Is Your Sales Funnel a Leaky Bucket?

Get ready, because everything is about to change. There's a new way of living life and doing business that will blow your mind. This is a podcast all about the timing of life and the timing of success. It's what we call the Right on Time life. And you are listening to the Right on Time podcast with Amber McHugh.

Hey, hey.

Welcome to the Right on Time podcast. It's Amber McKew, your host for this podcast episode. And today we are going to be sitting down with Tamika, the founder of Orisha Creative. And you know, at the end of this conversation, I felt so grounded in doing marketing, you know, in our growing small businesses, when you show up in the online space right when we've got ads coming at us every day, I so oftentimes feel a sense of pressure and hustle and all right, let's go, let's go.

Let's get it done.

And these are sometimes important seasons. We're going to have a let's go season. And also there's a season to study. And what Tameka and her team do with clients using their nurture matrix model is they bring that study into the business all of the time. Tameka and her team look at nurturing and lead gen and pre selling and sales in a very unique way that is really core to how businesses can get more deeper. More deeper. Listen to me. More deeper, more deeper relationships with their clients for long term results and how to move people to buying decisions potentially sooner. Right. But always right on time. So I want to invite you to listen in today. If you've got leads coming in, if you've got relationships you want to be building with your clients and you want to invite them to make decisions to work with you or to take advantage of your incredible products sooner. Tameka has got some good stuff for you today. So listen in and let us know what you think about this episode. I cannot wait to hear from you. I cannot wait for you to benefit from this. Let's do it. Tamika. Welcome to the Right on Time podcast. I'm so grateful that you are spending time with us here today.

I'm excited to be here, Amber. We're gonna have fun. Can't wait to chat. I know.

You know what, Will you just introduce your fabulous self to the listener right now?

Yeah, sure. For sure. I run a content marketing agency called Orisha Creative. I'm the CEO. And at Orisha Creative, we are not just content generalists. We specify or specialize in something really, really specific. We are nurture marketing experts. And so folks might be Listening and saying, what does that actually mean? Well, we really, you know, we work with coaches, primarily coaches, mentors and teachers. And, and from a nurture marketing perspective, we're the folks who come in and make sure that the content that they're creating actually does what nurture marketing, nurture content is supposed to do. We help them pre sell their programs, we help them turn more new leads into new clients. And we do that without having them create endless amounts of content, without actually having content earn its keep.

Yes, you said so much there, presell.

Mm.

Sell like deliver on that. So people are excited, they're motivated. You deliver on the sale. And that without creating endless amounts of content, things are going to waste on the shelf.

Exactly, exactly. And just, you know, being in that place of like, I call it the content creation treadmill, you know, where you're like churning out the stuff. Right. It takes a lot, I mean, particularly folks who are like, again, coaches, mentors, course creators and even other service based business owners. But like, you gotta face it, there's a lot of content that gets created. Right.

Okay, we're going to go there. Before we go there, you're the name of your company. Oresha is so cool. Where did the name for your company come?

Yeah, yeah. So came to me in a dream, Amber. But really I've always been super fascinated by, you know, sort of mythology, God, goddess, you know, that, that sort of supernatural element and Orisha are the, the God goddesses of the Yoruban culture. Yoruban, you know, being in West Africa. And they are the conduits. The way that I interpret it, I'll say, right. I'm not a, you know, 100% expert, but when I read a definition, and this is where it kind of came to me in a dream a little bit. I read a definition, I was reading some, some books and it explained the Orisha as part supernatural, part human and being the conduits between heaven and earth. And they come down to earth to help people fulfill their purpose. And I just thought that was so beautiful. And so when we were naming, the agency had a couple of different ideas and a couple different logos. And I had a dream and we kept talking about the agency as Arisha. And so that was, you know. Yeah, that was the decision there. Yeah.

And so amazing.

What a great story. Thank you. And so that's what I feel like we do, right? We work with folks and we help them really to get their message out there to amplify and elevate their messaging so that they can do the work that they came here to do. Right.

It's so aligned. And as you were sharing that story with me, I, you know, I'm. I leaned back. You could see me, I'm listening. I'm immersed in the story. And I was thinking how effective that your communication style is and your approach is. Because many times, what happens when I was speaking with a client just this morning, and what do I need to do to nurture my audience? And oftentimes people say, what are the first emails they need to send? What's the template? What's the script I can follow? And, oh, you're. This is your story, and that's what people are connecting with. Right? So how do you approach your. Your approach to nurture marketing? Right? Is it. Here's your template, Here's a script. Yeah.

