As a small business owner handling their marketing on their own, it can be hard to know where to even begin.
This week on the Small Owned Business (S.O.B.) Marketing podcast, we are sharing a comprehensive survival guide for those handling their marketing strategy on their own. This guide covers understanding your target audience, setting clear marketing goals, prioritizing tasks, organizing efforts, leveraging low-hanging fruit, finding helpful resources, and the importance of self-care.
As always, we are sharing practical tips and insights to help small business owners navigate the complexities of marketing effectively and efficiently.
Looking for a community of other S.O.B.s handling their marketing on their own? Join our S.O.B. Community! A membership includes:
🎥 An extensive library of tutorials
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📝 Free downloads and templates for you to jumpstart your marketing
📱 A weekly hour long Zoom call with marketing professionals to talk shop or answer any questions you may have when it comes to marketing your small business.
Join our 𝐒.𝐎.𝐁 (𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬) 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲: https://www.skool.com/sob
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Chapters:
00:00 Thank You For Listening & Please Leave us a 5 Star Review
08:36 Know The Basics: Target Audience, Goals, Branding, etc.
16:50 Prioritizing Marketing Channels and Marketing Strategies
20:30 The Importance of Organization and Scheduling
26:18 Automation and Low-Hanging Fruit in Marketing
34:39 Leveraging Resources and Community Support
40:13 Self-Care and Boundaries
42:45 TLDL: Your One Person Marketing Survival Guide Summary
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𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓:
How to Create a Customer Avatar For Your Small Business: https://youtu.be/XbxCdWO9fig
How to Create a Simple Marketing Plan That ACTUALLY Works: https://youtu.be/3ouST--c9gA
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𝐒.𝐎.𝐁 (𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬) 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲: https://www.skool.com/sob
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COLLABORATION REQUESTS TO: vivian@TheSeasonedMarketer.com
Vivian: Automation is your new BFF, if you are handling...
Chelsea: After us!
Vivian: Okay, so first us, automation number 2 - because it's going to cut down on the amount of time you have to sit there and manually do something.
*Intro* Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Hey everybody and welcome back to the SOB Marketing Podcast, SOB as in Small Owned Business, we would never call you guys names. Before we get started, y'all, how many of you are not following us right now? Or how many of you are not subscribed to this podcast? You're listening right now, but you haven't done that little extra step that takes what, two seconds? Come on.
Vivian: You guys are overachievers, we know it. Come on, let's do it.
Chelsea: Exactly. The point is it helps us get in front of other small business owners and we want to share the knowledge when it comes to how to market your small business in-house. That's what we're all about here. Vivian, what are we talking about today?
Vivian: All right, so today's topic is going to be one for the ages. If you are a one, I don't want to say one man, one woman show and you are handling your marketing in-house, we want to give you the survival guide. Okay, these are the things that are absolutely essential, bare minimums, and the reason we want to share this with you is because we know there's a ton of marketing advice out there. However, sometimes you just want to keep it scrappy and you just want to do the basics, the things you absolutely have to do. So that's what we're going to be reviewing today.
Before we dive into that very specific conversation, I have three things.
Chelsea: Oh, she has three things. Okay.
Vivian: Three things. Very important. Number one, just a reminder, we do have a TLDL section. If you are in a hurry, there's a chapter at the end of this episode. You can skip to it. Too long, didn't listen. Chelsea will go ahead and give you a brief overview. We always recommend that you come back and you listen to the whole conversation. Okay, because why not? You want to be BFFs with us? You got to get the whole conversation and context.
Number two, on a serious note. When I was rewatching our latest interview, I hope that if anything, I lead by example and I just want people to be comfortable enough when they kind of see that they're doing something. I don't want to say it's wrong, but I caught myself doing something that's very annoying. I want to apologize to the listeners and also to my baby sister, because what I notice I do is you will make a point and then I come around on the back end and I always say, to further explain or to, whatever. What I notice is that, cause I pick up on little cues. I noticed that maybe it makes it seem like I feel like it needs further explanation or more in-depth conversation. I don't want you to feel like your thoughts are not by themselves standalone and good thoughts, okay?
Chelsea: Well, thank you. I did not feel that way at all. I think it's good that you come in and you further explain because it's just, it gives another point of view. It gives an in-depth conversation. I want our conversations to be in depth, not to use the same phrase again. I want our conversations to be in depth, because there is an entire thought process when it comes to marketing and I want everyone to understand it.
