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Emily Hirsh:

If you go to launch something, if you launch a promotion or you launch a funnel and it doesn’t work, it has nothing to do with your value as a person. It is all about the formula. 

Emily Hirsh: 

You are listening to The Not for Lazy Marketers podcast, Episode Number 428.

Emily Hirsh:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. It’s now a regularly tuned episode for me. I had so much fun with that interview series and it was fun doing the outreach. I have other people who actually will be on the podcast as a result. They couldn’t be on the interview series, but they want to be on the podcast. So I have some more really exciting things coming for you guys soon. But I had so much fun bringing in different perspectives. I really haven’t done a lot of interviews on my podcast because number one, when I started, I personally don’t love interviews. They’re usually longer. It’s really hard to make sure they’re really valuable, because you can’t always control the content. So going into my podcast, I was like, it’s just going to be me, short, 20 minutes or less. But I really feel like, of course, like I don’t know everything and have my own limited experience.

Emily Hirsh:

And so it was really cool to bring people who most of them have done bigger and better things than I have. I learn from them myself and I value their expertise, their perspective, their opinions. And so it’s been fun to hear your guys’ feedback on that interview series. So for today’s episode, I actually had a different episode planned and then something happened today that I just feel like I need to bring on the podcast because it was really a powerful moment. I felt really honored to be in this group call for Cashapalooza where this question came up and this conversation came up and I was able to kind of help somebody through something. What happened was it was more of like the emotional side of fear of failure and success in their business and marketing in general and just the overall experience that can happen when you put a lot into something and it doesn’t work out how you want it to.

Emily Hirsh:

So I wanted to bring that here because what happened was somebody bravely and vulnerably shared in the Cashapalooza group about kind of their fear of launching something and it not working and how they were not launching because of that and kind of creating an excuse, not to launch. And then what happened was in that whole conversation, a lot of other people, pretty much everybody else on the call was like, “Oh my gosh, I feel like that, too, and thank you for sharing and you know, it’s so scary.” And so I want to talk about that. So I’m backing up a little bit. Cashapalooza is the 30 day program I launched where people are actually within 30 days creating or changing an existing offer, creating a new one or changing an existing one and then launching it to their warm traffic, to their existing audience, email list, social media following, no matter how big it is, like launching it to what they’ve already worked to build in their business, to create a cash infusion in their business.

Emily Hirsh:

What’s happening is it’s not only creating a cash infusion for people, but it’s also creating an opportunity to learn if their offer is going to work for future marketing. And so we’re at the point in the program where a lot of people are starting to launch. So everybody has worked so hard in the program, creating this offer, working through the offer positioning, working through the strategy for their launch. And now they’re at the point where they have to finish creating all the promotional materials, emails, posts to their list on social media all the different things to actually promote it. And what’s happening is people are kind of delaying. And, of course it is a lot of work. It’s a hundred percent a lot of work to write emails and write copy and create promotional assets. However, someone came on the call today, who I love so much and I wonder if she’ll listen to the podcast and hear this. But she was like, “I am finding every excuse to not finish the last little bit of my promotional material and actually launch. And I keep delaying it. I was supposed to launch today and you know, now it’s not done. And so I don’t know if I’m going to launch tomorrow and should I wait till Monday? And like I find myself working on a bunch of other things instead of working on this one thing, this final thing that I need to be able to launch it. And the reason why is because I’m so afraid, what if I don’t sell anything? What if this doesn’t work?” And she got emotional about it for a second and other people on the call were like, “Really? Me, too! I feel you. I’m exactly there, too. I’m afraid what if this doesn’t work?”

Emily Hirsh:

And you know, she wanted me to tell her, just launch, you know, like get it together in my tough love, which I did do that. But I also said something else that I think really hit home. Two things. One, I asked her, “What if you don’t sell anything? Let’s just say worst case scenario, you sell nothing. You do all this work, you launch it, you don’t sell anything. What does that mean?” And she’s like, “it means I suck. It means like I’m stupid. I can’t launch.” And she listed all these really negative self-talk beliefs that she had about what that would mean if she didn’t launch anything. And the first thing I ask people to do, not the first thing, but throughout this, what I do say is, I think in anything, I want you to go into this knowing the worst case scenario. I think with business, with anything you do, you should know what is the worst case scenario that’s going to happen in this situation.

Emily Hirsh:

Can I handle that? Can I handle the worst case scenario? I think that’s true. When you go and take a risk or you invest in something like you should know, what if this worst case scenario plays out? Will I be okay? And if the answer is, no, you should reconsider. Now the worst case scenario for these people is that they don’t sell something. Right? And I think that the harder part of that is the fear and the feelings of failure that comes with that versus not actually selling something because there’s so much value in doing the work to put together promotional materials, to get clear on what you’re selling, to put together an offer, to get feedback from your audience, to be able to improve messaging, all those things that come with that, that even if you don’t sell something, you’re still making progress.

