#118: Building a Marketing Strategy That Actually Aligns with Mari Milenkovic

0:02: Welcome to the Fully Expressed podcast.
0:04: We’re your hosts, Karenna and Samantha.
0:06: This show is your permission slip to stop holding back.
0:10: Here we talk about what it really means to live unapologetically you in your relationships, your business, and your everyday life.
0:17: We believe the most magnetic version of you is rooted in And self-expression, honesty, vulnerability, and showing up fully as you are.
0:24: When you own that, you naturally attract the people, the opportunities, and the life that is meant for you.
0:30: Hey guys, today’s guest is a marketing wizard and just an all-around incredible human.
0:35: Her name is Mari Milenkovic.
0:38: It’s just so good.
0:40: If you are thinking about starting a business, you’re in the early stages of business, you’ve been in business for a couple of years, or your business has evolved, you’re going to find so much good in this episode because Mari really, really walks you through what is a marketing funnel, how to look for, what is leaking, and what the bottlenecks are.
0:57: Mari is a serial entrepreneur, exited founder, and marketing strategist who has helped thousands of female.
1:03: Founders grow their businesses through strategies that align with their vision and directly impact their bottom line.
1:09: As the founder of With Mari, she specializes in creating momentum through clarity, building systems and strategies that support intentional aligned growth.
1:18: I think what we both loved about this episode was that it gives you permission to build a business that is aligned with your life.
1:25: There’s like she says, there’s 500,000 ways to market.
1:29: And so what does it look like to market in a way that is consistent, that meets your audience, and creates a business that is aligned with you.
1:36: So we hope you love this episode.
1:37: Enjoy.
1:39: Welcome back to another episode.
1:41: We have a really dear friend, Mari.
1:43: I’m so excited to have you here.
1:44: Thank you so much for being here.
1:46: Thank you.
1:48: for those that don’t know, I met Mari at Like Minded OC.
1:52: We’re going to talk about like-minded OC a lot, What I’ve loved so much about meeting Marie is when she’s like a wealth of knowledge when it comes to business, and we know that so many of our listeners are really either in business, they’re trying to take us to the next level, or maybe you’re in this place of really in the early stages of business, and Marie has so much history in business, and she’s a marketing genius, and And so we’re so excited to dive in, but we’re going to get to know her on a more personal level as well.
2:20: So thank you so much for being here.
2:23: Thanks for having me.
2:23: She’s also very dynamic, you guys.
2:25: She lives a nomadic life for how long now?
2:29: It’s been 4 years, almost, nearly 4 years, yes.
2:31: And can you tell them what that means?
2:33: Sure.
2:34: So I haven’t had a home base for 4 years.
2:36: , I lived in Orlando for my gosh, 20 years, and we decided we wanted to travel and experience, I remember saying I wanna be uncomfortable, and I couldn’t think of a better way to be uncomfortable than to go to a different, different country every 6 to 8 weeks.
2:53: So for 2 years that’s what we did.
2:55: We moved around every 6 to 8 weeks and yeah it was uncomfortable.
3:00: Yeah, it was hard.
3:02: It was beautiful.
3:03: I mean, clearly we’re still choosing it, so even, even the hard parts are worth it, but, definitely put us in a position where we had to be flexible and learn new things and be nimble, and got to experience so many different cultures and countries and beautiful, then we got back to the states a couple of years ago.
3:24: And have been doing stints here and there and we love it.
3:27: What made you want to come back here?
3:29: Yeah, I wanted a dog, so I wanted a dog.
3:32: We, we’re a dog family.
3:33: We had dogs for, you know, 13 years before leaving, and sadly they live less than us, right?
3:41: So once we didn’t have dogs in our lives anymore, that’s when we decided we could have this little pouse of freedom.
3:49: And so we went for 2 years and and I was, that was enough for me.
3:53: 2 years was I didn’t wanna do that anymore.
3:56: I wanted a dog in my life, so we got, I came back so that we could get Charlie to have a chocolate lab named Charlie and now our goal is to figure out a Way to incorporate Charlie in this nomadic life, and I feel like we’ve done a really good job of that in the US, so still trying to figure out what that looks like for more adventures to follow.
4:19: That’s awesome.
4:21: What were some of the challenges that you ran into your nomadic life?
4:24: I think I bring this up because I feel like there’s some of you out there, I, me included, I was like, I want to live nomadic?
4:30: Like how do I build a business being nomadic?
4:32: Like if I’m not in a certain place.
4:34: So I’d love to know like what are the things that you’ve run into.
4:38: So I was nomadic mostly when I was building business#1, and when I say that it’s because we were moving every 6 to 8 weeks and it was very dynamic.
4:47: business number 2, I’ve been more stable and I crave that stability.
4:50: I crave that routine.
4:52: when you want and nomadic can look like so many different things, right?
4:56: It can look.
4:58: Like you travel for 6 months and you come back home for 6 months, or you go somewhere for 3 and come back for 3, whatever that means to you, it’s different, but being realistic in your capacity when you are having that lifestyle is critical.
5:11: So what is the business that you’re trying to lead and how can you make that work with the time?
5:16: Differences.
5:16: How can you make that work with the commitments that you’re, you know, wanting to uphold for yourself and either whether it’s a product-based business, do you have a warehouse, right?
5:24: Do you have to keep inventory?
5:25: What does it even look like?
5:27: Is that going to add more stress?
5:29: Are you in a place in life and in business where you can step away in that, in that way?
5:34: , I was very lucky to have a co-founder for Business number one, so very different, dynamic, or at least you had, you always had a backup, right?
5:44: Like there was always somebody there to help, and there were times where I didn’t have internet, right?
5:50: There were times where I was delayed for, for multiple days.
5:54: There were times where.
5:55: , I, I couldn’t fulfill the commitments, and it’s different when you have somebody to really support you through that process versus when you’re doing it when you’re doing it yourself.
6:06: I get that.
6:06: Yeah.
6:07: What was the first business?
6:09: So my first business, is Her Brand and Co.
6:11: It’s still, alive and thriving.
6:13: We sold it in December 2024, marketing education platform for early stage female founders.
6:18: So if you’re looking for marketing education on demand, there’s some other really great offerings.
6:22: it’s called Her Brand and Co.
6:24: and it’s fantastic.
6:25: It’s amazing.
6:27: What I would love to know, just curious, what got you guys to a place of wanting to sell it.
6:32: Yeah.
6:33: so different priorities as we were growing.
6:37: So we built the business in 21 is when we started.
6:41: Sold it in December 2024.
6:43: It was perfect for both of our lives.
6:45: My co-founder has two little girls.
6:48: She lives in Atlanta, and it was just what she needed.
6:52: It was just what I needed.
6:53: It was my first business.
6:54: She’d been in business for a while, and, we were ready to do different things with our lives in different ways.
7:01: We saw the, the business and the need also shifting a little bit from what we could build at the time or what we wanted to build at the time also, You know, we knew what the business needed to grow and we never really wanted to invest in ads or go into debt or look for investment, so somebody else needed to take it at that point, so that was number 1 and then for me, it was also I was ready to go more in depth working with founders.
7:28: I wanted more of like that high touch, deep impact, more connection.
7:33: And that wasn’t the business model that we had built with her brand and Co.