Vivian: Hopefully this podcast, if you guys haven't listened to a few of our episodes, I think when you do, you start to realize that maybe what makes us a little different is that for one, we're not up here preaching and saying this is the only way to do marketing. Marketing is nuanced. always say it's part science, part art. I think that's where having different perspectives does help. Also, I think we're coming from different environments. Not to heavily point out the age difference, but I do think because we have a 15 year age gap, we do have different ways of viewing the world and also marketing in general. I hope that the viewer or the listener, if anything else, that you guys pick up on the fact that I'm not ever trying to disprove or argue Chelsea's point. I think it's just the way my brain works where I always am like, if I had never heard of this, would I understand it?
Chelsea: Yes. No, I think it's good. When we started this podcast, one of the reasons why...
because Vivian came to me and she's like, " do you want to start a podcast? I was like, "oh God, like another podcast?" Jesus.
Vivian: "Why are you my sister? Why are you always approaching me about stuff?"
Chelsea: But she was pitching it to me and I was like, you know, I want to help small businesses. That's why I joined The Seasoned Marketer. It's an area in which I feel like, there are a bunch of marketing podcasts out there. I'm not going to talk about any of them, but I feel like we do a good job of being real and no nonsense and I appreciate that we have two different perspectives because marketing is kind of personal. It's a very personal field.
Vivian: Yeah for sure and I just wanted you to know you are highly valued and I do value your opinions and so I don't want to ever make you feel like I don't value what you're saying and the perspective that you bring.
Chelsea: I can already tell what happened is Vivian was watching, because I edit the episodes and then I make Vivian watch them, just to make sure they're okay. She got to, there's a specific part where I don't remember what I was talking about that was so long ago y'all. I explained my point and then Vivian said okay for a different perspective and then Caroline said I also have a third perspective. That could be what you're thinking of, I loved that. I love that because that's the point. That everyone views things differently and marketing again is nuanced and yeah.
Vivian: Well, I'd rather always be safe than sorry. So I just wanted to put that out there and let everybody know.
Then the third thing, which is probably the most important, they've been saying that you sound like an owl.
Chelsea: What? What?
Vivian: They've been saying you sound like an owl.
Chelsea: An owl? Like the bird? What do mean I sound like an owl?
Vivian: *Uncontrollable laugher*
Chelsea: Who is saying?
Vivian: Say it again.
Chelsea: Who? Is this a joke? I hate you so much right now. Who has taught Vivian to start pranking? All of a sudden she's got all these pranks she wants to do. This dog jaw. I don't know what dog jaw is.
Vivian: I love though that you said who. Owl, who? All right, anyways, big sister humor there. Let's go ahead without further ado. Let's not keep the people waiting. Let's give them what we're here to talk about. So, survival guide for a one-person marketing team. Chelsea, where do you want to start?
Chelsea: My first point Vivian. Know the basics, know your basics as a small business. So you need to know who your target audience is.
Vivian: Hoo.
Chelsea: Oh my God.
We're going to go more in depth in this, but I'm just doing bullet points right now. So target audience, creating a customer avatar, brand guidelines, knowing what your goals are, and then if you can, creating a marketing plan.
Vivian: Perfect. So with the knowing your target audience, let's go through each one of these very quick. The knowing your target audience is going to help you as far as time saving because you are going to get really granular about who your product and service is for because that's also going to dictate who it's not for and the people you are not going to be wasting your time trying to pitch and sell this whole time because you are a one person show.
Chelsea: Yes. Or it could be that you're saving money because you're not spending money trying to once again attract people who they are not for you. So your brand is not for them.
Vivian: It's not or, it's and.
Chelsea: You're correct. Yes, it's and. Save time and money. This is why I added customer avatar in here. It's not necessarily a basic because it does take a little more work. There are a lot of businesses out there who don't bother to create a customer avatar. But I feel like if you are a one person marketing team, the better you understand your target audience, the more efficient you're going to be.
So creating a customer avatar, basically you're creating a persona or an entire made up person who is the embodiment of your target audience. If you don't know how to do that, we have an entire episode on it. So go listen to that.
Vivian: Yes. That episode will walk you through an explanation of also how that has morphed over time. So back in the day, you could just say a customer avatar was like, what's your age range, demographic? What does the person do? What is their education level? Now we've actually dug a little deeper in that into like, sociographic.
Chelsea: Motivations and fears. It's in depth.
