're gonna sit and you know, across the table and try to have a conversation for an hour. You don't want to go out with somebody that's confrontational or that, you know, it's going to be bad time. And so it's the same thing with picking our customers i think is, you know, they need to work with somebody that they like and trust as well as we do. Because especially in the marketing, it's like, you can tell me all the right stuff. If I don't take your word and I don't implement it, then I'm gonna say well, you know, that was a really bad experience because none of this stuff is working well. It's because it's not because of the information given it's because of the way it was carried out. So that there's a so much To wrap around that for sure. But you bring up a good point I wanted to talk about for just a minute, you know, you have systemized your approach. And you know, you tell us about the five day approach. But let's talk about the marketing aspect of a systemized approach. And also, you know, the ease of you explaining it to just let's just talk about the whole systemization for just a minute.
Elizabeth 30:25
Yeah, so when I was doing websites, and social media and all that stuff, I had my agency for a couple of years, and I was still running my computer repair company, everything was kind of rolling together. And then I just got to a point where I was burnout, I was doing these websites for 30 days, 60 days, three months. And I had clients who were coming to me their sites hadn't been done by other designers for a year. And but the problem was the clients, they were taking so long to get us everything that I would sit there for 30 days, I would call them and email them and let's meet and let's, you know, try to get them on board. And they were like, Oh, I'm so busy. Oh, I'm so busy. And then on day 29 to 30, my inbox would be flooded with their information, I would sit there and drop everything I was doing cancel all my appointments. And just work on that because I had only can only take two clients at a time. And I had two more clients coming in the next day to start the process all over again. And so this was my cycle for like about a year to two years. It was it was insane. I was going mental. And so I said, You know what, I'm going to sit down because I was basically building websites in a day I said, I'm starting, I'm starting over, I took everything off my website, and I put up a website in a day, other in a day products available upon request. And I put a flat rate, it's the is the one day you sit down with me, we do all this stuff in person back and forth one on one, you right I design. That's how to work. And we just put it together. And when you leave your website is done. And you don't have to talk to me again if you don't want to. And once I did that, I got my first client with that I took everything else off. No other stuff was on my website. I mean, that was it. Yeah. And the first client said, Oh, I need a brand too. And I was like, great, we can do that in a day. I'd never done that before. I was like, I'm sure I can make that work. And then she said I need social media also. And I was like, Great, let's do 12 months at a time. And she's like, sounds good. I'd never done those two things before. But I knew in my mind a plan of action. I was like, let's see if this works. And if it doesn't, I'll refund her some money or something. It was the most amazing three days I'd ever had a client was amazingly happy, I was amazingly happy. She is still my client. Today, we've done we've gone through this process several times since she signed on with me. And it's just been amazing. Like that was just the first thing I was like this is this is what I need to do. And so from then on, I started to develop What does every business need, they need a brand, they need a website, social media is a must in this day and age. Unfortunately, blogging is really helpful for SEO, let's just do that instead of worrying about all this SEO stuff that's almost nonsensical. And then let's just email market because that just gets to our direct customers, you know, much easier than social media. Right, right into their inbox. So and I've had a lot of success with email marketing as well. So I was like, Okay, these are the five things you need. And then I started to say, well, there's a few alternates. Some people need memberships, we do those in a day, some people need a podcast, we help develop those in a day. And so and then some people just need help with just everything, right? They're just a mess. They just need somebody to come in sort out their mess. And we call that our la carte de so really those five things are our pillars. But then there's those three alternatives for people who need that. And so it's a system, and it works for every single business that's tried it that I've worked with, and their businesses, I know it won't work for I turn them away, I say go to this person go to that person, they'll do much better job for you. Yeah, but the people that I know, it will work for products, services, coaches, doctors, lawyers, I mean, just tons of different different industries. They are the ones that they can then pick and choose who can say, Okay, do you need a membership? Let's replace that with this or whatnot. So it's a really great system. And it is kind of interchangeable pieces. kind of feel like it's like Lego blocks, you're building a something up for them. But But yeah, it's been a really great system to use for myself because I use it on myself first. And I know it works. And then to build it out for my clients as well.