7:37: so I was feeling a lot of friction in how I was able to show up for that business and how I needed to show up in general, and, and there was a lot of like trying to mold and, make things work in a way that just wasn’t, matching my values.
7:54: This is so good.
7:56: How is that transition?
7:57: Like, oh my gosh.
7:59: From figuring that out to realizing, oh, this can’t be what I need it to be.
8:05: Yeah, It happened so fast at the same time, so actually, fun fact, we ran a retreat in Sicily.
8:13: That was our very first retreat.
8:14: It’s, it’s been my dream to do a life experience abroad.
8:18: Italy is just my home and it has my heart, and I wanted to bring founders there.
8:22: So I talked to my co-founder and I was like, you know, I really wanna do this retreat, you know, are you in?
8:28: And she’s like, hey, if we can make it work, let’s do it.
8:30: So we did that and it was in Italy when we were there together that we decided to sell the business and.
8:36: It just comes to show how stepping away from your the norm, the day to day, the working in the business gives you the opportunity to look at other possibilities and potentials and I like to share that nobody approached us to buy the business, right?
8:52: We went to market.
8:54: It was a very intentional sale, right?
8:56: It wasn’t like, oh, we were out there and somebody said, hey, we wanna buy you.
9:01: It was much more intentional and the fact that our lives are changing, we see.
9:06: Where we’re going and the business is not meant to support that.
9:09: What now, right?
9:10: We’ve built something beautiful, can we sell it?
9:13: And, and the answer was yes, which was really, which was really cool.
9:18: But to, to answer your question, Samantha, I.
9:22: I didn’t, I didn’t give myself time to process the sale of the business at all, right?
9:27: I knew there was something that was misaligned.
9:29: I actually met with one of my, mentors and old boss.
9:34: I worked in higher education for 10 years, and he’s a, Gallup StrengthFinder coach.
9:41: So we met, we were catching up, and he reminded me because I, I took the Gallup Strength Finder Finder years ago, maybe I don’t know, 7 years ago or something.
9:50: And he still had from all of his employees, he had everybody’s strength, and I was like, well, let me, let me pull you up and see what it was that you, you, you tested us.
9:59: And my strengths were all about depth and rela relatability and execution, and I was like, oh, I am not able to do those things in this role.
10:11: And we were already in the process of selling.
10:13: I hadn’t put two and two together as to why I was feeling that friction, but having that conversation with him was so eye-opening to see, oh.
10:22: I’m not, I’m not honoring those strengths.
10:25: I’m not living in my son of genius in this role anymore.
10:31: And what does that look like in, in what I build next?
10:35: I love this so much because I feel like in my own personal stuff when it comes to business, it’s so easy to be like, well, this is successful, like I have to, why am I, why am I feeling so much tension?
10:44: I should just work through the tension to make myself meet the success.
10:48: But you actually were pulled away and you’re like, no, this is no longer aligned.
10:52: and you were more listening to like this part of you that wanted to be more authentic to who Mari is and like what it really meant for you to be more fully expressed and it meant showing up in a different way.
11:02: , but not necessarily showing up in the way that you were, and then you listen to that and you guys got on board.
11:08: The other thing I want to reflect back to that’s so beautiful is that you guys realize that the business was so good for what it needed to be at the time that it needed to be.
11:19: and I think it’s so easy to be like, well, I got to keep this going.
11:23: So what do I do?
11:25: but, and you know it’s also align this with your lives, which I think we don’t realize how much business and life actually are overlapping all the time.
11:33: We try to keep them separate like this is my business life, this is my personal life, and then they start clashing and you’re like, why are they clashing that work.
11:41: I don’t know how you do that, but in entrepreneurship, I don’t know, I guess in like professional life or like corporate life, you can kind of keep it a little secret, but entrepreneurship is all the time the lines are blurred.
11:53: The lines are blurred, yeah, absolutely.
11:55: Business is personal.
11:56: Yeah, it is, and it’s hard to, I mean when you build something, you’re building it because it matters to you and there’s so much of you in it.
12:04: I had to go through that process when we were selling the business and it was going to continue on without me too.
12:09: Right?
12:10: First of all, somebody’s putting value on something that you built, and it’s, that’s hard, that’s difficult, you know, it’s, it’s somebody else is saying, well, what you built for the last 4 years is worth X.
12:21: You’re like, OK, you’re like, are we sure?
12:25: Maybe the number needs to be a little higher.
12:26: Exactly.
12:27: And, and it’s just because you, you’ve put, you put everything into it, you know, and it, it becomes, it’s a child, it’s something that you’ve built and it means so much to you.
12:36: , and then you have to shed that skin and figure out who you are, and I, I certainly didn’t give myself the time.
12:44: One of the things that, you mentioned, Karina, that made me think of it too is I always talk to my clients and when we think about the marketing strategy that they’re introducing and building and leveraging in their businesses, is it supporting your life because you don’t want to build something that you’re not going to want to actually do and be in it every day when you are a founder.
13:04: You have to be in your business every day.
13:07: And Really, we, we, we make the choices, right, whether we know it or not and how deep into those choices that we get in the process before we can actually realize like, oh, this is not what I meant to be building or this is not how I meant to be showing up in my business.
13:24: It’s important that we check back often and reflect and say why are we doing it this way?
13:30: Is it supporting my life because I want my business to support my life, not the other way around.
13:35: I want to feel good when I’m in my business because otherwise I can go work for somebody else, right?
13:42: And having that constant check because very quickly we can get into this hamster wheel just in our businesses even and getting out of it is the, the more you’re the farther you’re, you’ve gone in, the harder it is to like back up and be like, wait a minute, this is not necessarily how I wanna show up.
14:00: Can you walk us through something?
14:02: So we listened to one of your workshops this week and you talked about how there’s like 500,000 ways to market, and there really is.
14:08: I mean, I think that was my biggest lesson when I walked into learning how to build a business online.
14:13: I saw all these people and they were saying, I did this and it made me this much money or I did this and it made me successful or this and it gave me my time back and they were great salespeople because they were talking to the thing that I wanted, right, was either money or time back or freedom.
14:27: And then in that, I always found myself kind of like trying to mirror their model, early on in business.
14:34: I was like, well, I need to do this because this is what this person did and that’s what they did.
14:39: And so how does someone find, and maybe you can like wherever you need to take this, but how does someone find a marketing funnel or a way to market their business or product or service in a way that meets them.
14:52: So I think one of the biggest lessons in marketing is that marketing is, it, it stacks on each, on itself, right?
14:59: It’s iterative and we, when we see these experts and coaches, it doesn’t mean that that didn’t work for them, but there’s a lot that we don’t know of what.
15:11: What happened before, right?
15:12: What, what were all those building blocks that got to the point where that one magic sauce, silver bullet, one strategy actually flipped the switch for them.
15:21: So when we see that and we, we learn from that, which is super important, we think that by flipping that switch, it’s the only thing that we need in order for it to work, right?
15:32: But we are not seeing all those building blocks, which is why I talk about flipping the funnel so much and starting from the bottom up rather than the top down.
15:40: Because that’s what’s going to give you the building blocks so that when you are ready to flip the switch to get more awareness, to increase reach, you’re going to be able to convert.
15:50: Can you talk about flipping the funnel?
15:51: What is the funnel?
15:52: Yeah, yeah.
15:52: So the marketing funnel, you may be familiar with it.