Vivian: Exactly. It not only couples with knowing who your target audience is, but if you take the time to actually build this customer avatar, it can also help with creating ads a lot faster. Because if you know what Chelsea just said, what their fears are, or what their motivators are, that's going to help me put a Facebook ad together a lot quicker because I can speak straight to that fear. Hey, are you worried about your baby waking up at 2 a.m. in the morning? Okay, this is my product and this is how it helps. It knocks them back out and they go to sleep. Whatever it is, okay?
Chelsea: Baby drugs!
Vivian: Baby drugs! Baby robot knocker outer...
Chelsea: I feel like drugs is more appropriate than a robot that knocks out your baby.
Vivian: I mean, but at least that's external and not internal, right? Giving them drugs is internal. It stays in there.
Chelsea: Yes, okay. Brand avatar. Nope. Customer avatar. I'm thinking of brand avatar because the next bullet point is brand guidelines. Yes. When you have very clear branding, it's going to help legitimize your business. Right? So that's, it's more than just colors and fonts too. It's brand voice. It's how you are perceived by other people, by hopefully your target audience.
Vivian: If you're wondering what a brand voice is to Chelsea's point, I think at the bare minimum, you want to have your color palette picked out, right? Your logo, maybe two versions of a logo: vertical and horizontal. You also want to be sure that your text font is consistent and all that. Let me give you perspective. This is not only helpful to you, but let's say that you decide as a one person team, you're like, hey, I'm ready to move on to the next level and actually start placing ads in the local newspaper. Having these guidelines set out for you, your brand guidelines, then you share that with the graphic team on the newspaper side of it, and it helps them to help you put an ad together, right? So this is going to help save you time because it's a one PDF that you can send to people and let them know ahead of time, hey, this is for consistency purposes, this is what we do. So let me offer this to you guys. I'm going to be a bad business person here. Just kidding.
We have a one page PDF Canva template that we usually will sell for like t$3 or something on our website.
Chelsea: She's going to give it to you guys for free aren't you?
Vivian: I am. If you guys want it just hit us up. Go ahead and email us at Chelsea@TheSeasonedMarketer.com and then we'll go ahead and send it to you because it is really helpful to have it all...congregated?
Chelsea: Yeah, congregated.
Vivian: In one page.
Chelsea: So the next two bullet points, Vivian, are marketing plan and knowing your goals. I kind of want to combine them because we've said it before on this podcast, you don't necessarily need a marketing plan. You definitely don't need like a year long marketing plan. If you can do one, that's great. But we understand that it can be really difficult trying to create one.
Go listen. We have an episode for that as well.
Vivian: Shocking.
Chelsea: I know, for marketing plans, but really what you need to know is what your goals are. Like what are you trying to accomplish? Is it specifically, I am trying to bring more people in via my online sales. Like I want to make more sales on my website. Am I trying to increase foot traffic? Understanding what your specific goal is, is going to help you be able to understand better what marketing opportunities are worth your time. Again, you're a one person show, you ain't got a lot of time.
Vivian: I would want to challenge people that maybe the way they view a marketing plan shift a little bit because I think so much of what people think in their head a marketing plan is it's the thing that you submit to the bank when you go ask them for a loan. It's like that big lengthy five year marketing plan, three year marketing plan, one year. Like Chelsea said earlier, if you guys do it in 12 month increments, great. If you do in six month increments, you could even do it quarterly, every three months. That helps with setting goals and then also on top of it, the tracking of goals, right? So how do you know if a marketing channel or a marketing opportunity was successful? You have to be able to track it. If let's say one of your goals is to sell more of widget A, right, in three months, well then if you've actually done that, you'll be able to see that month to month. I think just changing the perspective, the podcast episode that we did on marketing plan helps quite a bit because if anything, we're telling you guys how to put one together that is not going to be sitting getting dusty on a bookshelf somewhere. It's going to be one that you can actively use month to month in your business.
Chelsea: Yes. Love that and also love that you said widget A instead of bringing up the baby puncher again.
Vivian: I mean, that's a idea - if you want to sell more of the baby sleepy puncher, knocker outer, yeah.
Chelsea: So that's "know the basics". Those are the basics. Now I have "prioritize". What marketing channels do you want to focus on?