Emily Hirsh:

However, the fear of failure, as in the actual feeling of failure when that happens is worse. And we’ve all been there. We’ve all been there. When we put in so much effort into something, we worked so hard. We were so excited for it. We are like, sure that this was going to work. We were so excited. We’re all in. And then it doesn’t work. Right? And it fails. And here’s what I said back to her. I said, “You know what? The problem here is this. You are associating your own value as a person and as what you do in the world and how you serve other people, you’re associating the success of that and your value and what you believe for yourself, and if this promotion doesn’t work, it means you have less value. And you’re associating that.” And I said, “That’s not the way it is. Marketing is not about, are you as a business owner good enough.”

Emily Hirsh:

“It is a formula.” And I, and I don’t say this because I say this all the time to be like you guys, like, I’m just repeating what I’m saying. I say this, not even because I truly believe it. Not only even because it’s my own core value, but because I’ve seen this play out a hundred times, hundreds of times. And so here’s the thing. If you go launch something, if you launch a promotion or you launch a funnel and it doesn’t work, it has nothing to do with your value as a person. It is all about the formula and the formula is the messaging, the strategy, and the offer itself. Like those are the levers that you can pull with marketing. Obviously there’s little things in there like targeting and content and all the things, but really at the end of the day, the messaging and the way you communicate with your ideal audience and your ideal customers, the strategy you put behind what you’re doing and the actual offer itself that you’re asking people to take action on or to buy, to download whatever it is.

Emily Hirsh:

It doesn’t matter if it’s a free offer, paid offer. Those are the three main things. And so when something doesn’t work, you go back to the drawing board and you say, okay, out of my options, why didn’t it work? And what do I need to go change? And it has zero to do with your ability as a person, with your value as a person, with the value that you not only bring to the world, but also to your customers and to your audience. And this individual kept saying, I know that my audience or my customers, like I’ve worked with, you know, a bunch of people and they’re getting so many amazing results. And they’re telling me how amazing it is. And they’re giving me all these accolades and it, it feels so great. And I know that what I’m doing is incredible. And I know that it goes deeper than the money I want to make.

Emily Hirsh:

It’s about the impact, but she said, every time I go to market it, it’s not working how I want it. I said, that is not a you problem, that’s a messaging problem, because your offer and your delivery on the back end is amazing. You just have to work to get clear on the messaging and then it’s going to work and it’s going to line up. And so I felt like sharing this with you guys today, because there was so many people on the call that were like, oh my gosh, you know, that really helps because I think I didn’t always realize how much people allow the fear of failure and the fear of, you know, not meeting their own internal expectations, because that’s what it is at the end of the day. You know, we don’t want to look silly in front of people and not make any sales, but who would know, right?

Emily Hirsh:

If you go promote something and it doesn’t work, literally nobody’s going to know. Only you know that and that’s the person that it matters the most to. Why? Because that’s the version who beats you up the most…yourself. And so you have to analyze and look at ‘what is the meaning’? What is the meaning I’ve assigned to potentially failing? And how is that preventing me from creating success in my business, not even just with marketing, like this could be a decision in your business on hiring support or joining that huge mastermind program that you’ve wanted to join forever. And you’re afraid of the investment, whatever it is, that fear of failure is only there because we’ve assigned meaning to it. “If I fail, it means this,” and I’ve convinced myself and I’ve assigned this belief to failing when in fact failing is just part of it.

Emily Hirsh:

Failing is just part of the game. Like nine times out of 10, you’re going to “fail.” But in my opinion, you’re not really failing because what that leads to is things that you couldn’t have done. Like you guys, I have made terrible decisions in my business. I have hired the wrong people. I have wasted thousands of dollars on decisions. I’ve had failed marketing campaigns. I’ve had offers that didn’t work how I thought they were going to work. I’ve promoted something that I was like, “this is going to absolutely crush it.” And, then it sucked. And nobody knew about it besides me and my team and the only people that will hurt if I don’t get back up and keep going is me and my team. It has zero to do with my own value as a human, because it is all about a formula that you’re following.

Emily Hirsh:

The second thing that I said to everybody is this: All you can do in everything you do in your business and your marketing is give it a hundred percent. That’s all you can do. Like you can’t ask more of yourself, but to show up and give a hundred percent. Whatever happens from that is actually out of your control. As long as you give it a hundred percent and you’re constantly trying to refine your strategy and refine the key components of what you’re doing, that’s all you can do. Right? And you’re going to learn from that. And so when you go do something in business, especially marketing, you’re just going to keep going until it’s successful and your ability to get back up and to keep going and to be relentless until you achieve that outcome, that ability is going to determine your success, not how you get there.

Emily Hirsh:

Probably 95% of the time, how I get to my goals is not how I thought I was going to get there. I had to pivot, I had to change something work that I thought was going to, or something didn’t work that I thought was going to work. And then this thing that I didn’t really know how it was going to do, totally worked. That is the game. That’s the journey. And nobody can get around that. So, as long as you go into these situations, whether it’s with your marketing or business or you’re launching a new business or you’re launching a new offer, whatever it is, you have to detach from the outcome of success. Of course you want success. Everybody wants success. You’re not going to make yourself be like, well, I don’t care if I’m successful. Like I think that’s BS. When people tell you to do something like that, of course, you’re not going to be like, well, I don’t care if I’m successful, you want to be successful.

