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Now we’re going into a harder time. What does it mean? There’s a lot of uncertainty. I know, I struggle when I think too much about it, on what it means for my business and, and what I should be doing. And am I doing the right thing? And is there predictions I should be making that I’m not making? And that’s not a great place for us to be mentally because we can’t control anything. We can’t control what’s going to happen over the next several months, over the next year, over the next 2-3 years. But we do have control over our own actions over what we do when we get up every day and how we show up and what we implement in our business and staying grounded and focused on that. 

You’re listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers podcast, episode number 406.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. This is coming at you on not-a-normally scheduled podcast day, but that’s because I’m doing another series. And if you didn’t listen to my previous episode, which was a State of the Union kind of update for Hirsh Marketing, marketing in general, some of my thoughts and I shared how I went through like a 2-4 week period where I was feeling really burnt out on content ideas and inspiration. And I knew I wanted to do a podcast series, but I never force content. I never force it to come because it never turns out well. And so we weren’t going to do one. We weren’t going to do a podcast series. We actually didn’t do one in May and I was supposed to do it. And when I wasn’t going to do it. And then all of a sudden I was on a walk and this entire series came to me and it was like, this is what you need to talk about.

This is what people need. It was inspired by a couple of conversations that I’ve been having, which I shared on the previous podcast, just of people who are really struggling right now, who are feeling burnt out, who are feeling like they go two steps forward and three steps back in their business. And it’s just a heavy time right now. I feel like, as a business owner. And I want to talk about that and what this series is going to be all about is marketing in 2022 and really in 2023 too going into next year and the recession that we’re going in, all of the impacts that we are already in actually, correction on the recession and all the impacts that you know, it’s having in digital marketing right now. Increased ad costs, increased saturation, the loss of tracking, iOS updates, just people in general, changing the way that their behaviors, the content that they consume, the way they consume it, how they’re connecting with brands.

And I think there’s a lot of updates and changes that people need to make in their business that aren’t happening. And so the way I’m structuring this series is there’s going to be five rules to marketing in 2022, basically the rules that you need to live by and implement in your business and marketing in order to create that success and not just survive and get by. I mean, that should be the priority for a lot of us right now is, you know, we’re going into a harder time. What does it mean? There’s a lot of uncertainty. I

know I struggle when I think too much about it, on what it means for my business and, and what I should be doing. And am I doing the right thing? And is there predictions I should be making that I’m not making, and that’s not a great place for us to be like mentally because we can’t control anything.

We can’t control what’s going to happen over the next several months, over the next year, over the next two, three years, we have zero control over that, but we do have control over our own actions over what we do when we get up every day and how we show up and what we implement in our business and staying grounded and focused on that. And so I brought myself back to that in the last couple of weeks and especially the last several days. And, and I’m feeling re-ignition of inspiration around supporting businesses to create that success in their own business for their marketing. So I’m

going to focus on one rule each day of this series and let’s dive into today’s. So rule #1 of marketing in 2022 and marketing through this time period is to never forget the why. And this is so important.

This is a reminder I had to give myself the other day, because as I mentioned yesterday, and just kind of shared a little bit of, there are an overwhelming amount of entrepreneurs and business owners, feeling burnout, feeling burnt out from this kind of cycle of like three years ago, their business was doing really well, maybe two years ago. And then in the last couple of years, it’s either stayed the same plateaued or gone down. And just this constant cycle of like, like I said, three steps, two steps forward, three steps back, and how exhausting that can be. And I shared the other day that it’s just so exhausting to feel like you’re working so hard and then you’re losing at the end of the day and you’re still not getting where you want to be. And so I personally have been dealing with this and you know, I’m not like, oh, I fixed it, you know, in three days.

But I think that when you’re in this place, it’s very easy to get caught up in all the things that you should be doing, the bills you need to pay the investments. You need to make the leads. You need to generate the sales. You need to make the goals that you’re not meeting and somebody else’s, and you see this, you know, social media profile or you see somebody else’s business and it looks like they’re doing really well. And why aren’t you? And you’re frustrated about it. And you start doubting yourself, you start questioning. “Is this going to work for me? Can I be successful? What if I can’t pull this off? You know, maybe I had my, my time and, and it was successful. And I don’t know, I’m not good enough to turn this around.” You guys know all that, those thoughts. And I think that when we get into that place of burnout and overwhelm and frustration, that something isn’t working, walking through mud, you’re trying to push up against a wall.