This is why you need to know the basics, because you need to think back to what your goals are and what the focus is, because that's going to impact what channels are going to be most effective for you. But prioritizing does not have to be just like which marketing channels you can get more specific with it. For example, if you're doing social media marketing, prioritize what social media platforms you're on. I cannot stress this enough, you guys. You are not going to be able to be on all the social media platforms. You're not. We're on three, four technically, but I'm not.
I need to get back on it when it comes to Pinterest, but that's a great example. I know that Pinterest is one more platform that might be too much for me. So I prioritize Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok because I know that's something that I can handle. If you can only handle Facebook, then just handle Facebook.
Vivian: I think this does something with your mindset when you prioritize because at the end of the day, you're going to feel like a loser if you can't do everything. Now I'm talking from personal experience. You are a one person marketing team. You are not going to be able to do all the things. So prioritizing I think gets you in the right mind space because you have this understanding that I don't need to be on all platforms. I don't need to be doing all the things. As long as I can complete these three things that I prioritized over the next three months, it's going to be a success and I am chiseling away at my big marketing goal for the year. Working backwards helps you with that prioritization. But let me give you a perfect example of how recently Chelsea and I have had to do this. Now we're not a one person marketing team. We're two people obviously. United, one soul.
What we've had to do is, you're going to see a shift over the next year with how we have The Seasoned Marketer and SOB Marketing set up because SOB marketing, obviously we have the SOB marketing podcast. That's a little more of an overall umbrella. Right now we have most, all of our resources under The Seasoned Marketer name. Over time we are going to have chisel away at moving stuff over under this SOB Marketing umbrella. That is, when Chelsea and I have talked about it, she has spared no words in telling me that is a big undertaking. In order for us to do that, that's not something we can just do overnight. It's going to take us months to do it. Therefore that's why prioritizing, we can say the end goal is this.
In month one to two of this project, what needs to happen in order for us to start to transition that way? Prioritizing is the big thing that helps you with those long-term marketing initiatives. We want you guys to do the big stuff just as much as we want you to do the small stuff. We just don't want you to have a mental breakdown in between there, okay?
Chelsea: Absolutely. So prioritize.
Also, what's going to help you with these bigger projects, long-term goals is organization. This is something all of us can work on. I am sure. I know Vivian can work on it.
Vivian: What? Way to call me out. Thanks.
Chelsea: I know I can work on it. But when you get organized, when you give yourself a schedule...
Vivian: Can I say though, she says that, but I did just tell her earlier today that I finally hit 10 on my emails in my inbox.
Chelsea: I need y'all to understand. She's saying 10 unread emails.
Vivian: A lot of that's like promos and stuff, but Chelsea's like, does that not make you want to bash your head? I'm like, no, I'm fine. I can deal with ambiguity quite a bit.
Chelsea: Let's say for a weekend I don't check my email and I have 70 emails, freaking out, I'm freaking out. I can't do it. I hate it.
Vivian: We are going to settle this. You guys are going to tell us in the comment section. Are you a "have to have my inbox at zero person"? Or are you okay having a plethora of emails in there? Doesn't have to be quite as bad as me. Doesn't have to be 10, but are you okay not having an inbox read zero?
Chelsea: I have a bad feeling that no one's going to agree with me.
Vivian: I actually think you're going to be shocked at how many people probably are going to agree with me, that they're okay with not having their inbox that tidy.
Chelsea: Okay well, organization can still help. Schedule, that's what we were talking about before Vivian wanted to point that out. Having a schedule can help you become more productive. I think we had this conversation last week when we were talking about getting yourself out of a creative funk, but schedules can help you stay on top of things. So give yourself a schedule. Whether that's for your email marketing, whether that's for the content for your social media. This is important because when it comes to marketing, consistency is so important for staying top of mind. Creating a schedule will help you stay top of mind.
Vivian: I say this every time, I need to find a better word for this - train. It's not training. You're not training, but you kind of are.
Chelsea: Conditioning?
Vivian: Conditioning. I don't know if that's worse or better.
You're conditioning yourself into setting up a process where you have buy-in and you're also going to end up getting results. So if I tell myself, I want to be present on social media, what better way to do that than to ensure that I am posting a certain amount of times per week. Or maybe I set aside one day a week where I will literally just sit down and plan out all of my Instagram posts for that week. It doesn't have to be super regimen, but do whatever works best for your schedule and get yourself conditioned to, looking at the priorities, the stuff that you have set out as your goals, and then working towards that. That organization in schedule and also, as Chelsea has made it very clear, organization in filing information. Nowadays you guys are probably dealing with...
you're content creators, small business owners, even though you didn't sign up for it. I'm sure you have a Google drive or a folder sitting on your laptop of all of these videos. Repurposing. Organizing stuff helps you with being able to repurpose and to get more juice out of something you've already done. So just consider that.
