Say no to FOMO! Why fear-based marketing has had its day (and what you can do instead)

‘Limited time offer!’
‘Doors closing!’
‘Buy now or you’ll miss out!’

How often do you read those or similar phrases each day? Fear-based or scarcity marketing is everywhere right now and particularly on social media, it’s becoming increasingly hard to escape. When I typed ‘scarcity’ and ‘FOMO’ into answerthepublic.com the other two words that cropped up a lot were ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ and frankly, it’s not surprising. With the world’s population on the brink of a mental health crisis, I reckon it’s high time to flip the script, reject FOMO and usher in something brand new and wholly more human.

First of all I’d just like to say that yes, I do know scarcity marketing works! There’s a science behind it which taps into our psychology as human beings. When we feel like there might be a shortage of something, or we feel like we’re missing out, we panic. Just look at the great toilet roll crisis of April 2020. But just because something works, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right way to do something. If you’re a service-based business selling some kind of one-to-one offering, the likelihood is that fear-based marketing tactics can make you feel decidedly sleazy. It makes total sense: we don’t use FOMO to manipulate our friends and family, so why would we treat our potential clients that way?

So here’s a thought, what if we redefine FOMO? Enter: Freedom Of Multiple Opportunities. What if, instead of pressuring our audience to buy our services by telling them they might not be able to have them at certain times, we set clear, honest boundaries instead? Imagine saying ‘you can buy my service whenever is right for you, but full disclosure I don’t take on more than 5 clients at a time so I can provide the best service’. Doesn’t that sound better than ‘limited slots available - don’t miss out!’ And here’s the real kicker: if we start our client relationships from a place of respect and openness, rather than fear, aren’t they likely to be more fulfilling and enjoyable for both parties?

If this kind of Freedom over Fear approach has you nodding your head in agreement, let’s talk about how it could work in practice. Try looking at your business from an outside perspective and consider ways to set clear, healthy boundaries. This could look like an Out of Office message to let your clients know when you’re available vs when you’re not. This could look like having standard turnaround times on client work that you communicate as part of your client on-boarding. If you do follow a launch model, this could be as simple as being crystal clear ahead of time whether your service will be ongoing or one-off for a period of time, and offering your audience alternative ways of working with you. The key is to ensure you are EMPOWERING your audience, not OVERPOWERING them. You feel me?

Need some tips? 

I got you. Hit the button below to grab six ways to sell without sleaze (and still convert!). And if I’ve inspired you to adopt a Freedom Of Multiple Opportunities approach, then please do shoot me an email. I’d love to hear what you think!

Top tips to make 2021 your bitch

New year, new vision

Happy New Year! We are officially in the 20s and what a journey it has been to get here. January tends to be filled with a lot of chat about New Year’s resolutions, annual planning and new habits. Although I’m somewhat jumping on that bandwagon, I still think it is a great time to get started on something new. Let’s face it, 2020 was a hard year, whichever way you look at it, and 2021 has already proved itself to be a force to be reckoned with! Now we’re back at our desks and wondering ‘what’s next?’ So, whether you’re considering shaking up a business you already own, stepping up a side hustle, or even making the leap into self-employment for the first time, here are my top tips on how to make 2021 your year in spite of the world being on fire!

Us and them

Before I started my own business, I used to see freelancers and contractors absolutely living this kind of ideal life where they raked in the money for 6 months and then spent 6 months swanning around Europe smoking gallouise cigarettes wearing a beret. Real talk: that was pure fiction! The reality is that starting your own business is like deciding to have a child: it’s not for the faint-hearted. I’m not saying you have to hustle 24/7, but you absolutely have to be committed to making it work. According to the FSB, SMEs account for 99.99% of the business population, so why do so many fail in their first year? Here are my top tips to avoid the potential pitfalls and smash 2021:

1. Believe in yourself but be prepared to fail. Confidence is great, but it needs to come from a place of open-mindedness to ensure your business survives. Human beings learn from failure, not success. If you fail, take a moment to work out why, then adjust your plan. Remember: the road to success is paved with broken slabs!

2. Invest in your strategy over your plan. Look around you: the businesses that are struggling now were not the ones flying before. A solid business strategy (the right product/service, the right audience, the right message) can be adapted when a bomb drops overnight, even the best plan cannnot. Have solid answers to the big questions and you will find a way through even the worst crisis.

