130- The Danger Of Listening To People Who Teach Marketing One Way

SHOW NOTES

How often have you taken the “best” advice from a business coach (or colleague or friend)… only to find out later, it was completely WRONG for you?

It happens to the best of us, honestly.

Because it *seems* simple to replicate what works for someone else. They’re proof that it works!

But.

There’s a real danger to following the advice of even the most successful business owners – especially if their business is different from yours (or they’re at a completely different level).

In this episode I’m taking you through a real life conversation about how to determine whether to take the advice… or not. We’ll cover:

The 3 factors to consider with *every* piece of advice you hear
Why “it worked for so-and-so” isn’t a fool-proof indicator of YOUR success
And a real life example of this conversation in action!

If you’re looking for custom strategy that will work for you + your business, head to HelpMyStrategy.com to apply to work with Team Hirsh. We ONLY take on clients who we know we can help (+we have a 90 percent retention rate!) – and we have something for both 6-figure earners + million-dollar businesses.

If you’re looking for a DIY course in what’s currently working with digital marketing + ads, sign up for our IGNITE course waitlist!

Key Points:

[3:10] Be careful about taking advice…

[4:29] Some teachers promote what worked for them 2 years ago – does that help you NOW?

[6:35] This happens a lot… we try to replicate what worked for someone else, even if they’re at a different level in business.

[7:21] Here’s a real life example from a recent event

[10:51] Don’t derail your whole strategy to try someone else’s – especially if yours works for you!

[12:47] The 3 factors to question when you learn anything new

[14:49] P.S. This is something we do really well for clients, because customization is a natural part of The Hirsh Process

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Episode Transcripts:

Emily Hirsh: I’m Emily Hirsh And This Is The Hirsh Marketing Underground Podcast. Attention innovators, influencers, creators and game changing entrepreneurs, your internet domination begins right here. We are the powerhouse marketers that you’ve been looking for. You’re already making waves in your industry and we’re here to help amplify those waves of change by creating a connection that cuts through the noise. We take everything you’ve built inside your zone of genius and find its audience. With killer strategy and laser eye for impact, we launch multimillion dollar campaigns and skyrocket your reach online. And now, we are doing the unheard of. We’re unveiling everything we’ve learned, taking you behind the scenes with the Hirsh Marketing team and giving away the secrets to our clients’ success. Stay tuned for top converting strategy, ROI reports, and insider knowledge that you won’t find anywhere else. You’re changing the world and we’re the team to help.

Emily Hirsh: Hello, everybody. I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving if you celebrate, if you are in the US. And if not, you probably got a little bit of a break if you work online and you’re like in Canada or overseas, because everybody else takes the day off. We actually stayed home for Thanksgiving this year and are going to California for Christmas. I was at an event in California a few weeks ago and made the decision that I’m going to cut way back on my travel and pretty much not be in any more masterminds, not attend any more events, and put all that time, energy, and money into my own company. It feels really good. I’m going to kind of be forced to do that come February next year, because I’m having a baby. But I was reflecting on this last year and how much I traveled and honestly it was like, “What am I looking for with this travel?”

Emily Hirsh: I think for me, it’s a break from my kids, so it seems very appealing to me sometimes to be able to go and I can easily justify like, “Oh, it’s a business trip. I have to go for two days.” But it’s just so powerful when I have weeks on weeks at home that I can focus and put that time into my business, because I am not really involved at all in our delivery or pretty much every department but marketing, which I’m trying to get out of, I’m not involved in. And so my time I get to put into very, very strategic things and I really am just relooking at it and valuing it in a different way. That’s my 2020 is very few events. If I’m speaking somewhere and it’s a very strategic speaking opportunity, I’ll definitely be going to that, but not attending events, because I don’t need more ideas.

Emily Hirsh: That’s honestly how I feel is I don’t need more ideas. I’m very focused. I know exactly what I need to do, I just need to work, and I just need to get it done, and I need to put time back into my own team and lead and support my team. I’m just insanely excited for 2020. We had an amazing last month in the company. So much growth and so many new projects completed and it’s just feeling so good with that focus.

Emily Hirsh: But today, what I want to dive in with you guys on is the danger of listening to people who are at different levels of business or even have different types of businesses or targeting different audiences. This is something that’s so important for you to keep in mind whenever you’re listening to ideas. And so kind of on that topic of events, or if you’re in a coaching program, or you bought a course, or somebody is giving you information, you always have to take it with where are they coming from with that information. Whoever’s teaching it, like this is never intentional, but something I see very often is they are at a certain level and their teaching strategies based on that level, and they’re teaching it to people who aren’t quite at that level. It’s like you have to be careful because there’s things that are going to work with it for a company or a coach who’s up multiple millions of dollars that are not going to work for somebody who’s just starting out or is even at just six figures.