15:55: Marketing funnel is, basically the journey that a, a client or customer takes from.
16:01: Not knowing that you exist all the way to coming back for more, repeating, you know, buying your service or product again or referring you to others, so we break it down into 5 stages and it’s also called a sales funnel, and people, you know, break it down in different ways, but I like to start brand awareness then goes into legion, then it goes into nurture, sales, and retention.
16:22: So it’s 5 steps, and it’s basically I’d like to use the dating analogy all the way from.
16:28: You know, meeting somebody for the first time all the way to actually marrying them, and it’s a process, right?
16:35: It takes different touch points to build the trust and to build a relationship and any time that you are serving someone, whether through a product or a service, you are building a relationship because the reality is there’s 5000 other choices that people can be making, right?
16:50: Like our services or products are not that special, they’re not that unique, and that’s OK.
16:55: But how we build that relationship and that trust is what was going to make the difference because people buy from brands, right?
17:01: People buy from people and, so flipping the funnel basically refers to the idea of let’s start with retention first.
17:09: Do you have product market fit?
17:11: Is your offer sticky enough that people are talking about it or that they’re coming back for more?
17:16: If they’re not, we gotta fix that first, right?
17:19: Then we go up into the sales, OK?
17:22: If that’s a yes, then are people actually saying yes to opening their wallet and paying for the, for your product or service, and that can be when, you know, after you have a consultation call with them, what is your close rate?
17:35: That can be once they land on your product page, what is your close rate, right?
17:38: So, if things are broken there, we got to fix the, the bottleneck of the sales, face of the funnel before we go into the next stage and then so on.
17:49: Question, I just love it.
17:50: I, I loved how the analogy you gave is, and I can’t remember if it was for the retention, but where you said, you know, if you could take someone on the first date, you don’t then ask them to marry you, right?
18:02: You actually court them for a while, which is exactly how the sales funnel runs, which is so true.
18:07: I loved that analogy as someone who is not as marketing versed.
18:11: Yeah, totally.
18:12: It’s like you, you meet someone’s, you know, you think someone’s cute at the gym.
18:15: That’s like brand awareness, you know they exist, right?
18:18: And then it’s like, OK, well, would you like to go grab a coffee or grab a date, a drink?
18:22: That’s lead gen.
18:23: Now you, that I call leadion basically attention as currency.
18:26: They’re choosing to give you their attention, which is, is valuable at that stage.
18:30: And then nurturing is you’re dating, you know, you’re seeing what’s up.
18:35: Do I like you, right?
18:36: Do I actually, yeah, exactly.
18:38: Do I wanna hang out with you truly, for the rest of my life, which is where sales come into play.
18:43: So that’s like the proposal.
18:44: Like sales is like, yes, I’m in and I’m committed.
18:47: And then I think marriage is the retention like at this point, like I’m sure you could leave, but it’s a little bit, you know, more complicated.
18:54: I’m already committed.
18:55: I’ve signed the government papers.
18:58: So can you go into flipping that now like what it means to flip it because we, I really enjoyed how you broke down like how when you flip it is actually where you can see where the gaps are or where the missing link is that’s not allowing you the bottleneck, I think you called it absolutely.
19:14: Yes, so identifying the bottleneck is key to figuring out where your, your strategy should be focusing on, right?
19:20: Because like there are 5000 things you could be doing and because they’re stackable, if we’re addressing the bottleneck first, we can tackle that, fix that, then move on to the next stage and so on.
19:30: So when you’re flipping the funnel as a whole, so if you’re looking top to bottom is brand awareness legion nurture sales retention, if we’re flipping it, then we’re starting to look at retention, sales, nurture, legion, and brand awareness.
19:44: So starting from the top, you ask yourself questions of the customer journey and what actions the customer client is taking within those phases and when you land to like on a no, then that’s when you know you have to fix that leak.
19:58: So you go from.
19:59: Bottom up is, are people coming back for more or referring to others?
20:04: If the answer is yes, then we, you move to that next phase, which is sales.
20:07: Are people saying yes, when you are on a consultation call with you, or, you know, that’s probably a 40 to 60% close rate for, you know, if you, if you wanna think about whether or not that’s a healthy close rate for you, if it’s anything under that, then that’s something that needs to be fixed, right?
20:24: That’s for service based for product-based, you’re thinking at about a 2 to 3% close rate.
20:29: , from your product pages, landing pages, and so on, then if the answer to that is yes, they actually are converting in a healthy way, then you go down to nurture.
20:39: Are you staying in touch with them?
20:40: Are you building that trust in a way that feels manageable, that it’s automated, right, because we don’t wanna be writing emails or content or trying to text and, and call our clients all the time.
20:52: Is that working well and are people actually.
20:56: engaging with that nurturing content that you’re building.
20:58: If the answer is yes, then we move on to lead generation.
21:02: Are people actually giving you, are they choosing to engage with you in a way where they are providing something of lower value?
21:10: And that means whether it’s an email, an email or they’re following or something that requires a little bit of attention from them.
21:20: Then if the answer is yes, amazing, then that means we can work on visibility, right?
21:24: Like then that means we can pump the top of the funnel, which is where we get more eyeballs.
21:29: We want to get more people to the landing pages, we wanna get more, we wanna work on invest on ads and so on.
21:36: I love this system because I think when you’re as a business owner and you’re looking at your business, you’re like, OK, something’s working, but something else is not working.
21:43: Like I can tell, like I know, right?
21:45: Like I think we all know, right?
21:46: Like things are working and then things are not working and then this is just such a great formula to look at because like the very first thing that I think about is like how everyone, I mean, in this era, and we talk about this so much, you need more of a visibility, you need more visibility, you need more visibility, you need more visibility.
22:01: And you need to show up on Instagram more.
22:03: You need to put yourself out there.
22:05: You’re networking events, you got to go on stages, you got to do all these things.
22:08: But what if the other parts of the funnel are broken?
22:11: And so all the things that all the energy output that they’re putting at the top end isn’t really supporting the rest of the funnel, I just, I mean, I think about that for us.
22:22: I think about that for myself.
22:23: I know there’s people out there they’re like, I just need to put myself out there more.
22:26: I just need to like they’re like hitting their head against the wall and they’re like, I’m going to so many in-person events and I’m not converting as much as I should.
22:34: They get like hyper fixated on that instead of looking at the whole system and wondering, oh, maybe actually it’s this over here that I need to tackle or fix.
22:44: And then the last thing I’m gonna say too is like this also takes time.
22:47: I think that I don’t think people realize and in an age today where like you get things so quickly, you’re like, I want something for Amazon tomorrow.
22:53: I need this today.
22:54: And, you know, I want to get this ordered and I need this today.
22:56: And I think as a business owner, you’re like, why isn’t it going faster?
23:00: Or why am I not making sales faster?
23:02: I’ve been talking to this person only 5 times and they haven’t bought from me yet.
23:06: Yeah, that was really eye opening.
23:08: So you shared an 8 to 12 touch points, guys, like.
23:11: 8 to 12 touch points with someone who’s a warm lead, meaning they’re they’re recommended to you or they come across you and they followed you for a while.
23:19: Like this is not a cold lead.
23:20: This is why marketing is consistency.