3. Go networking to research, not sell. So many people go to networking with a short-term transactional mindset and wonder why they don’t make sales. The reality is: people by from people, and relationships take TIME. You’ll learn more about your audience and what you should be offering them if you ask questions, make connections and LISTEN. The real trick is, the more you focus on that, the more sales you’ll make without even trying. Trust me!

4. Sell it before you build it. The fastest route to a successful product or service is to leave the notion of ‘perfect’ at the door. Get a minimum viable product out into market ASAP and let your audience tell you what they want from it. This will help you avoid building something that no one actually needs or wants!

5. Every day is a school day, but you don’t have to do it all. I get it, you want to try all the things, learn all the things and do all the things. Shiny Object Syndrome is REAL. Although there are lots of opportunities to learn things - sometimes even just through a conversation with a new contact - it doesn’t mean you need to implement them right away. Keep a list of your great ideas but be ruthless about which ones you prioritise taking action on. You are only human, after all!

Hard work, not hustle

So there are my top tips on how to get the most out of your precious time and energy this year. Real talk: building and growing a business does not have to “hustle”. You can have the life you want AND the business you want, but you do need to find ways to ignore the noise out there and trust in your gut.

Need some help?

If you’re wondering where to start and this year is looking a bit daunting already, download my six strategy hacks to short-cut the shit and make 2021 your bitch. You’re so welcome!

2020 Reflections: What can we learn from the year we stayed at home?

This year has been a humdinger. There’s no two ways about it! Millions of people globally have suffered, even died, directly and indirectly as a result of COVID-19. Against the backdrop of this level of tragedy, it’s no wonder the initial reaction of many is to want to throw this year in the bin. I absolutely understand, and yet, I refuse to do the same. Although many of us started back in January with all sorts of 2020 visions that never came to pass, there is light to be found amongst the darkness. If we want to move forward, it’s on us to seek that light.

One of the best places to start when reflecting on a tough year is always gratitude. Yes, a bunch of stuff might have kicked you in the face or slipped through your grasp this year, but I’ll bet you there was some good stuff too. If you think back across those months of uncertainty, there will have been some moments of joy, some good news, some belly laughs that had you snorting like a pig. We are human beings, after all, and life has a habit of marching on regardless! In periods of anxiety and sadness this year, I have made a concerted effort to practice gratitude and it has really helped to shift my mindset. You don’t have to write in a journal, tell someone, or even say it out loud, but just taking those moments to flip the script from negative to positive can be so powerful. When I look back on 2020 I’ve found myself thinking “what can we learn from this year?” What positives can we take away from the year we stayed at home? Incoming: a list of my top three.

1. The value of slowing down. It’s funny, when your only real directive is to stay at home, an incredible thing happens. Without the commute, the school drop-off, a social life to manage… you suddenly have permission to slow the f*** down. There’s no timetable, nowhere to be and nowhere to go. When lockdown hit, a large slice of our daily stress and reason to produce adrenaline disappeared overnight. Globally, we’ve discovered a brand new pace of life over the course of this year, and I for one am totally here for it.

2. The value of community. I felt this one in my bones during the first lockdown, especially the first Thursday night we stepped outside to clap for our NHS heroes and key workers. Here we were, confined to our homes and yet coming together, to show appreciation for the people that really keep our country running. It was a beautiful, heart-warming, human moment and I will take it to my grave.

3. The value of kindness. I can’t tell you how many local initiatives have popped up this year to enable people to help each other in different ways. Whether it’s sending a random card to your friend, picking up medicine for someone on your street or delivering your shopping to your nan, I’ve never seen so much evidence of so much kindness. We’ve been forced to get out of our own heads and look around us at what everyone else needs. Without human contact, we’ve found myriad ways to support each other and to connect. We’ve rediscovered the value of kindness.

As we look to 2021, I hope that we can hold onto these values and take them with us into the future. Coronavirus has inflicted such deep tragedy on so many lives, but for me, the only way I can move forward from that is by finding the lesson. To find the light in the darkness, I believe we must honour this tragedy by not returning to our old ways, but truly embracing the spirit of “you only live once”. I don’t believe 2020 should be written off, but honoured and held up as an example of what humanity can achieve in the face of adversity, when we slow down, connect and show each other a little kindness. Here’s to 2021, my friends, may it be a happy, healthy and hilarious one for us all!