Chelsea: So if you're trying out this whole organization thing and you want to start getting organized, Google Drive, they have spreadsheets. Excel spreadsheets. Tools like that can help you. I love a good spreadsheet.
Vivian: I'm glad you brought this up too, because the other thing is, our hope for you is that maybe one day you don't have to be a one person marketing team. If you utilize something like a Google Drive and you have folders set up in there where you have B-roll in one folder. B-roll videos. You have You know a listing of a spreadsheet of all of the products. Maybe the skew numbers or the price points, or a description of the product. Whenever you do hire somebody or you're able to outsource some part of your marketing, just giving them access to something that's already organized is so helpful. It's one less thing you have to do at the time of you worrying about hiring someone.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
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Vivian: Join the S.O.B. Community! Get templates, expert advice, weekly Zoom calls with us, and a supportive group of other business owners for - get this. Just $50 a month.
Chelsea: Marketing doesn't have to be hard when you have help. Head over to www.Skool.com/sob. That's S-K-O-O-L.com/sob. All lowercase. Join today and feel confident in your marketing.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: So next bullet point, Vivian, we're moving on, low hanging fruit.
Vivian: I like fruits. And punching babies.
Chelsea: Someone quote that, someone pull that, that's going to be a reel.
Vivian: For the record, I do not. Okay, I love babies. Babies are the best.
Chelsea: Okay? Maybe, no, I'm going to leave all this in, but I should cut this all out. I'm not going to, though.
What I mean by low-hanging fruit, help yourself, right? What's something that you can automate? So let's think about email marketing, responses to common questions. Like you can schedule out posts, doing things like that where you can put it off, not onto someone else because again you're a one person show, but automating it so you don't have to deal with it is going to be so helpful.
Vivian: Automation is your new BFF if you are handling...
Chelsea: After us.
Vivian: Okay, so first us, automation number two, okay? Because it's going to cut down on the amount of time that you have to sit there and manually do something, but on top of it. You are consistent with your communication, because I'm going to tell you guys. Unless you have this stuff copy and pasted in a Word document somewhere and you're opening that up every single time you're doing this. What you're saying kind of varies, person to person. So it creates consistency in your messaging. I like it because for example, when we set up a download, this is how we automate it. We use Flodesk. It's a wonderful resource to send out your emails, but they also have this thing where you can set up all of the automation for downloads and create sales pages. So it's very robust. When we do the download and we set up that entire process in there, literally, I probably spend about 15, 20 minutes setting that up and then I don't have to revisit it unless Chelsea and I update the download or do something like that to it. It's all coordinated on the back end. Now, when I want to go look at the analytics, great, we have an email list of over 1 people, over 1 people on there at this point.
Where did these people come from? I want to know what's intriguing to them. Why did they sign up? I go and I look at what downloads brought them into our email list. Then that gives me some perspective. If the majority of them are because they downloaded something having to do with craft fairs and markets, then we kind of know that that's something that they're interested in. So you're able to also better target people and match them up with better services and products that you have.
Chelsea: Absolutely. I love that you said that. With consistency, it can be something as simple as you get asked these same questions over and over again on your Instagram profile. Okay, well, you can set up a response, even though I don't think it's automated. Is it automated?
Vivian: You can automate it to the point where like, if you type in your response and then you create a keyword from it. So you say every time I type in market, then generate this response. Literally then you just type in market and then it'll populate that entire response you have.
Chelsea: Yeah. Just doing something as simple as that can save you so much time, and you're responding with consistent messaging.
Vivian: I'm going to add on to this low hanging fruit idea. Reminder, if you have a Facebook page, Congratulations, you have digital real estate. Are you using it? That was my show voice. How'd you like it?
Chelsea: I liked it.
Vivian: So if you have digital real estate, are you maximizing your use? Meaning, open up your Facebook business profile page and do you have a cover photo? What is that cover photo? Is it just a photo or do you actually have something on there that's a graphic that tells your mission statement? Or maybe that shows a couple of your products or shows the storefront of your building. Utilize it to your advantage. Go back. Same thing with your website.