Ooh, you can see the face already. I'm like, template. You know, something that I say Quite often, we do a workshop each month, and one of the pieces that I like to share in that workshop is that templates are really helpful. I understand it if you're not a marketer, like, staring at the blank screen, the cursor of death, you know, not knowing what to write. Templates are really helpful, but they don't. They never teach you how to become a marketer. They never teach you how to think more strategically. So we don't use templates in the traditional sense. What we really have and what we created and what our approach looks like is we created a framework to help our clients, which, again, are coaches, mentors, and teachers, to help them really identify very clearly who their ideal clients are, what core messages those ideal clients need to receive to move them along their buyer's journey. And we have templates that we use to help them, again, look at their ideal client in a specific way, look at their messaging in a specific way. But none of it is that kind of like Mad Libs, where you just sort of change up the words for something else. It really is. Our approach is very much intentional and efficient. Those are like, two words that I super love and say all the time. The intentionality behind it is, what do you want your nurture marketing to do? Like, for your client this morning, it's, you know, asking the question, how do I nurture my audience? Okay, well, what do you want the nurture to do? What is the purpose of nurture? Because what I've identified is that a lot of marketing experts and love them to pieces, and we all can all can have our own sort of view and vantage points. Right? But looking at nurture Some folks see it as like anything you do to stay visible. Like, nurturing means visibility. Nurturing means like I, you know, I'm doing something to be connected to them. Right. Which I suppose is a, is a definition. Sure. We're doing some nurture. I like to take it a little bit further. In my view, nurturing needs to provide an outcome. We run businesses. Right. Like, this isn't the same as going out and making friends at the PTA and you know, we just want to be connected and, you know, one big happy family. No, no. I run a business, you run a business, your clients run businesses. So nurture needs to deliver on the goals of the business. So in my mind, nurturing, nurture marketing is the process by which we develop relationships that draw our ideal clients along their buyer's journey and prepare them to buy. Right. Very different than. I just need to be visible. I need to be in front of them. I need to stay connected. Yeah.

What is under that? Because this. Yes. Be intentional. This wipes away all of the wheels spinning. Right. I look at it like sometimes we.

Can be sitting in a rocking chair.

Rocking. We are in action, but we're not going anywhere towards our destination. And when we weave intention into it, we're going to get to our destination with much more ease, much more efficiently, much faster than if we're like, oh, let me try all the things, or let me just step into visibility for visibility sake. Yeah.

And we get to be of service to our people.

Yeah.

Because again, coaches, mentors, teachers, you know, again, any service based businesses. And I'm not, I'm leaving product folks out intentionally just because we've not applied this for these frameworks to product based businesses. But I would imagine in some way, shape or form it probably could work very similarly. Right. But like, these folks are in business to help others with their transformation of, of whatever that is. Even if you're a service based business owner, you know, you run a lawn mowing company, the transformation is to go from having a lawn that looks like, you know, crazy town to one that is beautiful and groomed and, you know, wins awards at the, you know, fall fair. Right. Like, yeah. Do you know what I mean? So there's an, there's an intention behind it. There's a desire to help your clients, help your audience experience a transformation. And when we're just nurturing to be visible and to stay connected, we're not really thinking about that client and what they need to get the transformation that they really want. Because let's face it, they showed up they signed up for your list, they followed you on Instagram because they're curious about some sort of transformation. And so in my view, you're doing them a tremendous disservice if you don't have content design to help them get to that end goal. Even if the ultimate decision that they make is that you know what, you're not the right service provider, coach, mentor, teacher for me, your job is to move along their buyer's journey so that they come to a choice somewhere. Ideally, if we do it right, if we do it well, it will hopefully be with us. And if we have all the pieces in alignment, it may be with us, but we want to nurture with an eye to seeing them enroll. But also through that is seeing our audience, seeing our communities transform, not just staying connected and being, you know, friends on the gram.

So good. So if we've got the end state in mind, right, Inviting people to enroll, buy our product, if it's a physical product for me and my photography business, sign up for a photo shoot and then see how amazing you are. Transformation, not the photos. Right. Your power is re instilled. Because we've all got the power.

Absolutely.