Emily Hirsh:

What you have to detach is the meaning behind it. If you are not successful, it does not mean anything in terms of your value and your ability to continue and grow and create that success. The second thing is you go into it with the mindset of, I will not stop until I am successful. I don’t care how I’m going to get there, but I won’t stop. And if you go into it with that, like this is a gift that I feel I have that I, you know, developed probably from number one. I think it’s in me, it’s my genetics. But number two, growing up, I constantly had to prove myself as a kid and nothing was ever good enough. And I don’t say that to like, you know, be negative to my parents. I actually feel grateful for it. I mean, there’s trauma there, but I feel grateful for it because I was always challenged to do better.

Emily Hirsh:

And if I wanted something, I had to go make it happen. And there was no other way around it. And so that’s a gift now where I don’t care. If someone says no to me, I don’t care. If I don’t get what I want right away, I won’t stop until I get there. And so being relentless at getting to the outcome you want to get to, and knowing that it doesn’t matter how you get there. It doesn’t matter if it’s this attempt or the next one or the 5th or the 10th one, as long as you keep going, you will get there. And the faster you disconnect your perceived association with what it means and your own value in what you’re doing, the faster you’ll get there because you have to realize your value is in how much you put in effort and how quickly you get back up.

Emily Hirsh:

And you keep going to get to that end result. That is where your value lies. It is not a matter of did this one thing do well, did this one promotion, one campaign, this one funnel, this one offer this one business…that doesn’t matter. Those are just bumps along the road of your journey. And so I want you guys to reflect, but also I am realizing there are a lot of you who are potentially holding back your potential and actions and doing things in your business and putting yourself out there, whether that’s content or a new offer or a funnel or promotional material because you’re afraid of failing. And I think we have to really ask ourselves and sit there and say, “What if you don’t sell one? What does that mean? What if you do all of this work and you don’t sell one?”

Emily Hirsh:

She was like, well, I would get back up. You know, I would do it, but I would just be so stupid. Like I would look so stupid and I would be not capable. And, and she said all these negative things about herself. And I said that right there is the problem. Because if you don’t create the success you want in the first try, you go back to the drawing board and you look at the actual components that contribute to success. And in marketing, it’s your messaging, it’s your strategy, and it’s your offer. And you just refine those things. That is what’s going to make the success. Not you and your value, not you and your skills. And, and again, I said this at the beginning, but the reason I feel so strongly about this is not because I’m like, oh, I just believe this.

Emily Hirsh:

I just believe it’s my core value. It’s because I have watched it happen. I have worked with businesses who are completely failing. They came in, I redid their strategy. We overhauled it and it started working. I’ve worked with businesses who recently needed to make money to stay in business, to keep people on their payroll. They told our team, we have to launch next week in order to do this. We’re able to launch and get, 8X, 10X return on their ad spend because it’s a formula and it’s not a simple formula. There’s a lot of factors that can go into the formula. And a lot of factors that go into each thing, but that’s how you create the success. You remove yourself from those emotions and allowing those to drive your actions and decisions, and you focus on what you can control and what is that formula.

Emily Hirsh:

And the faster you take action on that, the faster you’re moving to success, the faster you are willing. Like you raise your hand, you’re willing to fail and you’re willing to even fail publicly. But the reality is nobody is watching you. Like you’re watching yourself. Seriously, if this person got zero sales, nobody’s going to know. Okay. But she knows. And that’s the scariest part of all. So I hope this was helpful for you guys. I just felt inspired to bring it here, because it’s fresh. It’s on my mind. I did two different training calls today between our Market Like a Pro members and our Cashapalooza group. And I just, I felt so inspired. And honestly, I am so grateful because the last couple of months I’ve really put myself back into some of our delivery. I’ve actually been doing strategy calls with our Elite clients.

Emily Hirsh:

It feels back to when I started my business in a sense. And you know, part of me in the beginning of this was like, oh, I’ve gone backwards. Like I’m back doing things that I did at the beginning of my business. But I think things are cycles and seasons. And I’m so grateful that this happened because I feel a connection again with my audience, with businesses, with like the reason why I started in the beginning. And that could be a whole other podcast episode maybe soon on losing that connection as you scale your team and grow things. And I think I’ve talked to multiple people who have experienced that, but I’m really blown away by these people that I get to work with who are showing up and putting in massive amounts of work and seeing tremendous growth in a short amount of time because they’re so focused on their impact and that relentless drive to create that success. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Talk to you on Tuesday.

Emily Hirsh:

Thanks for listening to the Not For Lazy Marketers podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support with your marketing head over to helpmystrategy.com to see how Hirsh Marketing can help take your marketing to the next level. No matter where you’re at today, we help our clients scale faster than ever, find hidden leaks in their funnel, experiment with new creative marketing strategies, and help their business explode and be more profitable than they ever dreamed possible. Head over to helpmystrategy.com and see if you qualify for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh.

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