Congratulations, if you have a website, you have digital real estate. You guys, what does that homepage look like? Is it easy for people to navigate through? Take the thing, Chelsea and I consistently talk about Google business profiles. You would be shocked if you have not gotten back in. Let's say you reserved, what do you call it? When you take your Google business profile?
Chelsea: You claimed it?
Vivian: Yes, you claimed it. When you reserved, yeah. When you claimed your Google business profile, if you have not looked at it in two years, you'd be amazed at what Google now lets you do. You can upload videos, you can upload photos, you could do 360 photos on there. All of the stuff. They allow you to even include now your Instagram profile, your Facebook profile, meaning all they have to do is click it and it goes straight to your Instagram page. So I mean, if you haven't gone in there and built that robust thing and to Chelsea's point, if you haven't looked at the low hanging fruit that you have, do it today. Just kind of make a short little list of every place that you have and go through that list and say, have I utilized it to its full extent? Yes, yes, and yes.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Another form of low hanging fruit, Vivian, I have two. Repeat customers. We did an entire series on new versus repeat customers. The thing with repeat customers is they cost less and generate more money.
Vivian: Yes. That's very good point Chelsea, because these things that we've laid out today as Chelsea said at the beginning are to help you save money and time. You convince someone to buy from your business once, great, you can do it again. You guys, we believe in you. You can do it a second time and at a cheaper price.
Chelsea: Exactly, exactly. Don't sleep on repeat customers. My next low hanging fruit, Vivian, is going to be evergreen content. Because evergreen content, y'all, if you don't know, it is contenth *content*.
Vivian: Contenth? You developed a lisp.
Chelsea: I switched into Spanish all of a sudden.
Vivian: Castellonian Spanish.
Chelsea: Apparently, Spanish, Spanish. We don't speak Spanish, Spanish.
Content. Evergreen content is just content that you can share at any point in time about your small business. The great thing about evergreen content is it is so easy to repurpose.
Vivian: What I love about it, it's kind of like, imagine you have a door, you're keeping the door open all the time. Right. To our point, you set it up one time. You set it and forget it, unless you gotta go back and address it, okay? So always know it's there. If you're updating, rebranding and stuff like that, you're going to have to go back and look into it. Once the bulk of the work is done, you're having to do very little to maintain.
Chelsea: My next bullet point for your one-person marketing survival guide, y'all is going to be find resources to help you. We've had this discussion before on the podcast, there is nothing wrong with reaching out and asking for help. Nothing wrong with it. Now, if you are, again, one person, it can be a little difficult, but there are still resources you can find. There is Canva, there's ChatGPT. There's finding an email marketing platform that you absolutely love like Flodesk. There's the SOB Community and The Seasoned Marketer and all of the resources that we offer people. Finding those resources that can help you be more efficient when it comes to your marketing is super important.
Vivian: We always have a spicy take during an episode and usually it's coming from Chelsea. Today it's going to come from me.
I'm actually going to tell you that if you are not looking for resources and you are handling your marketing in-house and you are one person and nobody else is helping you with your marketing, you are doing a big disservice to yourself if you are not out there looking for the resources. Like that's dumb. That's dumb. That's so dumb.
Chelsea: I was about to say you're not being very spicy and then Vivian just called you all dumb. Nevermind.
Vivian: Well, no, because I'm, and I'm going to say it like this. Think about this if you were in a professional setting, not that you guys aren't professionals, but what I'm saying is like, the marketing world. If I am a CMO, a chief marketing officer at Apple, if I'm a chief marketing officer at Google, at any big firm, part of my responsibility would be that I go to trade shows every once in a while or professional opportunities for education. So once or twice a year, I would force myself to go somewhere and actually go to an event that is put on by the American Marketing Association, or an event that is very specific for the community of chief marketing officers, okay?
Community means you're learning and sharing ideas off of people. You're not being a smart marketer if you are doing things the hard way. You guys do not get a prize or an award for doing something the hard way. All right, I understand sometimes you have to learn the process. That's how I am. I will do things the hard way sometimes because I feel like I have to understand the process before then I can find the shortcuts. That does ring true, but if it is just because you are not taking the time to go out there and vet resources like an email platform that can help you set up some automations, right? The reason we love Flodesk is we've told you guys time and again, we're not going to recommend something that is so expensive. We just don't operate that way. So Flodesk, we love because you can grow your email list to from zero to 20 people and it will be the same price.
