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Hello my friends, happy week. Can’t believe I’m about to do quarter early planning again, quarter two planning with my team in the next few weeks. It’s insane. Oh my gosh. I can’t believe how fast this year is going, and I keep saying this, but I think one of the things I’ve learned as I’ve grown my company and built out a team of over, gosh, I think we’re, I think we’re at 25 people right now, 25 employees is how much you have to like future project. And I have a friend who, he is a vice president of a billion dollar company and it’s very corporate. So there’s a lot of things that I’m like, oh God, that sounds terrible. That is like very political and corporate. But he was telling me like, oh, we just we’re rolling out our five-year updated plan so that the company is like all on this five year plan, and we have to present it to the president, and the board, and all this stuff. And I’m like, that’s so crazy, but also cool how they are looking ahead that far. I can look ahead about a year, but five years, there’s, I don’t even know what I’ll be doing in five years. 

So as you grow you just have to look farther and farther ahead, because time goes so fast. A month is like no time in accomplishing things in a company, and I think as I became a more experienced entrepreneur, I realized and had to kind of come to terms with that part of me that was like, do it all today, tomorrow, everything has to be perfect next week. Like we got to do it now. I still have urgency, but also like realistic urgency and quality over the speed that you need to do as an entrepreneur. And so I don’t know if you guys feel like that, but I definitely have learned that, and going into this year I was able to see where we’re going all year, and there’s things that I’m like, yeah, next year maybe we’ll look at it, but definitely not this year. It’s cool to be able to plan that far ahead. Anyways, that is not what today’s podcast is about. 

Today’s podcast is about marketing a brand versus marketing a funnel. So I was inspired to do this just after I recently read a book a couple of months ago that I felt like, really, they promoted the idea that so many people in the internet marketing space have of all you have to do is have one funnel that you create, and you can just let it sit there and it’ll work and you don’t have to do anything. I should almost put marketing a business versus marketing a funnel because it’s the same. And this concept that I believe where you need to find this middle ground between the internet marketing world that believes it’s just one funnel, it’s easy, you get that up and everything will run and work perfect, and then the corporate real business side of things that have the holistic view of your entire business, and the processes, and the way you go about that from your delivery to having everything work altogether. And I think this like, “one funnel, marketing is so easy,” first of all, it definitely attracts a lot of people who don’t want to do work, but it also creates the wrong idea for people in what a funnel really is. 

So I want to walk through what I noted for what is different between marketing a brand and a business versus just marketing a funnel, and the mindset you have to have in creating that success of marketing a full brand, marketing your business as a whole. Which, to be clear, that’s what I’m promoting that you do and that you’re not all about narrow-minded with one funnel. Yes, you want to focus on one funnel, one customer journey and get that converting, but that doesn’t mean once you have that, you have a $10 million company and you don’t have to do any work. You need to create a system where everything is working together. 

And I can’t emphasize enough that if you have dreams to create a massively successful multi-million dollar company, let me tell you right now, there is zero parts to that that’s easy. There is nothing about that that’s going to be an overnight success, that’s going to be, you find the magic thing and strike gold and then you’re set for life. It literally doesn’t exist. And I felt like when I was reading this book a couple months ago, this specific entrepreneur I could tell, so they promote this idea and I think it’s damaged some of the internet marketing crowds, but I could also tell that their whole career, that’s what they did. They were searching for the magic bullet, like trying this thing, and buying email lists, and sending out this spammy email. 

So once I read that, it put together a lot of pieces for me of that promotion of that idea and how it came from that’s how they see their business. Which, this entrepreneur is actually very successful and I respect them. They’ve done more than I have in creating success, but I also think there’s some damage done in the actual content that’s put out there and what people then think is realistic marketing. So I’m promoting, and encouraging, and telling you the only way to creating a successful business is marketing the business as a whole, the brand as a whole, and not just this one funnel that’s my overnight success, once I get that working I never have to change anything. Even if you don’t believe it to that extreme, but you kind of believe it. I know I’m even guilty of sometimes being like, well, once we launch that one funnel, we’ll just have all the leads we need and all the applications we need. And it just doesn’t work like that. You have to create multiple avenues of, even if you’re focused, multiple avenues and ways of constantly bringing in business and growing your business. 

So when you’re marketing a business, here are the things that you’ll pay attention to that is more of a holistic mindset. The first is brand awareness and visibility. I believe everybody should prioritize creating quality, consistent content that’s pure purpose is to give value, provide value and grow your brand. And then I think you should spend 5% of your ad budget and actually promote that content so that new people see it. for me, it’s this podcast. Ideally you choose one method of content you do every single week. You put that 5% of your ad budget behind it, and you are consistent with that. Every successful company, pretty much,  I never say every, but pretty much every successful company does this and is consistent with this. And that allows you to build layers to then target to the next step of your funnel, or send to your offer. But this is something that you need to prioritize. You need to prioritize creating free quality content that you get in front of new people’s eyes. That is one of the best ways to grow your following, to grow an audience of true believers, of people who trust you, consume your content, and you’re purely providing them with value. 