Roy Barker 34:30
Yeah. And it makes it you know, I look at it from your perspective, it makes it easier because you have this defined list that you know, of expectations, but then also, it makes it easier to I think to market it to your prospects because they know exactly what they're getting. It's not an open you know, sometimes when you come to professional services, it's like, Hey, I'm gonna do your marketing for you. And you know, you think so, what does that actually mean is that just like I just pass you a blank check and you fill it in when he get done in your day. But this has, you know, you have the set expectation. And the other part I like about it is that set time limit that, you know, typically, especially if you work with smaller businesses, professionals, entrepreneurs, it's like, you know, they're busy with their thing during the day, this is usually a night thing or a weekend thing that they're trying to get you information. And, you know, you're so right. It's like, you know, Friday at 430 is like everybody's hitting the send button trying to get stuff off of their desk and off of their plate. And you know, you've been waiting for a week or two for this information. And now, you know, it just can mess your schedule up going forward. And so I think that's one thing I really love about this is that you cyst systematize, then I think there's a lot of other businesses that can really look at that model to help themself as well.
Elizabeth 35:51
I've seen a lot of companies, because they've come and done stuff with me, they've kind of adopted that in their own businesses in different ways. I have a photographer that I've worked with, and she does mini headshot day, and it's a one hour session, you get professional hair, makeup, it's a very much reduced rate. But she gets like five or 10 people in one day. And she's just like doing to do her makeup person is there all day, her hair person is there all day, she's there all day, she runs through everything, and you get two photos. For some people, that's plenty, they don't need anything else. But she takes more than that. So then you have the opportunity to buy more at the end of the session. So I think it's those kind of things where you can like systematize it get more people in at a time, or get that one big job done quicker or more efficiently by actually condensing it down. I'm a big believer in Parkinson's Law, which is that if you have an amount of time and you have a task, that task will fill the time that is given. So if you say I've got an hour, I can do the dishes and a little bit, it's gonna take you a whole hour to do those dishes, right, because you got a whole hour to fill. So the time will fill it, or the task will fill it. So you know, if we say we've got a month to do a website was gonna take us 30 days, it's gonna take us a day less. But if we say we have eight hours to build a website, we have to hustle, we have to make it happen, because that's how a lot of time but at the same time I've done this so much like, I know it's possible. Yeah. But you know, people do you see it as this is my time to get this done. And stop the procrastination, which is usually what people end up doing with those things.
Roy Barker 37:31
Right? Right. Yeah. And you can just sit down and go through that checklist and knock it out for them too, which is nice. Well, what is a tool that you use either a tool or a habit? What is something that you use in your daily life professional or personal, that really adds a lot of value?
Elizabeth 37:50
Well, personally, and professionally, when I read the book, profit first that changed my business and my personal life, okay? I was it was about four years ago, I was living paycheck to paycheck, I was making over six figures. And I was going, wait a minute, where's all this money going? And a lot of it was going back into the business about I think it was I calculated about 65% was going back into the business. And while we all know that, you know, it takes money to make money. Right, right. But at the same time, a lot of that was unnecessary. And once I read profit first and I started implementing that into my business finances, it made so much sense, it was so amazing, because it didn't matter. If you had a steady income or an in stable income, which is my was mostly unstable, right? Then it didn't matter. It always works. And so it took me about three months to kind of get into it and actually figure it out there was a little painful at first, but it took me three months to get to the targeted allocations he talks about and once I got there, I have not had to worry about taxes, I have not had to worry about paychecks, I've not had to worry about paying employees, all of the money I needed was always there, even if something unexpected came up, there was money there. And I've used that in my personal life as well. And those types, that type of system and that idea in my personal life. And that just it just changed everything for me to the point of reducing my stress to the level to a level that was I had not seen in years, probably a decade at that point. And also, it allowed me to be more creative in my business. So instead of worrying about the money so much and worrying about the client so much and being so focused on that piece of it because I felt like I was always behind. Now my business was not suffering creatively or intelligently, intuitively whatever, because I wasn't worried about those things. I knew they were taking care of I knew the money was coming in and I knew what I had to do to make it and I you know, everything just seemed to fit better. And so now in my business I wasn't that desperation person going yeah, buy from me, right? You know, I knew that next time or whenever the next person coming along, that would work. And I also knew that I needed x, y, z for the month or XYZ for the year, I had more clear goals rather than just going, I just got to make it this month, I can't worry about a goal. Yeah, I'm worried about this slump, you know, or this week. And so it really freed me up. And I can't even tell you how much that freed me up mentally. Because then once I started looking at my personal life, and my prayer and my business practice, on a different way, rather than through this, this money lens, because the money was kind of taken care of, in a way. Then I started to look at it in the sense of minimalism, tech minimalism, actual, like family minimalism. And then I started to declutter all of our stuff. I mean, I got rid of 50% of the things in our house. Yeah. And that even had a more of an impact on my mental capacity, ability, my mood, everything. And so even though these things aren't marketing related, they helped my business and in my personal life so much that, honestly, I don't know if my business would have survived COVID if I had not found those two things,