That’s just not working. We forget about the why. We forget about why we’re even doing what we’re doing. Why did you even start your business? And do you, are you connected to that? Why, and then why do you want your marketing to be successful? Like, what does that mean for you as a business owner and what is that bigger impact you’re here to make? So I feel like we make this mistake where we get so caught up in the tactical components and the stress and the pressure and the failures that we feel like we might be having, that we lose track of the why in our business. And one thing I realized, and that came to me the other day was I needed to reconnect to the why, to what I love doing in my business to creating marketing strategies for businesses and clients and seeing them successful.

And back to those early days where I was like in it. And I was just fulfilling, starting with my passion and what I was naturally really good at. And the whole reason why I started to grow this company. And I think over time, especially for me personally, like as you grow a team and you start to have more logistical challenges and you spend most of your day dealing with those versus your why and the impact you’re here to make you lose sight of it, and you forget about it. And I think that is what leads to a lot of those exhausted feelings and those feelings of burnout. So moving through right now and the next several years, I think it’s really important that you reconnect with why you’re even doing this, because if you don’t have that why, and it can’t be money.

I fully, I don’t like it when people say like, well, I’m not in it for the money. You have a business to make money. Like, that’s, that’s the scorekeeping of a business, right? If you’re making money, if you’re making a profit, if you’re growing, if you’re increasing those numbers, you’re successful. So we’re fully in it to make money, but that can’t be the sole reason because if that’s the sole reason, then you’re disconnected from the impact and from your values and your principles that you want to show up with and serve your audience and your customers and people that you want to create relationships with and how you’re going to do it. Your why should guide those values and principles, which should guide what you do in your business. And so one of the things I am kind of calling out and, and predicting is that throughout this difficult time, it’s going to push out the business owners who have no true why and have no true, bigger impact that they’re here to make and are just in it for the money.

So, like I said, of course we’re all in it to make money. Like we start a business to make money, to have freedom, but also to make an impact. And so I want you guys to spend time today in between now and the next episode to really reconnect and just maybe do an exercise where you ride it or just go for a walk and think about it. Why are you waking up every day and showing up for your business? Like, what is that bigger picture? And it’s okay if some of that, why is so I can leave my nine to five job or so I can have more freedom and travel with my family and you can have multiple why’s. But then as you think about your ideal customer and your audience, why are you passionate and excited and ready to help that person, that ideal customer solve their problems and get results in their life, or make a difference?

Like, what is that? And, and what drove you to even get to where you are today. And then once you reflect on that, ask yourself, are you connected to that? Are you connected to that why when you show up on social media or you do a webinar, or you write an email? Or are you just doing it in a transactional way where you’re like, “gotta write the email so that I can get this email out so I can get a couple more applications or sales, and I gotta do five social posts and I gotta do this”. And that disconnects you from the why. And so I’ve found myself in the last several weeks, especially with my own marketing team, pausing a little bit and slowing down and saying, okay, you know, for example, this podcast series, it’s like, we had it on the calendar.

We’re going to do a podcast series this week. And it was actually for last week, but I didn’t have the content that I wanted to share. It just didn’t feel right for me. But I needed to pause and say, why are we doing this? What’s the purpose of this? And if we’re not clear on that, then we’re not going to do it because that is never going to work. And so I had to get clear on the impact I wanted the podcast series to have on the content I wanted to create, needed to create, felt called to create. And then I was ready for

that. But if you’re moving through your marketing and your business in general, very tactically where you’re just checking things off, because somebody said, you should, because you bought a course and they said, you should do it. Or you hired this coach or you saw somebody else do it.

It’s never going to work. So the first thing for you guys to do is reflect on what is your why. Why are you serving the customers that you are serving? Why are you creating the offer that you have? Why are you building the business you have, why do you wake up every morning and show up when it feels hard? What is that? Why connect to that? And then connect that into your content, into your marketing strategy. And the most important thing is that through this coming time, that we’re already in. It’s like the reality is we have been for the last year, there is pretty much not a single business owner that I have talked to who is not struggling or having to work harder to create success in so many different ways.

Business is more challenging. It’s more challenging to find support in a company and hire team members, ad costs have gone up, sales have gone down. It’s just more challenging. And that’s a fact, okay. So I don’t say it like, in this time, you need to be really scared. We’re already in the time we have to adapt. And, one of the most important things you can do following this rule of never forgetting the why is to focus on your impact. If you focus on serving your audience, serving the leads, who are coming into your world, these people, these humans coming into your world and you, and you bring back that connection and you focus on serving your customers in the best possible way you can. And if you make that your goal and you align actions and strategies and tactics all focused around that impact all focused on serving them and asking yourself how can I make their lives better?