How? Okay, so we've got variety of end states. How do we move to them with this pre sell, nurture, sell process.

Yeah. So it really gets down to understanding what our ideal clients need to see, hear, feel, know, understand in order to make that buying decision. That's how we start to suss out what are those messages that they need to receive. It all goes back to who that ideal client is. And one of the easiest ways, one of the things that I am always happy to give and share, what we're really talking about here, when someone's making a buying decision, it is. It's not just transactional, right? There's emotion, there's psychology, there's like all the pieces that go through. And especially in kind of these really deep transform transformation businesses, even, you know, in the photography business, I would imagine for someone to decide, okay, I'm gonna, like, be vulnerable, be seen, you know, take the photos. Like they. Sometimes there is a very real deadline or outcome or something driving them to book that photo shoot, right? Like maybe they have something coming up and they absolutely have to produce a sh. But when we're talking about something like brand photography, right, they. You're not usually competing with other photographers to get that ideal, you know, to get that client to step into transformation with you. You're competing with their own sort of inner game. And like, can I really be this Can I show up like this? Right. So the thing that you're really wanting to do then, and the way that we move folks along their buyer's journey is we want to think about, how can I help my ideal clients shift their perspective around two things. How can I help them shift their perspective around their problem? And how can I shift it around the. What they've been doing so far to solve it? Right. So it really is about getting very clear on your ideal client who they are. Not just from a demographic perspective, and, yes, from a psychographic perspective, but even deeper than that. We want to look at things like what beliefs are they having about the transformation? What things have they tried before? What myths and mistakes have they, you know, bought into or made? When we look at those aspects, we can start to break down that journey that they kind of have to make again. It's the journey within their own minds. The perspectives need to be shifted. But if we don't do that job, if we don't shift that perspective, they literally can't take action because they're still kind of like, stuck in the old way, stuck in the. I can't do it for, you know, using the photography example again, if this person, you know, if an ideal client or someone who could potentially be a client is stuck in their head thinking, oh, I don't really need headshots. Like, I can just selfie it away or, you know, if I take pictures, there's no way I'm just not photogenic. There's no way that I'm going to look great in these pictures. Doesn't matter how much I spend or how great the photographer is, you know, or, yeah, everybody else in their portfolio looks amazing, but I don't. There's some unpacking that needs to happen or they can't become ready to buy, even if they love your work. And they are just, like, they know there's. They wouldn't be following you if there wasn't a little shred of them that felt like, ooh, Amber's my person, Amber's my photographer. Right? But there's a belief gap. There's a belief gap, right? And here's the thing that I think is most important to understand, because there will be people who will enter your world, be right ready to buy, will go through your sort of initial, you know, sort of funnel and, you know, book that call, you know, press, press, you know, the buy button, enter the credit card, all that good stuff. But that's a really small percentage of people, right? Like, it's gonna be I mean, you look at your top funnel conversion numbers, it's like 2% maybe. Right, right, right. So we gotta think about everybody else who isn't ready to buy. What are we doing for them? What are we doing for them? And what tends to happen most is that we just dump them into a newsletter. We send them our weekly podcast and, you know, it's better than nothing. What I just shared before getting really connected to where they are or how they approach their buyer's journey and rolling out messages that, that specifically break down those beliefs, break down those myths and mistakes, all of that. Like, we can see how that can be more supportive than just popping them into the newsletter sequence where they'll receive whatever. Yeah, right.

Big time. So as you think about this, the myths and beliefs, you know, the misconceptions people have, how do you get to that data? How do you get to those beliefs? And you know, I am one maybe like, maybe like somebody who's listening, who wants to it just to be done right. Like, okay, how can we do this quickly? I don't know, is this a quick process or interviews? Like, how do we dig into this and is it once and done or do we have to keep revisiting this discovery process?