Roy Barker 41:10
well, that's awesome. I'll have to check that out. And because it's, you know, that strain, it doesn't matter what business but I think it's worse when you're in a creative business is that stress? And when you're worried about all that other stuff, for me personally, it's just hard for that creativeness to flow. I mean, we have to have that open mind. And you know, the other thing, just talk about for a minute, is that downsizing. You know, after the kids are grown and gone, you know, a couple years ago, we downsized tremendously, I mean, like very minimalistic, and it's been the most freeing thing, because I don't just have junk to worry about or stuff that needs to do, you know, we can focus on our business, what we enjoy doing, and then also have that free time. So definitely, there's the balance, you know, we talked about the work life balance, sometimes it can mean other things like, you know, if stuff is stressing us out in our personal life, then that definitely carries over into business and vice versa. So
Elizabeth 42:10
yeah, and I've heard this idea of the silent to do lists that the more things you have, the more they silently speak to you. Like, let's say there's this pen you really like. And you know, you need to get a new ink cartridge for it. And you go to pick it up every time. But oh, there's no ink in it. And then it tells you, you got to buy ink for me, you got to go to staples, you got it. Right. And so then you got this like silent to do list from this one item that is it worth you keeping this one item because then there's this other thing you have to do with it. And I'm the worst plant lady in the world. You know, a lot of people think that minimalism equals plant ism. And it was no. And so I actually go to IKEA, and I buy the fake plants. And I have them all around my house. And it looks great. It looks like I have a lot of plants. But I don't have to look at it every time and go, Oh, man, I gotta water that you know. Exactly. So it's just one of those things that once you find that that happy medium for yourself that but having less it does impact your business and your personal life, and does give you that extra free time, which does really, really help so that you can actually get things done like you know the laundry.
Roy Barker 43:17
Exactly. Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. I know we've hit on all the points, but tell us about absolute marketing. You know, tell us about your, you know, the, I guess there's now like seven or eight, we've got the five basics, and then a couple different add ons, but tell us about the modules that you have. And then also tell people you know, who is your target client to work with what you can do for them? And of course, how can they reach out get a hold of you?
Elizabeth 43:47
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. I love working with people who are at that overwhelmed point. They're like, I've tried to a social media, I always fall off the wagon. I start in January, I'm good for February, and then March, it's done. I've gotten more busier, I have things I'm doing. And then they don't market themselves. And then they find July, August, maybe even September, business starts to wane. They don't know why they're trying to scramble, then they feel like they're more busy scrambling, just to get people in the door. And so that is the person I'm the person who's just like I don't have time for it. I know I need to do it right though that combination is perfect for this system. And even if you have someone who's helping you in marketing in house, or even if you don't, those people can come along if they're if you're have them with you or if you have a helper you're using or VA or whatever. And if not we can knock this out with just two people on you know from our team. So you and one of our team members and that's it. That's the minimum amount we need. And that's a really fun day I go My team and I we fly to locations and visit We have offices all over the country and we'll visit them at our office in that location or they can come to Florida and have fun here in the sun. And so then come to our office and we have people do that all the time. So that's that's one option. But the five days is branding to get your your logo, your message your, you know, the person you're trying to reach. Who are you? What are you doing? Who are you sharing it with that name, get that name, right? All those pieces that go with that brand. And I even like to write an E book on day one, just because you know, why not throw that in. more to do, right, yeah. And then day two, we build the entire website. And when you leave the end of the day two, it's live, it's up, it's running, it's complete. And then day three, we build 12 months of social media posts. And this is designed written schedule, this is not a plan you have to implement, we literally get everything done in that one day, well, and then day four is blogging, design, write and schedule, 12 months of blog posts. And then day five is designed right and scheduled 12 months of email marketing campaigns that go with your email, or your blogs, and your social and your messaging from all the other days that we put together. So we definitely have a lot of work to do in those five days. But if you need a membership, we do those in a day, if you need, if you want to start a podcast, we actually get all that up and running in a day and do a couple of episodes. And then we also can do just an hour cart day where you're like I got a mess. Let's just bounce around and fix a lot of little things here and there. And that's a great day as well, because a lot of people can start with that day and then go, Okay, now I know I need these three days, let's knock those