The next thing that entrepreneurs will do when they are focused on marketing a business as a whole and a brand is really understand that lifetime value of their customer. Understand and track this and pay attention to this, because this allows you to make better informed and more mature decisions as a business owner if you know, first, the lifetime value of your customer, but then also the whole life cycle of your customer. How long, for example, do they sit on your email list until they become a buyer? Do you know that metric? If you know that metric, you’re able to make more informed decisions with your marketing and with your ad spend. The difference would be with one funnel, people are just focused on that immediate reward. Did they sign up for my webinar and do they buy right away within the first 24-48 hours? And if they didn’t, then this doesn’t work, I’m going to stop doing this. 

And that kind of mentality of I need that immediate reward, yes, you need some people who will buy immediately because you need to run a profitable business, a hundred percent. But also, do you understand that lifetime value? Is that customer coming back and buying more? Are they sitting on your email list for six months and then becoming a customer? And how are you going to cater your marketing strategy, and where you put your budget, and where are you put your time and attention based on that information? You might be a new business owner and you might not know this information yet, but it is something you need to be paying attention to because it will allow you to make those more mature, more educated decisions about your customer. And then when things happen, like COVID, or the elections, and ad costs get higher, you can justify continuing to run ads or changing up your strategy because you know that information. 

I can tell you, I’ve been around a lot of businesses who have been in business for 10 plus years, and one thing that I constantly see as a theme with them is they understand this long game. They understand this lifetime value of a customer. They understand the value of getting an email lead and then nurturing that email lead. And they understand that even if somebody doesn’t buy right away, when they sign up for their webinar, or they join their email list, or they land on their website, they understand that they have strategies they are constantly building out and improving and adding upon to get that person to make a decision. So understanding that lifetime value, understanding that long game mentality will help you make those decisions and also see your marketing in a different picture. If you’re so narrow-minded that all you can see is what’s the immediate thing happening, you will lose out on a lot of other potential. 

Which kind of brings me to my next point. Marketing a brand, marketing a business versus just a funnel, these entrepreneurs who are holistic with their approach have very extensive nurturing emails, follow up content, and ways of connecting with their audience. When someone joins your email list, you need to see that as the very beginning of a long journey, hopefully, that they have with you, and what do you want that experience to be once they join your email list? How often are they going to hear from you? How are you going to nurture that and build upon any stories about your company, or ways you can serve them, or other resources you can send them and really see it as building that relationship, see it as like the first date, right? 

When they sign up for that webinar, when they first come in contact with your brand, they will make a decision relatively fast about do they want to keep listening to you or not. If you did well enough with your brand awareness and your visibility and that initial content, and they do keep listening to you, what is that experience going to be like for them? Are you going to have nurturing emails, and how are you going to be strategic with those? There’s a lot you can do there with building that in every touch point and way somebody could come in your email list, even up to 90 plus days of an experience for the. I’ve done previous podcasts and I also teach this to our students and clients, but that 90 day nurture sequence where if somebody comes into one of our funnels, we have a very intentional 90 day experience that they go through that nurtures, them that helps build credibility, provides more value, and allows me to really see that long game. Cause I reinvite them back to our application, to our offers because I know that a lot of people, 90%+ are not going to take me up on that offer the first time. But I’m not just about this one-sided initial reward and I see the long game, I see the long game of that lead. 

Also, somebody who is marketing a brand, marketing a business pays attention to regular content, regular emails, and you have to balance like, what is the bringing in new leads look like? What does that strategy look like? And is that consistent every single week? And then what are we doing with those new leads? How am I consistently showing up, delivering valuable content for them, connecting with them over email, over my organic social media content? How am I doing that? And consciously choose a strategy there. And if you’re listening to this going, oh my gosh, that’s so overwhelming, I can’t do all those things. This is why I talk about the focus, because this is all for just one offer and one business that has one main avenue for customers to go through. Don’t let it overwhelm you. 

Instead, I would encourage you to get excited because if you’re not doing all this, if you don’t have nurturing emails, and a fully fleshed out organic content, and brand awareness and visibility strategy, and regular emails you’re sending out to your list, don’t let it overwhelm you. Instead, just allow you to see that as potential opportunity. Opportunity to get more sales. Opportunity to connect with your audience deeper. Opportunity to bring those leads in who, if you’ve ever got them on your list you did one of the hardest steps, which is they initially trusted you and were attracted to your brand. And now you have potential, you have opportunity to sell even more of those leads. 

So marketing a business as a whole, it means having a complete, consistent strategy for both getting new leads into a funnel, but also taking those leads and playing the long game. Even if that means they’re buying from you in one or two years from now. If you are a real business, that’s here for good, that’s here for the long game, you will have customers that buy from you in years. I have customers who have been following me for like four or five years become a client. And that is how you get the snowball effect of your business growing, because you’re consistent with the new leads, but then you’re also consistent with all of these existing leads, and showing up for them, and connecting with them, and building those relationships. And then that starts to pay off, and then you catch up on this snowball effect of growth that goes, and goes, and goes. 

And so those components that big picture, that long game, that complete holistic view of your strategy is how you market a business. That’s the difference between one funnel show success, narrow-minded all I have to do is get my webinar working, set it and forget it, go on vacation, whatever that mentality is that people promote, to I’m building a business that’s going to be here for years, if not decades, that’s going to build customers. That’s going to build a database of people that is a true, real brand. And that’s what I want for my clients, my students, my followers, is that mentality of building a brand that is going to stand out, be here for a long time, connect with their customers, and be more than just one funnel, be a real true business. So hopefully that was helpful today guys, I’ll talk to you next time.

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