23:22: I could cry because I’d love, I’d love how much it resonated and how much we retained you’re like, oh my God, we just talked about this and yes, and it’s so true and maybe I can share some of those stats because I think that’s very eye opening also.
23:35: So less than 2% of people that get.
23:41: OK, how do I position this?
23:43: When somebody lands on your page for the first time, like it’s your first touch point, your initial touch point only, or less, less than 2% actually convert from that initial touch point.
23:53: We just pause there.
23:54: You know how many people are like, we just talked about the ask, right?
23:58: The import of the ask and like the important to be like, hey, do you want to work with me, or I have this product for you, or you’re setting up this desire and I have this service that can fulfill you, and how often everyone wants to get a yes on the first ask, and you’re saying that only 2%.
24:12: Less than 2% less than 2% say yes, this is the thing that I need and want.
24:17: Correct.
24:18: OK, let that just land.
24:20: Right, exactly, exactly, right?
24:22: And think about your own experiences too when you’re thinking about, you know, saying yes to a service or a product.
24:28: Yes, sometimes we say yes because the product market fit is so strong, you know, if you’ve ever been influenced on an ad that you saw on Instagram and you actually said yes to the actual to the purchase itself, you One of the or less of the 2%, right?
24:43: Like you’re part of that 2%.
24:45: But more likely than not, how many times do you have to get it served or hear it from something else or maybe they’re they’re part of a retargeting campaign where you get it served on Instagram and then you’re Google searching and it shows up again because they’re listening, they’re listening to what you’re doing exactly.
25:03: But yes, 8 to 12 touch points from a warm lead.
25:06: This is somebody that already trusts you and has chosen to engage with you.
25:09: So from that lead, Jen, right, if it’s a cold lead, you’re talking about 12 to 20 touch points from somebody that has never heard from you.
25:19: , seen you or known that you exist or your product.
25:22: So this is why that nurturing system is so important.
25:25: And yes, showing up is important because otherwise you’re not right?
25:29: Yeah, absolutely there’s, there’s a, there’s a need for that.
25:34: The question is how much.
25:37: And where?
25:39: And how are you actually being intentional to collect that, to actually continue nurturing them, because Somebody lands on your page and there’s no opt-in.
25:51: You don’t have anything that you’re actually offering them.
25:53: You’re not giving them anything of value.
25:56: It’s, it’s over.
25:57: It’s it.
25:57: Like that’s it.
25:58: You’re never gonna see that person at the gym again.
26:00: They’re going somewhere else.
26:01: They’re not interested.
26:02: They’ve moved on to the next they moved on.
26:04: Exactly, exactly.
26:05: So there’s different, there, there are lower asks that we can make that are value focused asks that gives us the that gives us the opportunity to.
26:14: Actually continue engaging with them, communicating with them, building that trust to lead them to the final, not the final, but the more robust ask of work with me or buy my thing.
26:26: Does this apply, I just want to clarify, does this apply to both service and product-based businesses?
26:31: Is there any nuance?
26:32: , the, what is the nuance?
26:36: Like what are you, what is that attention, what do you call it attention for currency?
26:40: , opt-in, we call it an opt-in is your lead generation, right?
26:44: So for product-based businesses usually is a, discount, right?
26:49: Like if you have ever landed a percentage off or a special gift, yeah, of course if I’m gonna buy it, I definitely want that.
26:56: And if I’m considering about buying it and I’m not sure yet, that’s where that comes in, right?
27:00: So it’s like a 15% off if you give me your email address, and now I can actually nurture you because again less than 2% are actually going to be buying it from that first time.
27:10: , so that email marketing is critical, which is why email marketing is the top performing marketing strategy that’s out there for, you know, bringing back $30 to $40 for every $1 spent.
27:22: nothing, no other marketing strategy performs that way.
27:25: I thought about that too after you shared those stats and I went.
27:28: You know, I’ve just obviously I look at my email every day.
27:30: I’m like, wow, it is really easy to be sold in emails.
27:33: Like I open the email.
27:34: I’m like, oh, do I need that?
27:35: Right?
27:36: So it is true.
27:36: You don’t, it’s such an it’s such a day to day like you’re just constantly looking at emails, but it is.
27:42: I really started to think more about that when you shared that stat, and you don’t always open them, and that’s fine.
27:48: I don’t.
27:48: That’s fine.
27:49: I really don’t.
27:50: There’s plenty I don’t open to, yeah, totally.
27:52: But when you’re ready to, but you also don’t necessarily unsubscribe from them either.
27:56: You still let them come in.
27:58: Because when I’m ready I’ll be ready.
28:01: Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, and that’s the power of email.
28:05: So good.
28:06: Yeah, where do I take it from here, Let’s ask, like, I think I asked you a question at the marketing workshops.
28:15: I think about this, especially with the height of social media, it’s like how much effort do you put on social media to how much effort you put in person?
28:22: And Like I would love to hear your thoughts on that because I feel like now people are torn, right?
28:28: Like business used to be a little bit more traditional where you could just build a business from in person and you still can.
28:34: But now I feel like there’s like this tear between like, oh, but now there’s social media and social media marketing is the new trend and it is the new era, and we got to be on there too.
28:43: So what are your thoughts on that?
28:45: It depends on what you’re building,#1, and it also depends on what purpose social media is serving for you, right?
28:54: So I went into business number 2 very intentionally to be off of social.
29:00: So for the 1st 10 months I started in January, actually almost a year ago, and I said I will, I will build my business off of social, completely off of social.
29:10: I deleted the apps.
29:11: It’s like I don’t want it.
29:13: It’s just.
29:14: Can’t do it for my own mental health.
29:16: I need to be off of them.
29:17: Zero comparison, zero, you know, all the things.
29:20: And, eventually, I think it was October, so yeah, 1010 months later or something like that.
29:26: I was like, OK, I think it’s time.
29:28: But for me it was more a nurture strategy rather than an awareness or legion strategy.
29:34: Why?
29:34: Because I was part of like Minded OC.
29:36: I was meeting all these wonderful women and founders, and I wanted to actually stay abreast of what was, what they were doing and you wanted to connect with that.
29:42: I wanted to connect.
29:44: And everybody was, what’s your Instagram?
29:45: What’s your Instagram?
29:46: What’s your Instagram?
29:47: And I, and I had a lot of FOMO, truly, basically what it came down to extreme FOMO, and I was, OK, I must, I have to be on the platform now, but it’s time.
29:56: I had, so when you’re thinking now about my funnel, my own personal.
30:00: Funnel for my business.
30:01: I had repeat customers, so my retention strong.
30:04: I was able to sell my sales strategy strong.
30:08: My email marketing was actually providing both of those, so my nurture strategy in different ways, whether it was through relationship building, events, email marketing, etc.
30:16: strong.
30:17: Now I was ready to start building on top of that and not have all this split attention into what I was doing.
30:24: So social media can be very strong because it also similar to email marketing touches a lot of the funnel stages, right?
30:33: It can be for visibility, it can be for lead generation if you’re either choosing to follow, they’re choosing to connect, or they’re actually going off of the platform into an email or a different type of engagement.
30:46: You can sell to them on social and you retain them because they’re fans, they’re gonna follow, they’re gonna engage, they’re gonna refer to others, share your stuff, and so on.
30:54: So it could be powerful.
30:57: It’s also exhausting.