Okay, $19. All right, I think maybe now it's like 20 something, but it's very inexpensive per month. So what I'm saying in that is if you are just putting it on the back burner and you're like one day when I have time, I'm going to find a resource to help me with X, Y, Z, today's the day. All right, because it's going to save you time in the long run.
To my point about the community, we have the SOB, the Small Owned Business Community. Part of the attraction there and part of the benefit of joining a community like ours. It's not expensive. $50 a month and you get to hop on weekly Zoom calls with us and with other small business owners. Okay. They are all good at very specific things, you can ask them for opinions about stuff and for help and guidance through things. I think that's where you're going to cut down a lot of stress, right? Because you're not having to figure stuff out on your own. Sometimes you're just too close to it, right? You need to have someone else that doesn't know the business as well that can say, hey, have you considered this? Because as a layman, as a potential customer, this would intrigue me enough. It might not be the thing that you think it is, okay? So I think these are all really great and valid reasons for finding a community. You guys are always welcome in our community if you want to join the SOB community.
Chelsea: Also in that community, we actually have a spreadsheet of resources.
Vivian: There you go. So we've already done it for you. We did take the time to sit there and we have it divided up by like topic or category. Emails. If you're looking for an email platform, we have maybe like four or five listed on there. So if you don't like Flodesk. We give you the link to the website for each one of them, okay? So talk about having a springboard for you just to be able to consolidate everything and click and then go research and see if you want to implement.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Vivian, I want to touch on something that you mentioned just a few seconds ago because it is our last bullet point. Giving yourself boundaries, giving yourself time. What's the word I'm looking for? *snapping multiple times*
Vivian: I felt like we were about to be in a revision of West Side Story, when you were clicking.
Chelsea: *hums West Side Story song "Jet Song"*
Vivian: I was like, is she about to break out in song and dance?
Chelsea: I wasn't. I can't think of the word I wanted to use. My point is self-care is important. Okay, that's the last bullet point. Self-care is important. Give yourself boundaries. Give yourself time to take a step back and not be so stressed out about it and relax. When you neglect your mental health, it's going to impact your business and your marketing.
Vivian: Agree. Yeah, I love everything about that.
Chelsea: You forcing yourself to continue to do something when you need a break is going to do more harm than good.
Vivian: All right. Well, is that it, Chels?
Chelsea: Yeah, that was it.
Vivian: All right, guys. In case...y'all know I'm jesting. Is that the right word?
Chelsea: Yeah. Like jesting, joking around?
Vivian: Yes, I'm jesting when I called you guys dumb. I really don't. You guys are very, very brilliant people, especially because you've decided to take that leap and create something out of completely nothing. You're running your small business. You're out there selling your product and services and you're doing this as a one man, one person. I always say man.
Chelsea: See I always say woman.
Vivian: One woman. One person. One person show. We're proud of you. We want you to know that, quit making life harder on yourself. You know, if anything, we've got a ton of resources for you. If you guys ever just want to send us an email and let us know and do that. Give us a recap of what's going on in your life.
Chelsea: Absolutely.
I want to reiterate that we don't punch babies or give babies drugs. We don't do any of those things.
Vivian: We don't. We love babies.
Chelsea: Well, I'm indifferent.
Vivian: I love babies.
Chelsea: I'm indifferent, but I'm not punching or drugging them. I pinky promise. Are we ready for the TLDL? Let's wrap this up.
Okay, so if you skipped ahead to this TLDL chapter, that's great. I'm glad you're looking for this information. When you get the chance though, go back and listen to this entire conversation, because that's where the good stuff is, you know?
So, wrap up of today's conversation. You are a one person marketing department. This is going to be your survival guide. These are the things that you need to make sure that you're doing or sticking to so that you can be effective on your own. Know your basics, so your target audience, your brand guidelines, your goals, and your marketing plan. You need to prioritize. Focus on the important things. Organization, organizing everything that you have in your marketing department. Really important. Low hanging fruit. So focusing on the things that can help you be as effective and efficient as possible.
Looking for and finding resources to help you because again, you are a one person marketing department. And giving yourself boundaries, making sure that you're focusing on self care and giving yourself a chance to breathe and relax.
That's that. That was the whole conversation. So, y'all, if you are looking to join a community of small owned businesses like yourself, make sure to go check out the SOB Community. Make sure that you are following or subscribed to this podcast so you never miss an episode. And you know what? Just go be the best SOB you can be.
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