Marketing during the apocalypse: the three things you need to grow your business in the midst of a pandemic

Lockdown but looking up

What a strange time we are living in. Strange and yet… strangely wonderful, right?! This might be controversial and I know there can be a lot of guilt attached, but for me and for a lot of people I know, 2020 has actually been a roaring success! For a multitude of reasons, we’ve been reminded of what’s really important to us, we’ve been locked indoors with our families and our own thoughts, and this time of tragedy and anxiety has actually resulted in a surge of creativity. We’ve been forced to adapt, to innovate, to adjust, to really listen to what our ideal clients actually want, rather than just what we want to offer.

The revolution is coming

Whether your business is booming or busting right now, although it might feel wrong to chase after growth at a time like this, I think it’s imperative that we try. With many folks being made redundant or stuck on furlough this year, the time has never been better to take stock of what we really want in life… and to go for it. It’s literally now or never to go chase after those dreams! My prediction is that we’re going to see a Small Business revolution in 2021 and I am so completely here for it.

Good things come in threes

So how do we get started? How do we set up, how do we grow, how do get back on track? For me, the answer lies in three key things. 

1. A resilient mindset - a willingness to learn from failure, permission to do things at your own pace and absolutely no room for guilt, or that pesky imposter.

2. Investment - even a brain-and-desk-based business requires investment. Be prepared to invest in yourself, your personal development, your systems and processes, and in your client experience. You will absolutely reap the rewards.

3. Marketing - well of course I was going to say that! But seriously, if you’re not marketing, you’re not telling people you exist and people aren’t going to see you and buy from you. Simples.

Don’t forget: all of these things are interlinked, but if your mindset isn’t right then you won’t be in a position to make the right investment and marketing moves. Ask yourself where you want to be in 5 years time, who you want to be working with, how many hours you want to work? Put COVID aside for a second and think about what you really want. Picture how it’s going to look and imagine yourself there. Then imagine what happens if you don’t take steps to achieve that dream? What’s the risk of doing nothing at all?

Make the most of what you have

When you’ve nailed your noggin on straight and you know where you’re headed, having a strategic plan for investing in your business and your marketing is key. The good news is, that investment doesn’t have to be just about moolah. What time could you invest in things you have already to make them work better for you? What favours could you call in? How could the marketing channels within your control work harder for you?

Got 10 minutes?

Here’s six simple ways to maximise the marketing channels right under your nose and get those digital channels delivering!

Whats the best way to promote my small business? The lowdown on marketing vs strategy vs planning

It’s hella noisy out there

The marketing and business worlds are full of jargon, buzz words and cool-sounding stuff being flung around willy nilly. Especially since that whole global pandemic thing happened. The thing is: after a while it just becomes a bunch of noise. As small business owners, consultants and freelancers, all we really want is to do what we love and get paid a fair and reasonable amount for it, so we can lead our lives in a way that suits us. So how do we cut through the noise and figure out how to get the word out? What’s the best way to promote our products and services?

The bullet train to success?

Ok so I’m just going to put it out there: THERE IS NO SILVER BULLET. Sorry, not sorry. If you’re looking for a quick fix, short cut or magic answer, then I’m here to tell you there it just doesn’t exist. Sure, if your product or service answers a burning need for a tonne of people, your message is sharper than a knife and you’re willing to invest a heap of cash into advertising, I’m sure you can be reach success pretty darn quickly if you spend all your time on it. And hey, if that’s you then great! However, if you’re among the gazillions of people I speak to on a daily basis who feels like you’ve watched a bunch of webinars, signed up to a bunch of ‘marketing guru’ email lists, downloaded a bunch of freebies and tried a bunch of stuff that didn’t reeeeeally work, then read on…

You actually have all the answers

The simple fact is that you need to have a well-researched comprehensive STRATEGY for your business before you start putting your marketing out there. Marketing is essentially like an iceberg: the bits that your audience actually see are just the tip. Every single social media post, flyer and email that you smash out needs to be underpinned and supported by the chunky bit of ice that sits under the surface: your strategy. A lot of the ‘noise’ out there focuses on Small Biz Owners having a marketing PLAN, but without mentioning that a plan isn’t worth the paper it’s written on without a solid strategy in place first. But fear not! It’s honestly not that hard to get one sorted: it’s just a case of asking yourself the right questions. The best bit? Most of the answers to those question probably exists in your head already. All you need to do is take some time to have a think, do some research and get it all written down. From there you can plan out where you have gaps and what you need to discover or test in order to fill them in.