How can I make their lives easier? How can I support them? How can I help them get results faster? If you focus on that, I promise you, your marketing results will improve. And the reason I know this is I’ve helped many businesses do this. I’ve had a lot of times where somebody comes into Market Like a Pro, they get on the monthly call with me where they get coaching and they are coming in and like, I gotta get this many leads. I gotta get this many sales here. Here’s what my strategy is. And they’re

all caught up in the tactics, which I totally understand. And I think it can be very overwhelming because there’s so much you need to do and cover with your marketing for it to feel successful. But the one thing that they’ve lost connection with is why they’re doing it and the impact they’re trying to have with all of those tactics and the strategies that they’re bringing to me.

And so oftentimes I slow things down and I focus on one thing and I get to the bottom of what is this going to do for your audience? What is this going to do for your customers? How is this going to change their life, improve their life, help them get a result, help them see success faster, take away pressure, take away pain, focus on that impact, and then amplifying that impact and your strategy’s going to automatically improve. So that’s the first rule. And for your exercise today, the first of five rules and for your exercise today, I want you guys to just spend, maybe it’s just five minutes, reflecting on this and asking yourself if kind of, all of the overwhelm of the tactical components of your marketing, of your business, of the last really stressful, couple of years of the feeling of overwhelm and exhaustion has taken away from your connection to your why and your impact.

And then how do you bring it back? How do you bring it back in your content? Maybe that means you say, you know what, I’m going to stop. You know, this marketing initiative that I’m just doing it. And I don’t know why I’m doing it. And it’s not an alignment with me. It’s somebody else’s template. It’s somebody else’s blueprint or idea. And it’s not me because if you separate yourself from that why and that impact everything you do is not going to be authentically you or aligned with your values, your company values your company principles, and it’s never going to work. I promise you, it’s never going to work. And so if you look at it and you say, okay, how do I create more connection to my why? To my impact? What comes to mind? Is it something you need to stop doing? Is it something you need to start doing?

Is it something you need to change the way you’re doing it, the way you’re showing up so that it’s connected to that. All right, you guys, tomorrow, I’ll be back with rule number 2. And I want to mention something that’s very important throughout the series. Not really connected to why we were doing this series, but we launched Market Like a Pro six months ago in January and have had tremendous results for our members. And we offer even a done for you funnel build for some people who come in and it’s just been incredible to see that impact, to see my initial vision of Market Like a Pro, which was to

support those businesses who couldn’t yet come to the agency, who couldn’t yet get the full done for you, but needed that entire marketing team in their back pocket. The messaging support, the copywriting support, the strategy, the ads, the organic content, and the paid content.

And we are officially on June 7th, which is next Tuesday, raising the price to Market Like a Pro. And so this is if, if you’ve been on the fence, if you had it in the back of your mind that you wanted to join, this is your chance to get in at that kind of founding member price that we launched with in January, because it’s going to be going up on June 7th. And I want to invite you guys, if you have thought about Market Like a Pro and you’re on the fence, but haven’t filled out an application for whatever reason, send me a message. Send me a message on Instagram. I’m personally reconnecting to my audience, to customers, to people on my list, people following me, because I think that I’ve worked on building so many processes and systems that it disconnected me a little bit, and I lost track of that.

And so if you want to have a quick conversation with me in the DMS and you’re on the fence and you haven’t filled it out, for whatever reason, you just need to talk to somebody. You just need to run something by send me a message. You can go to my Instagram @emilyhirsh,  send me a message. We can talk through it before you fill out the application. If you’ve been on the fence and you want to fill out an application, you can go to hirshmarketing.com/mlap. Get that application in before June 7th to lock in the founding member pricing before we raise it. All right, everybody, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Thanks for listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers Podcast. Each episode is brought to you from the trenches of Hirsh marketing, where our team of industry-leading copywriters, marketing strategists, ads, managers, graphic designers, and tech wizards use their unique genius to help our clients profit more and scale faster than they ever dreamed possible. Want to see what happens when we unleash our experts on your brand? Head over to helpmystrategy.com and apply for a free strategy audit with team

Hirsh. No matter where you are in your marketing journey, we have solutions to take you to the next level and beyond. So apply for your call today and discover what marketing magic we can create for you.

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