30:59: Right, and you’re also at the mercy of the algorithm that’s constantly changing, and I am not a social media expert by any means.
31:08: I have chosen to play outside of that sandbox for many reasons, but I understand the power of it.
31:16: And depending on the type of business that you have, it, it does serve a purpose.
31:21: The key comes when you are more intentional about what is the purpose that you need it to serve.
31:28: How are you measuring if that’s actually true, right?
31:32: Because we can assume, oh, if I post 5 times a day.
31:36: 5 times a day.
31:36: Oh my gosh, no, 5 times a week.
31:38: Although I’m sure there are people who go a day.
31:42: Well, that’s a volume game too, TikTok is one of those, right, right, yeah, but I’m like I can’t.
31:48: It’s just that, that does not support my life.
31:50: I feel the same way, so I get it.
31:51: So back to what you were saying, it does not support your life.
31:53: You cannot commit to that.
31:54: That is not the life that you want to live.
31:56: Yeah, exactly.
31:58: So, so yes, if you’re, if you’re posting 5 times a week, great, amazing.
32:02: What’s happening from that?
32:03: Are people actually converting?
32:06: Because even if you’re getting likes, if you’re not converting them into a paying customer, right, what’s the point?
32:12: Yeah, like, great, you’re building relationships, but ultimately in order to run a business you have to make money.
32:19: The revenue has to be there.
32:21: So my number one recommendation would be, how is Instagram social media platforms in general?
32:28: How are they supporting your revenue goals?
32:32: Can you make some direct Attributions are very hard because marketing is a full ecosystem and it’s impossible to determine all the touch points, but you can, you can, gather some insights from metrics, love data, and then, and then go from there.
32:48: Like if the answer is no, OK, what, where’s the bottleneck where now we’re going.
32:52: Back into there, in the bottleneck.
32:54: And then how do we make, or how do we become more intentional about letting social media be part of that bottleneck fix, rather than just another strategy that we’re turning our wheels on and not seeing any results from.
33:11: I feel like so many people, and maybe not so people, maybe it’s my own projections, but I just feel like we’re all kind of putting spaghetti on the wall when it comes to marketing.
33:19: There’s a lot of people doing that.
33:20: Every single client I’ve worked with ever, yeah, you know, like, even the workshop, even the workshop that you’ve done, like I think we’re all like, is this gonna work?
33:28: Is that gonna work?
33:29: Is this working?
33:29: Is this not working?
33:30: And I think I’d love to know, like, just to give people some grace, like how long does it take to kind of narrow this in.
33:37: , I see that because like not only when I started my business online first, like I evolved so much throughout that process.
33:43: Like, one, I was just trying to figure it out.
33:46: I was learning how to do business.
33:47: What does it mean to have an online business?
33:49: And then also who the hell am I?
33:50: Like, what do I want?
33:52: Like what does this mean?
33:54: And so I’m just so curious, like that evolution, can you speak a little to that and how you’ve seen other founders navigate that?
34:00: Yeah, you’re not going to like the answer.
34:02: Go ahead.
34:03: Oh,, it’s forever.
34:05: It’s forever.
34:06: It is, it is.
34:07: No, we love that here.
34:08: OK, yeah, yeah.
34:09: , I mean, that’s the truth.
34:11: It really is.
34:12: Marketing never ends.
34:13: It never ends.
34:14: It’s just another problem that you’re going to unlock, but that’s why it’s so important that we are using those building blocks to, to unlock the puzzle pieces as you are building on top of each other because it truly never ends.
34:27: There is the goalpost changes, your business model changes, your customer evolves, you.
34:35: Fix or you find the answer to something and then that breaks something else, you know, it truly it’s like a constant pivot.
34:42: It is, it is, and, and you have to be willing to test and validate, talk to your customers and figure out what’s working.
34:50: And one of the things that I work on with my clients a lot is you have to test and validate, and this is again, never ends in business in general, but definitely in marketing and also it like marketing changes.
35:03: It all the time, yeah, all the time, not just social media, but marketing in general.
35:06: It, it’s evolving.
35:08: So, well, even you talking about people are buying a person and a brand, I think that’s becoming more and more like apparent that there’s so many options out there and because social media brings.
35:18: Awareness to so many options they’re buying you like you, I mean, even for me personally with my jewelry like you, I have to share myself.
35:25: I can’t just post pictures of pieces like there’s so much competition.
35:29: People wanna buy your energy or they wanna buy and same for fully expressed for anything.
35:34: Absolutely, absolutely.
35:36: So yeah, the question then becomes, what do you like what is it going to serve you.
35:45: And then how are you going to measure and iterate.
35:48: But as you are testing and validating these different marketing strategies, the worst thing we can do is say that didn’t work, the strategy didn’t work, right?
36:00: Maybe The launch didn’t work.
36:03: Let’s, let’s use a launch, for example, like you’re launching something, open enrollment for a course or a service or something, and it tanked.
36:10: You didn’t sell anything.
36:12: OK.
36:14: What can we gather from that information?
36:16: Is it a product market fit issue?
36:18: Like, is it the offer itself that wasn’t sticky enough?
36:22: Was it the language that you were using?
36:26: Was it the, you know, calls to action that you had in your emails?
36:29: Like, were your emails being opened?
36:31: Were they being clicked on?
36:32: Where, where in the bottleneck?
36:34: Because every single, every single stra every single thing that you do within your marketing falls inside that marketing funnel, right?
36:41: So even when you’re thinking about a launch, you’re thinking about how are people finding out about the launch, how are they opting in that they want more information about the launch?
36:49: How are they getting the information that they need to say yes to the launch and then actually saying yes to it, right?
36:55: So we can break every single strategy that we do inside inside that funnel and see where the leaks are within there and then iterate from that.
37:05: So very rarely will you say, I am going to do this one strategy.
37:11: And it works perfectly, right?
37:15: Like that is just like the biggest fallacy truly, and I think once we realized that that’s the case we’re so much kinder to ourselves and we just know that it’s like, OK, that launch tanked, but I know the offer is solid because I’ve been able to sell it in other ways, potentially.
37:32: So what were those other ways that actually worked and what can we gather from that information.
37:36: , but something was happening with my emails that they actually weren’t being clicked or maybe, you know, people weren’t as engaged in my social media, so they didn’t actually even made it to the, landing page to buy the course.
37:50: So maybe there was a nurturing issue in the process and we can gather some insights from that and then make changes in the future.
37:57: That makes sense.
37:58: But ultimately entrepreneurship is about taking risks and nothing is for sure.
38:05: , and there needs to be a little bit of that.
38:09: What is your risk, you know, what are you willing to?
38:13: Yeah, what is your threshold and, and how can you leverage things that already that you already know that works to mitigate that risk, so then you can play around with some other things.
38:24: A question that I’ve asked myself, and I feel like other people ask myself is, do I take the time to learn this or do I hire this out?
38:34: OK, so we talked about budgets, right?
38:36: We talked about the marketing budgets and, and what should, how much should you be spending on marketing, and this is also part of that risk conversation too, right?
38:44: so usually for businesses that are, are growing or in the growth stage, you’re thinking about 15% of your projector projected annual revenue.
38:54: So to put that into perspective, if you’re think, if you’re projecting that you’re going to be making $100,000 next year, you should be spending $15,000 in marketing.
39:02: That’s not that much if you’re going to hire.