Small business, big picture

Begin with the big picture questions: WHERE you want to go with your business, WHO you’re really serving with your product or service, WHY you’re doing it, HOW you’re going to deliver it and WHAT you can offer that is different or special? Once you start to build the basic blocks of business strategy, your marketing strategy can come next. WHO is your ideal client? WHAT hair-on-fire problem do you really solve for them? HOW can you describe the benefits of what you deliver? WHERE is the best place to find your ideal clients and engage with them? Only once you have these solid building blocks in place does an actual marketing PLAN come into play. And a word of warning here: generic downloadable marketing plans will not help you to do the right marketing for you. A bespoke marketing plan, tailored to you, your business and your ideal clients is the closest you’ll get to a silver bullet, I’m telling you!

What are you doing for the next six minutes?

I’ll tell you: downloading my free guide and getting the ball rolling on sorting your strategy. Just pop your email address into the box below and voila, a free download that will actually help you. You’ll also receive monthly marketing tips, straight to your inbox and you can unsubscribe any time. Enjoy, my friend! You are so welcome.

Survival of the fittest: will small business survive the covid recession?

Will we make it?

It’s the question on every small business owner’s lips, isn’t it? Will the impact on coronavirus and lockdown on our small businesses, our lives and the economy be too much? Every day we see another big business crumble and it’s terrifying to watch. Many small business owners have been able to access grants, bounce back loans, or claim unemployment, but many (life myself) have fallen through the cracks and been unable to access any government support at all. Regardless of support (or lack thereof), we’re all desperately looking at how to make it work, how to cling on. So, as we enter a recession for the first time in 11 years, how do we ride out this period of uncertainty and ensure we come out of the recession with our livelihoods intact? Well, I believe i have the answer, but it might not be one you like!

Oh god, not the ‘P’ word

I wince as I write this, but unfortunately one of the biggest answers lies in the ‘pivot’. There, I said it. (Hang on, I might just need to grab the anti-bac after typing that). It’s a giant ugly cliche, but it’s true: businesses that can quickly adapt their products and services to the current reality are much more likely to survive. This might mean selling and delivering what you do online, it might mean rethinking your businesses premises so that PPE and social distancing are more practical, it might even mean offering something new that helps other small businesses to operate in the current climate. The key is to really think about your audience: what do they really need right now? If you can find a way to solve their problems quickly and efficiently, you will stay in business. Fact.

Change can actually be good

The thing to remember about this new reality is that not all the changes we have experienced are bad. Obviously, for the thousands that have lost their lives or are related to them, that is not the case. But what do we know about dark times? In order to find the light, you have to look for it. So, despite the corona-coaster, despite the tears I’ve shed watching the news, despite the worry, the stress, the fear… I’ve discovered a leaner, more relevant, more profitable way of operating my business. The thing is, I’m not alone. During lockdown many of us were reminded of our values, of what really mattered to us. Locked in at home with just ourselves, our partners, or our families, our world shrank overnight. It was horrific and frankly terrifying at the time, but looking back I can see the gift that it gave me, and many other people I know. All of a sudden with no commute, no school run, no social interaction… gradually we were able to see what sort of life we really wanted. 

Time to get it, get it

So, my fellow small business buddies, it’s time to knuckle down and go get it. So where do you start? Well, firstly you need to ask the audience...and be prepared to listen! Talk to your clients, do your research and find out what they are really struggling with right now. You may already have a product or service that answers their need, but if you don’t, how else could you serve them right now? When you look at the world’s most successful companies, for example giants such as Google, Amazon and Apple, what do they all do brilliantly? I’ll tell you: they listen to the market and they listen to their customers. And not just that, they respond too. They listen, hunt for the underlying issue and then respond with products and services that their customers didn’t even realise they needed. It’s the key to all the moneys, I’m telling you.

It’s ok, you’re not alone

For the last couple of months I have been talking to lots of small business owners about how they are feeling and as such, have completely revamped my service offering. One of the biggest problems I have been hearing is that people don’t know how to educate their audience about why what they do is so amazing. So, in response I have designed a brand new mentoring programme to help them nail their marketing message. Messaging is incredibly simple, but it’s bloody hard to build it on your own, and that’s why I’m here to help! If you’d like to know more, hit me up for a chat and let’s talk about how your business can not only survive, but THRIVE!