out. Because sometimes you don't even know where to start. If you have too much, too much overwhelm and too much of a mess, right? So. So those are my ideal clients, just people who are just stuck. They're just overwhelmed. They don't know how they're going to get it all done. This can really be that that helping hand and this gives you that 24 seven marketing wheel that's just running in the background for you. Yeah, it's done. You don't have to touch it for a whole year. Well, you add stuff to your marketing, of course you will, will you know, will things come up that you'll want to say of course, when my clients were going through COVID, they did not change their marketing that we did for them the previous you know, for the year, yeah, they left it, they added to it, because of course with social media, the more the merrier, right? But they added to it, but they didn't have to remove anything unless it was an event that was cancelled, those are like the only things we really had to remove. So it was great way to get them something out there that they during COVID they were working on, how do we get? How do we move forward? How do we pivot? How do we do all these things they didn't want to have to be worrying about and how do we put out social media? And how do we do emails right now, they all that was running for them. And even for myself, I was in the same boat with everybody else. And my marketing was running, my emails were running, I didn't have to worry about those so much unless it had to do with some event or something that got canceled. So that's a great way to start off even the middle of a year, you know, the second quarter, it doesn't matter, you can start anytime and go for an entire 12 month period. And they can visit my website is www.getabsolutemarketing.com. And you can find all the information there all the pricing you can have if you have questions, you can email me through there. And also you can book a call because I like to talk people through this. It's not something that's for everyone. But if it is for someone, I like to also know which days do they really need. Some people don't need all five. And that's cool too, because we can get more done on the other things. But then I also have two free things that I want share. One is the pro toolkit. And all the all the stuff I use every email marketing platform, I have one that I really love my social platforms, I have one of those that I really love a scheduler, that's great. All these different things that I use for my business, my invoicing, all the stuff that works together that just flows really well. And is also inexpensive, or on that more, you know, cheaper side or free side. Then I put all those tools into a toolkit. And you can get that for free at the top of my website. And then at the bottom of my website, you can actually join my membership where you have marketing questions you can ask them, I do trainings, there's guest experts, there's tons of videos, I do special offers to my members and so on. It's all free. So definitely have, you know, I'd love for people to check that out. And also just come say hi to me either in the membership or let's book a call and I'd love to talk with them.
Roy Barker 49:20
Alright, great. Yeah, that's a lot of great information. The other thing I don't want to you know, we could talk about this for a couple more hours. But I think that the nice thing is is that you're giving this people these tools to you know, for a year, the blogging the social media, because you know, what I see too with solopreneurs is that we get into this habit of I don't have anything to do today. So market market market. Now I need to fulfill so no market, no market, no market, and then when that's over, you know, so we get on this roller coaster and you know, at least having the Is this laid out for 12 months? It should really equalize everything out and just make it easier on everybody where it's not like, Okay, well, I told you this to do, you know, for the next couple of weeks and then trying to recreate that. So because marketing is, you know, well, we all hope we can send out a message, and then we just get flooded with consumers. But the reality is, it's a long term play, we have to stay after it, we have to be consistent in order for it to work as well as we want it to.
Elizabeth 50:30
Consistency is everything in marketing, and it takes seven to 10 different things that someone would see before they actually even just remember your name. Right, exactly. They have to know who you are. And they have to also, you know, I tell tell people this all the time that when someone goes on social media, and they go, Oh, Roy, I have to tell you about this thing I saw the other day. Let me see if I can find it. Yeah, we don't want him to say that about us, right? We want them to say, oh, Roy, Elizabeth posted this thing the other day, let me show you. Yeah, because they know exactly where it is. Because the branding on those things on social media on email, whatever was so strong, that they were able to connect it back to a person that they exactly knew who posted that thing, or sent that thing. So we want them to say that about us. But that only comes from consistency, using the same colors using the same fonts using the same tone of voice the same message day, day, day after day after day. So definitely consistency is huge. And this eliminates so much of that, which is why I use it for myself because yeah, I'm not that consistent of a person in that way. This is definitely helpful for me as well.
Roy Barker 51:36
All right, All right. y'all go out, reach out to Elizabeth, I know she can help you out, put her system to work for you. So thanks again for your time. It's been wonderful talking to you and hope I'll get you back on here and he can give us some updates and some more good information. All right, that's gonna do it for another episode of The Business of Business Podcast. Of course, I'm your host, Roy, we are on at you can find us at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. We're on all the major social media platforms, as well as the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify, if we're not a one that you listened to regularly reach out, I'd be glad to get aside and so until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.