Emily Hirsh: Because of the factors like they don’t have a following, they maybe don’t have messaging that’s been proven, or they don’t have the same audience that they’re targeting. Their offer price is different. All of these things are factors that you just have to consider when you’re getting information and you’re getting ideas. Because it’s really easy for someone to teach what worked for me and this is what worked for me. The other thing I see is people teach something that worked for them like two years ago, and it’s how they got their business to a certain level, and then they don’t adjust their teaching or they’re not really in the trenches anymore, and so then their teaching becomes old news or it doesn’t get updated because they’re not in the trenches. That’s one reason I’m really passionate about our Ignite course, to be honest.

Emily Hirsh: Like, I’m not just saying this to tell you guys about it. But I feel that we are able to deliver a different level of value than most courses out there because my agency team is in the trenches every single day doing the work, and so that feeds all of the Ignite content that we put in there and it constantly will stay updated with new strategies and things that we test. Whereas first of all, I could never do that on my own. A lot of these programs and coaches, it’s not their fault. Because I have an entire team, like an army, working in the trenches of Facebook and marketing digital marketing on 50 plus client accounts that we take all of that intel and put it into a course. There’s very few people who get to do that and so that’s why I wanted to creating Ignite in the first place because we have that advantage but also opportunity to serve people in that way that just really doesn’t exist out there.

Emily Hirsh: I think if you remove yourself, like let’s say you you did this for so long and then you just started kind of teaching people how to do it, and you remove yourself from the actual doing, you lose contact with that and it gets really hard for you to teach it. Then also as you move up levels in business, it’s very real that like things change. So what I need to do today compared to what I needed to do when I was at less than a million is completely different. And so if I would’ve listened to somebody at two or three million, and they were coaching, and telling me like what they’re doing, and how to copy them, and what to do, it wouldn’t have worked and it would have felt really frustrating. I see people like this happen a lot because they come into a program, or a mastermind, or they go to an event, they get information and of course we just want to go replicate that information.

Emily Hirsh: Like, wouldn’t that be the easiest thing ever if we could just go replicate that and it worked. It worked for us and it worked across the board, but it never works that way, and it’s becoming more and more true that it doesn’t work this way. It’s becoming more and more true how important it is that you customize your strategy, and you customize what you’re doing, and you make it work for your business, for your audience, for the product that you sell, and for the stage of business that you’re at. Whenever you hear advice, take that with a grain of salt. I’m going to give you guys an example. This is what happened at an event I was at a few months ago. I was on a table and there was somebody teaching marketing at the event. They were teaching a, I believe it was a opt-in PDF to a webinar on the thank you page, a short webinar on the thank you page, to application, call application. That’s what it was.

Emily Hirsh: They’re like, “We’re getting dollar leads for our webinar.” They were so excited, teaching this to the whole group. Obviously if someone gets up there and is like, “We’re getting dollar leads,” then everybody’s going to want to do it. Because I was sitting at a table where this woman was like, “Well, I’m paying like seven or eight dollar leads for my webinar. Maybe I should switch to this strategy, because I want dollar leads.” She was like, unless she had this conversation with me, she was going to go back home and she was going to change her whole entire strategy, make a new funnel, launch that new funnel, and try this because she wanted the dollar leads, which I don’t blame her. Of course she wants to dollar leads. The thing I said though was, “Hold up because a few things. First of all, the person up there teaching was targeting a very broad audience, it was big, it was more consumer-based and it was opportunity seeking consumer-based audience.”

Emily Hirsh: That’s a very one, like, there’s a lot of people there. Two, it’s opportunities seeking, so it’s very sexy. It’s easy to get people to download PDFs in that arena. And it’s broad. Okay? And so they’re getting, I mean, they didn’t actually show proof, but I believed them. They were getting dollar results. I mean, it’s not hard to get a dollar result for your PDF, but it doesn’t mean that every single one of those people is going to also watch your webinars, so the pricing difference is also arguable there. Second, this lady who was going to go change her strategy, she’s targeting gym owners. She said she’s paying seven to $10 for her webinar registration. It wasn’t a client of ours. She was just somebody sitting at my table. I didn’t know her. She’s like, “I’m going to change my whole strategy.”

Emily Hirsh: And I said, “Wait a second though, you’re targeting gym owners and these people who just taught that workshop are targeting a consumer opportunity seeking like very broad audience. Of course you’re paying more. Even if you go do this exact strategy, you’re still going to pay more because your audience is so much more niched and so much more targeted, which when it gets to the sale is not as bad as of a thing for you because you have an awesome product for gym owners. Like if you’re a gym owner and you get into your funnel, you will qualify and you can sell them. This other person, while they might get cheap leads, they’re going to have to really convince the person to buy as they move through the funnel. First of all, like you can’t go replicate this and expect it to work for your audience, so why would you change what’s working? Second, he’s talking about a PDF to a webinar. Like, the percentage of people who opt into that PDF who then go watch the webinar, who then apply is probably, I don’t know, 5% actually apply.”