39:03: Once you start thinking about, you know, your email marketing platform, once you start thinking about the content that you’re creating, once anything that’s marketing related falls within that 15%, right?
39:16: Once you realize, so then you can start backtracking.
39:18: So out of that $15,000 or 15%.
39:21: , about 70%, 60 to 70% should be going to tried and true strategies.
39:29: So I know my email marketing performs really well.
39:32: The first thing that I started outsourcing was my email marketing, right?
39:36: I’m not a designer.
39:37: I write all my content, but I, with the help of AI, but I’m not a designer.
39:42: So the first thing I did was I will outsource the design creation, like implementation.
39:48: , scheduling all of that of my emails because I can be doing other things with my time, right?
39:55: That was part of that 70% because I know email is strong.
39:59: Or 60, 70%.
40:01: The rest can be divided between, I think it may work, so maybe it’s like a branch off of something.
40:08: Like if I know email performs well because I’m offering value and education and it adds in building trust, perhaps I can use some of that money for social media as I’m introducing that to have another nurturing touch point, right?
40:23: Now, I don’t know that Instagram will work yet with my knowledge of what I had before, right?
40:29: And then the other part of that is completely experimental, right?
40:33: That is like I, if I were to throw this money into a fire, I’d be OK, yeah, right, like because truly you have steer inclination of whether or not something’s gonna work, so totally experimental, so to go back to your question of should you hire or should you learn.
40:51: What is your opportunity cost is one of the questions that I ask my clients.
40:55: So if you have to learn something.
40:58: How, how much are you leaving on the table because you can’t actually do the things that you should be doing, number one.
41:07: , number 2 is, is it realistic for you to learn something, or, because, OK, we’re entrepreneurs, but we’re the CEOs, the CMOs, the CTOs, the COOs, all the C’s, you know, I’m, I’m out of Cs at this point, but that, that’s not realistic.
41:27: Where, I mean, I’m not out here saying that.
41:29: I mean, I have an accountant, right?
41:31: Like I’m not a finance person, and I don’t want to learn to do that.
41:37: Yeah, that’s not where I live, but there’s this expectation for founders that you should also be marketers.
41:43: Out of everything else, like when you’re thinking about.
41:47: Like, I will hire a CTO, a chief technical officer, because my expectation of myself or where I’m getting from others is not that I should know tech.
41:56: I will hire, some, somebody to help me with my finances, an accountant or a CFO.
42:03: Because again, that’s like way beyond my scope.
42:06: But when it comes to marketing, it’s like, no, I need to know.
42:09: I should know how to market.
42:10: I need to know how to do email and content and PR and all the other 5000 marketing strategies that are out there.
42:17: So not realistic, but could you test and validate the validity of strategies before you go and hire, and really, you know, put a dent in that marketing budget.
42:32: Meaning like try to figure out what works first before you go and outsource someone else to help you.
42:37: Lovely.
42:38: Yes, absolutely.
42:40: Yeah, because if you’re spending, I mean, social media is a great example.
42:43: I like to use it because it’s a very much a visibility strategy.
42:47: And if you’re spending $1500 a month on a social media manager, for example, but then that awareness, quote unquote, that you’re building is not transitioning or translating into revenue.
43:00: Why?
43:02: Right?
43:02: Like, is there a better place for you to put those $1500?
43:05: And I think some founders just to talk to that, I think people want to outsource the social media stuff, but because social media is such a you brand, you like them, she so badly wants to.
43:17: I’ve seen someone else recently, one of my friends said he outsourced all of his social media.
43:21: He basically was like, I’ll create the content, but you like you send it out, you create the stuff, and his stuff would not grow.
43:28: And then he finally took over that.
43:29: He’s like, I’m going to take over this piece.
43:31: His stuff has completely grown.
43:33: And so I think there’s these elements of like testing, like maybe it will work for you that someone is whatever, right?
43:39: Because I do think with social media, there needs to be this authenticity piece.
43:42: You got to be you have to be comfortable with being seen.
43:44: There’s a lot of parts of you that you face when you’re becoming more visible on social media comparison as one of them.
43:51: But you learn those things, right?
43:53: Like you’re kind of saying like, OK, if I try this thing, it’s experimental.
43:57: What worked, what didn’t work?
43:58: What does this need of me?
43:59: What does it need of me?
44:00: Can I outsource this?
44:01: Can I not?
44:02: Like Samantha Skelly, for example, she outsources, she’s a huge team.
44:05: , from what we know, but she does her social media, she’s on every call, she writes every single email because a lot of the people that buy from her are buying her.
44:15: They’re not really buying the ad agency or the marketing agency, they’re buying her, right?
44:20: So there’s elements of still bringing you into it.
44:24: If that’s what your brand needs or product needs, while also outsourcing this stuff that’s not the admin things that you need to do, and I think that’s part of it too.
44:31: Like I think if I outsourced other aspects of my business, I probably wouldn’t mind doing the social media, but because I’m doing everything myself right now, it feels like that’s one thing I just don’t even like I don’t do email marketing, which absolutely should.
44:44: I sell jewelry.
44:46: She’s like, Do you send emails?
44:47: I’m like, No, I sure don’t.
44:50: That it’s fine.
44:51: I’m transitioning my business into something else, but, you know, I, I’m very lucky.
44:55: Like I do commission-based businesses, so like you, I’ve built it offline and it works really well, but I wanna expand, and the only way to expand is to do the things you’re saying.
45:03: , but I also think it’s like have grace for yourself.
45:05: Like I’m learning and we’ve had this conversation many times, which is you don’t have to do it all alone or you don’t have to learn it even if you can learn it.
45:14: Like sometimes it’s good to outsource even if you can do it yourself.
45:18: Yeah, just because you can doesn’t mean you should, yeah.
45:22: I sometimes yes to that.
45:24: And I also kind of push back on that.
45:25: Like I’ve loved putting on the hats to know enough.
45:28: Like, how do I say this?
45:30: Like, because when you run a team, right, and I, I come from a corporate background, like, and I’ve worked with so many different teams, knowing their language of what they’re talking about is so like, it’s such a resource, right?
45:40: Because like if you completely outsource something and you don’t know how to talk about it, When they’re telling you things, you’re going to have no input back, you know.
45:47: You bring such a good point because I know this is, this is one of the hills that we’ll die on, right?
45:54: And it’s founders need to lead the marketing strategy.
45:59: You should not outsource the strategy piece because nobody knows your business or your customers or you and what you’re trying to build more than you.
46:08: Nobody does.
46:10: Now, so that’s why I, my, approach is very collaborative.
46:13: It’s like we start there.
46:15: It’s like, who is your customer?
46:16: What is your business?
46:17: How are you trying to show up?
46:19: What, what are your smart goals?
46:21: Because that’s really what it comes down to, you know, and are they, you know, you can, you can have aggressive goals, but also we’re gonna be realistic if you’re Launching something brand new, we’re not gonna sell 100 in a week, depending on, you know, where your funnel is.
46:35: There’s many, many aspects to consider, but we’re gonna figure out where you’re starting from, what the goals are, and how to get you there in a way that actually makes sense for you, your business, your life, and your customers, because if you, so many of my clients come to me and they’re like, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars at an agency.
46:56: And seen zero results.