Emily Hirsh: Maybe like 20 or 30% will watch it and then maybe 5% will apply? I’m guessing, but that’s what my average guess would be. He actually didn’t tell us, which he should have. But if you look at that cost of like, okay, well I’m getting $1.50 leads or dollar leads to my PDF, but only 30% of those people are actually watching my webinar, like it might be a little cheaper than $10. I cannot do that math on the fly right now. But it’s not accurate to say like you’re going to get dollar webinar leads. Right?

Emily Hirsh: This woman was paying directly for webinar leads and then 10% of them were applying for her application who watched her webinar. The overall cost wouldn’t have been that much more, because it’s just adding those steps. Yes, you’re getting cheaper email leads, but is your goal cheap email leads or is your goal to get applications? I talked her through that and then I said, “Is your funnel working right now? Is it profitable?” She said, “Yes.” And I said, “So why not just scale that?” She’s like, “Well, because like if I don’t have to pay $10 leads, I don’t want to pay $10 leads.” Totally agree with that, but do not derail your whole strategy for a new one when you have something working. This is the danger of people who are at a different level, or in a different industry, or selling something different than you and listening to them and then applying that exact thing to your business.

Emily Hirsh: It happens to the best of us, because it was a cool strategy that they taught and it sounded great to get dollar leads, but you have to question it whenever you hear it and go like, “Well, wait a second. Do they have a very similar business model to me? Are they selling a similar priced product? Are they targeting a similar industry or similar sized industry?” If they’re not, all of those variables are going to impact the actual results, and so you have to take that into consideration before you go blow up your business, put something new in place, and change your marketing strategy. I thought this was a great example because there’s so much content and noise out there in marketing where you’re listening to new strategies and the next best thing. And like, it’s great that people want to share, but you have to make sure it’s right for your business.

Emily Hirsh: The factors that you need to question are the audience, the product price point that you sell, and then the level of business that person’s at I also think matters because things that they’re doing at that level might not apply to you. If they’re launching this strategy and they’re saying like, “We’re emailing our list and we’re getting all these results,” and you’re a newer business owner who doesn’t have a massive list and doesn’t have a massive following, it’s not going to work for you. Or if you haven’t mastered your messaging or proven your product and you’re listening to somebody who has, it’s not going to work for you, and so you have to do what’s relevant for you at the stage of business that you’re in. And don’t feel like a failure if you try something that somebody at a different stage or with a different type of business did that worked for them and it didn’t work for you.

Emily Hirsh: That doesn’t mean marketing doesn’t work for you, or that your product doesn’t work, or your brand has an issue with it. It means you tried the wrong strategy for your business and that you have to really put yourself, and your business, and your audience, and who you’re targeting and create a strategy for them that feels good to you, and it doesn’t feel cookie cutter, and you question those things. I think I do really well with this because all my life I’ve questioned everything. I’m like, “Is that really true?” Or like, “Let me think if I can do it better.” Even in school. I think like I do that now. So somebody will tell me a great strategy and I don’t just say like, “Oh, that’s amazing. I’m going to go implement it.” I question like everything that could be wrong with it, basically.

Emily Hirsh: You don’t have to go to that level, but that is what I do naturally, and so I’m always like, “Wait a second, let’s back up. Let’s back up. Like, you gave me these details. What about all of this? What about the work you did before that?” And break it all down and then I usually find more there because people are good at highlighting the highlight reel, which is okay, but as a coacher or a course creator, you have to be careful with that. I’m very careful with that in our content. This is something that we do really well for clients is create that really not only customize marketing strategy but then as we get intel and data about what’s converting and what’s not converting, continue to customize it. Because if you’re like stuck on a template or stuck on this like cookie cutter molded strategy and you can’t move around and wiggle around there and it’s very boxed in exactly what you’re supposed to do, it’s going to be really painful and hard.

Emily Hirsh: So what we do is create that anti cookie cutter customized strategy in the beginning, but we continue to mold it based on intel and data that we get as we run ads. If you’re looking for something like that in your company, you can go to helpmystrategy.com to apply to work with our team. We only take on people that we know we can help. We’ve got over a 90% client retention rate. Super proud of that and we have an extensive application and screening process because we want to make sure we can help your business. We want to make sure you’re ready at the level that you’re at. Most of our clients are at six figures and above. We’ve got two packages, one for people kind of more in the six figure range and another for people in the million dollar plus range. Then we have the Ignite course.

Emily Hirsh: So, go to helpmystrategy.com if you’re interested in getting that, and if not, really think about that advice you’re getting, focus in on something that’s going to work for your business, and take everything that you hear out there and all of the marketing noise carefully. Like, consider your business because it’s not about templates or cookie cutter strategies. If it was, it would be so much easier, but it’s not. All right guys, I’ll see you next time.

Emily Hirsh: Thanks for listening to the Hirsh Marketing Underground Podcast. Go behind the scenes of multimillion dollar ad campaigns and strategies, dive deep into the Hirsh process, and listen to our most popular episodes over hirschmarketingunderground.com. If you loved this episode of the podcast, do me a favor and head over to iTunes to subscribe and leave a review so we can reach more people and change more lives with this content. That’s all for now and I’ll catch you next time.