46:59: But it’s because some of the things may be strategically sound in general, but it doesn’t mean they’re strategically sound for that business and that customer and the stage that they are on, because we cannot think to market.
47:16: So I call, I say that I work with Founders that are marketing in the middle, you are too big to DIY, right?
47:23: Like you’ve done the DIY, you’ve done the VA, you’ve done the fiber, so you’re outgrowing that, you’re seeing some product market fit, but you’re not yet big enough to outsource completely or to have an internal team or to have a CMO.
47:35: So when you’re marketing in that middle, you cannot think about marketing like big brands because big brands already have brand equity and their job is visibility.
47:47: Right?
47:48: They actually can invest in visibility because they don’t need to educate, they don’t need to convince, they don’t need to nurture, they’ve already done all that hard work.
47:57: So when you go and try to outsource too early, that’s what I see often is it, it, you look for a bigger agency or someone that has worked with like these amazing, great brands, but you cannot market the same way.
48:11: That makes so much sense.
48:12: Yeah, I’ve even seen it just like bring it back like in the corporate space.
48:16: Like I see the marketing team running in their own lane, and they’re not talking to the salespeople that are talking to the customer every single day.
48:22: And we’re like, wait, the salespeople have something because they’re actually going out and finding their own people.
48:27: They’re meeting in person, they’re selling.
48:29: They know how to talk to the person.
48:30: They talk to the customer every day.
48:32: And the marketing team is nurturing and spitting, doing all the things that they think is strategy, but they don’t have the language.
48:38: And so I think as founders, like you know your customer best, you know how to hear it, you know how to talk about it the most, you’re responsible for that.
48:45: And so I think that’s the other piece that we We need to know enough and we need to leave the marketing to like let it back to you because we are the glue, right?
48:55: I also think as founders is like you are the ones that share the vision, you inspire people, you show people what’s possible on your team.
49:02: And if we were to hire someone like you, I would share with you everything that I know and you’d give me feedback and I’d be like, yeah, and I also see this, you know, it’s like a teamwork exercise versus me being like, Mari.
49:15: I need to make $100,000 this year.
49:17: This is what I’ve got.
49:18: Run.
49:19: Right.
49:20: Well, and you also don’t know what to ask at that stage, right?
49:22: Because you may think I need more eyeballs.
49:24: You may think I need more visibility, right?
49:27: And then ask somebody that you’re hiring.
49:30: I’d be like I can, I can do that.
49:31: I can give you more eyeballs, you know, but can you convert that exactly, exactly what are they doing?
49:36: What are we doing?
49:37: They’re spending all their money on visibility and then the nurturer thing is broken.
49:40: You’re like, I spent $10,000 and that’s a great suggestion.
49:44: I love too because you know it’s easy when you’re a smaller brand to look at the bigger brands.
49:48: Be like, oh, that’s what they’re doing.
49:49: Let me just copy what I see versus actually understanding all these other elements that are at play that you’re speaking to that maybe like we come back to throwing shtick against the wall without really or what is it, pasta, spaghetti, spaghetti.
50:03: I’m like shtick that definitely won’t stick.
50:06: Yeah, no, no, the sticks aren’t sticking, but yeah, really understanding that there’s all these other layers that have been completed by these brands for looking to, they’ve already gotten to that place and they have millions of dollars in their marketing budget, yeah, they can just, just their marketing budget alone.
50:24: So yeah, you’re never gonna compete in that way.
50:26: You’re what you’re going to compete is in the relationship building aspect of it and the fact that you.
50:31: That you are your brand, whether you’re a product or a service.
50:36: And I think people don’t realize too like I’ve learned this in industries you don’t even think there’s oftentimes multiple investors behind the person that’s the face of the brand.
50:46: Like it is, yes, there’s some brands that are just, they stay, they don’t take investment, they grow, but so many, even in the jewelry world, like there’s so many big brands that I would have never.
50:55: Ever thought had multiple people invested in that brand.
50:58: It’s not just the face of the brand, which I’ve recently learned more about that, and I’m like, oh, OK, that makes me feel better.
51:05: Like I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested behind the face of me, or, you know, and that’s true, I think across all areas.
51:12: Yeah, and that goes back to all the layers that we don’t see, right?
51:15: So we may see, oh, this person ran a campaign and they got.
51:19: Amazing results, but we don’t know how much they spent.
51:22: We don’t know what their cost per click was, we don’t know what their average order value was.
51:26: So, so there’s so much, or my favorite, it’s like we launched and we sold out.
51:30: Amazing.
51:31: Where was it 10?
51:33: You know what I mean, right, exactly, because that’s a great marketing campaign, I will say, but that’s just part of the comparison, you know, epidemic that because we just see the top of the iceberg and I love your favorite is back in stock, and I was like, I’ve swallowed this.
51:50: It’s never been sold out.
51:53: Yeah, and I mean some strategies are, and yeah, when we lead with some because there’s tactics obviously when it comes to marketing, but always, always, always with truth first, even when you’re leading with scarcity, scarcity is a scarcity, yeah, it’s a great marketing tactic when it’s true, when it’s true, right?
52:13: Because otherwise it affects the trust.
52:15: So if I say I only have 3 sprints in the spring.
52:20: But I really have 6, you know, and, and somehow that is very apparent or whatever, then it just, it affects the trust that you’ve worked so hard to build, so yeah, I gotta be careful with that.
52:34: So can we circle, full circle it back around to Italy because I wanna hear more about these retreats and now I heard maybe you wanna move there and bring the pup.
52:46: I love Italy.
52:47: Italy is, what’s your favorite part?
52:50: Lake Como.
52:51: So it’s a specific area of Lake Como.
52:54: I, I’ve spent more than 6 months there collectively, you know, while I was traveling, and I just keep coming back to it.
53:01: It’s, it’s, it’s at the foot of the Alps.
53:04: It’s called Mandelo del Lario.
53:05: And fun fact, when we were living there, I would tell my husband that we’re never telling anybody about this place because Lake Como is very touristy, right?
53:13: And there’s, it’s also huge.
53:15: I had no idea until I, I lived there, but there’s hundreds of cities around the lake and there’s very, a couple ones that are the most, popular, yeah, and we ended up because we would, we would just go.
53:27: On Airbnb and basically just look at the map and put our non-negotiables in the filters and we would just look around and try to figure out where are we gonna end up in the next, you know, 6 weeks and I came across this beautiful tiny house nest nested in the middle of the mountains, which we’re big hikers, so you get the mountains, you get the lake, which is beautiful, we’re like done, let’s do it.
53:50: So we ended up there serendipitously through like a search and fell in love with it, came back multiple times, and now I bring people there.
53:59: So this little piece that I wanted to keep hidden because it’s not a big touristy area.
54:04: It’s actually mostly hikers and this area is visited by Germans and.
54:10: Swiss, people, but it’s just very, it’s just, I, yeah, I’m obsessed.
54:18: Amazing.
54:18: So when female founders go on these retreats, what do they do?
54:22: Yeah, so we actually meet with Italian female founders over there.
54:27: Yeah, that’s my favorite part because you get to experience this part of Italy in a way that You wouldn’t, you know, like when you travel, yes, you can find immersive type experiences, but to learn from founders that have built businesses in a different country with different values, with different, you know, customers, different business models, it provides a level of perspective, creativity, and just openness to step into the next phase of yourself and your business in, in, in such a beautiful, truly beautiful way.
55:04: So cool.
55:05: That’s awesome.
55:06: I’d love to know because we’re gonna start transitioning a little bit more to you based on your business this last year, and I know you’ve already done your 2026 planning.
55:14: What are you shifting into right now?
55:17: And how’s your marketing strategy shifting if there is any?
55:21: Oh, there’s lots of shifts happening.
55:23: Very exciting.
55:24: Tell me, tell me if you’re open to.
55:26: Great question, because I just, structured this for myself in a way that felt really good.
55:32: And so, you know, started in January, it’s been almost a year.
55:37: I shifted, pivoted, changed my business model, oh my gosh, at least 4 times just from listening to my clients and figuring out how I could best show up for them and really, really being intentional with how do I lead with my mission and vision in mind, which is depth, impact, relationships, results, like truly.
56:00: And there were a couple of missteps along the way of how I was showing up for my clients that worked for them, but it didn’t allow me to provide the depth that I really knew they needed and the way that I want to show up for my clients in order to make the business more sustainable too.
56:21: And for them to see the results.
56:23: So, I am limiting my client roster for 2026.
56:30: So, to give you an example, last year or this year, earlier this year, I had a roster of 12 at a time.
56:37: And when you are inside someone’s businesses the way I like to be, that meant holding 12 businesses that plus, right, at once, and marketing impacts everything, right?
56:48: It touches so many aspects of the business, and it just didn’t feel sustainable in the long run.
56:55: It, it, I wasn’t building something that I was excited about building, and it was limiting how I was showing up for my clients, and that was a problem.
57:05: So reframed everything, still led with the impact depth, you know, mission, and I’m very excited to come into 2026 with very specific ways I can serve clients.
57:20: So instead of prolonging the engagement when perhaps the resources are more limited, I can do deeper.
57:28: More contained containers, with like VIP days and sprints, right?
57:35: And then for my deeper engagements that are longer term, either 3 months or 2 months, depending on the season, I can limit those to two founders, have a much deeper fractional CMO engagement.
57:47: This is more like, I am in your business with you, I am leading your team, your marketing, you likely have some contractors or some.
57:53: , in-house team members that are already doing some of the marketing so I can serve more as marketing leadership fully and for the whole ecosystem for two very specific clients and then I can still show up, with or to.
58:09: The female founders that I love that are perhaps more earlier stage with deep dives, VIP days and marketing sprints, which are more like focused, contained, we get it done, and then you get to actually apply the implementation.
58:24: I love that.
58:25: I love it.
58:26: That sounds exciting.
58:27: Yeah, yeah.
58:28: It sounds so good.
58:29: , so, we ask this question to everyone.
58:33: , where in your life are you feeling called to be more fully expressed?
58:37: This can be life, love, or business.
58:41: I’m gonna go with business since we’ve chatted about business, I want to.
58:48: I want to intentionally show up as myself without questioning if or how people will take who I am, you know, I wanna show up as whatever that is, and if that’s quirky and if I think something is funny to just say it instead of wondering, I showed up like that at the, workshop that I led a couple days ago that you guys attended, and I was like, you know, I’m just gonna come here and I’m gonna have a good time and yes, I’m nervous, but I’m gonna own the fact that I’m nervous and.
59:18: If I think something’s funny, I’m going to say it without questioning whether or not people are going to find it funny, and I had such a good time.
59:25: Yeah, you were great.
59:26: It was so fun.
59:28: I had such a good time.
59:29: Yeah, I felt like you were very Mari.
59:31: I mean, knowing you and like going on walks with you and hanging out in the car with you.
59:36: Going to round tables with you and like there’s like this quirkiness to real Mari in like the most loving way and like I thought you were very authentic out of your workshop.
59:43: Yeah, thank you.
59:45: I feel like I, so for business number one, I wasn’t very much in the forefront of it.
59:50: I was, you know, more in operations systems and, so I didn’t have that opportunity and then going into business number 2, I felt like I had a lot to prove, and for me that meant like how I was showing up and making sure that.
1:00:07: Perhaps my demeanor or how I was communicating or and I’m like, let’s just have fun.
1:00:16: Let’s just have a good time and let my experience lead the way and who wants to listen will listen and who doesn’t, bless and release.
1:00:25: Yeah, your people will find you.
1:00:27: It feels so much lighter when you do that too, because when you walk in a room, try not to control or manage how people perceive you.
1:00:34: It’s like I’m constantly on alert.
1:00:36: I’m hyper vigilant.
1:00:37: What did I say?
1:00:38: How did they say that?
1:00:39: Did I deliver it?
1:00:40: Did I say in a way that everyone could receive it?
1:00:42: You know, there’s so much pressure and that energy can be very draining.
1:00:47: But when you step into that ease like you’re stepping into, it’s like, I get so much more energy back.
1:00:52: Yeah.
1:00:53: And you, and you get to, I mean, you can only control what you do, right, and how you show up and what your intentions are.
1:01:02: And try your best in the process.
1:01:06: And then everything else.
1:01:08: You know you got to ride the wave.
1:01:09: What will be will be, and I’m really trying to step into it, fully into it and fully express myself in a way that feels lighter and truer and just, yeah, more fun.
1:01:24: I love that.
1:01:25: I’m so good.
1:01:26: Well, thank you.
1:01:27: Thank you so much.
1:01:28: It already flew by.
1:01:30: Yeah, this is amazing.
1:01:31: This was so fun.
1:01:32: Thank you guys.
1:01:33: That was such a great conversation.
1:01:35: I hope it was helpful.
1:01:36: Oh, it was so helpful even for us.
1:01:37: Yeah, I can’t wait to hear about all your experiences that are coming up for 2026.
1:01:42: Yeah, it’s gonna be fun.
1:01:43: Yeah, and it will change because that’s life, you know.
1:01:46: I mapped my whole calendar for 2026.
1:01:49: Like truly I was like, OK, these are my sprints, these are my VIP days, these are my availability.
1:01:53: capacity because I, when she says she maps it you guys, I saw photos she literally had every single month, that’s on the floor, date by date, month by month.
1:02:04: Yeah, I just put it up on my wall yesterday.
1:02:06: I have to show you, yeah, yeah, it looks awesome, but there has to be some flexibility there, right?
1:02:10: Like entrepreneurship is nothing if not flexibility, yes, I think there’s something to that like we love.
1:02:17: To see something like that, like the structure of it makes us feel good, be like, OK, I have something on paper, and then also just realizing that it can change at any time.
1:02:25: And that’s so important because especially as entrepreneurs, you’re like, well, this month I was supposed to do this.
1:02:31: Yeah, not really.
1:02:33: God had other plans.
1:02:35: It’s true All right.
1:02:37: Well, we love you.
1:02:38: Thank you.
1:02:38: Thank you for having me.
1:02:39: Thank you, thank you.
1:02:40: We hope you loved today’s episode and that it sparked something in you on your journey to becoming more fully expressed.
1:02:46: Don’t forget to check the show notes for all the details and resources from today’s conversation.
1:02:51: If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review.
1:02:53: We’d love to hear your honest thoughts and takeaways as it really helps us to create content that better serves you.
1:02:58: This week, we invite you to show up even more as you, more honest, more real, more expressive in your life and business, and we’ll see you on the next one.