Yeah, that's a really great question. So, you know, it really depends. I hate to say I hate that answer. Everyone hates that answer. It depends. My children hate that answer. It. They want to fight me. It depends on answering the first part, like, how do we get to that data? If you are, if you have been in business for quite some time, if you have been working with clients for quite some time, the data is there. Yeah, you're probably going to have to jog your memory to kind of go through sort of your best, sort of your best client examples and kind of like run through the run through. We have. The way that we make it easy and faster is we do have. This is a template that we do use. We have a template that we take clients through that helps them break down their ideal clients in a much different way than most approach it. Right. But one of the things we do is have them really like bring to mind who are some ideal clients and kind of go through that question set with those ideal clients and some of the questions, you know, again, to get to keep them, to keep it fairly simple. It's like, you know, think of that particular client. What are some things that they kept bringing up as, you know, belief gaps? What are some things that they kept bringing up or what had they tried before? Like really getting into who that ideal client was, you know, so if you've got clients already, you've got the data, data there. If you're somebody who does any sort of application before someone steps on a sales call with you, you definitely have the data. It lives in there, right? If you don't do that currently, you might want to think about it. If you have any sort of intake process for new clients, some data lives there. So really and truly, when you've been working with clients, even it doesn't have to be a ton of clients, but when you've worked with clients already, the data is going to come from your existing clients, right? It's all there. And you'll probably, you know, you're going to have to use your filter and kind of rebu between the lines in some cases, right? Because sometimes, you know, for example, if I'm filling out an application, you know, to talk about brand photos, I might not say all of the things I'm thinking in my head. But you, Amber, know how to read between the lines and say, oh, this person's kind of uncomfortable getting their picture taken or you know, that sort of thing, right? So there might be some, some reading between the lines and making some, some judgment calls that maybe an ideal client didn't say to you. But that's where it comes from. And if you're newer, right, if you're, you're, you know, you haven't worked with that many clients yet or you haven't worked with any clients yet, there's a little bit of guessing and a little bit of like get up and interview some people, interview some people who you think could be ideal clients, which I know nobody ever wants to do. And it's a wealth of knowledge. And so, you know, it's, it's, that's where the data comes from, right? You can make up some stuff for sure. But you, you always, it always works better when you can think of real people or speak to real people, right? And even if you've worked with people for quite some time, you know, it never hurts to even pick up the phone and have a follow up conversation with a, with a past client and say, hey, I'm curious about Y and Z. And you know, the data lives within the people that you truly want to work with, right? So that's, that's where it comes from. And then in terms of it being like a one and done piece certainly, and this is where it kind of depends, you know, if you've been at it for quite some time, you're really clear on Your ideal clients, there probably isn't a ton of micro adjusting that needs to do, but there are some. Right. When we work with clients in a done for you capacity, you know, we work with them on strategy and then we actually will go ahead and build out all their assets for them. We, our process is called be the nurture matrix. And so when we build out a nurture matrix for our clients, it is a 90 day evergreen nurture marketing content set that runs across email and social media. And so we build that out for them, but once we build it for them, we don't kind of say, okay, here's your nurture matrix, see you later. We actually continue through and support them through rollout and implementation and we do some optimization with them, meaning that we roll it out in real time and we start to help them to measure the results. And based on what we're seeing and how things are playing out, then we might say, okay, maybe we should tweak this call to action. Maybe we should, you know, use subject lines that are more like this. Maybe we, and often we'll see things in other aspects of the funnel that will, will make recommendations, but generally they have like smaller tweaks to do. Never. I won't say never because I believe that, you know, if we really want to be excellent marketers, and let's face it, whether you have a team or you or you don't, it serves you as a business owner to understand marketing in some way, shape or form. Right. I don't believe you can fully just kind of hand it out, hand it off and check. You know, I'm a marketer, so it's easy for me to say that, but, but that's how I feel. Right. You know, so marketing though, to be a great marketer is to be a scientist, you know, like always an experimentation mode. I think marketing is like art, science, magic personally. Right. Because the science is the data and then there is some energetic qualities to, to it as well and there's the creativity in it as well. So it's not like a completely linear, you know, if this then that type of equation, but certainly you want to experiment and you be willing to tweak different things. And so I don't think it's ever a complete done. And then certainly if you are newer, if you're more of a merging coach, if things are shifting in your offer, if things are dialing in in terms of who you like to work with, then certainly there's going to be more, more changes that are happening when we work with clients who are more in the emerging side of things. We basically, you know, we support them to create. We have them start with kind of the email set and we say straight up, we're just like, you know, focus on getting this out and done and in place so that we're plugging the leak that's in your funnel. And then look at the data, look at both qualitative and quantitative data. Right. So not just the numbers, but also what's actually showing up in human interaction. Right. And then make some educated tweaks because of that.

I'm loving so much of this. You got a couple of follow up questions. First one, the nurture matrix. What is the nurture matrix? What goes into this matrix?

Yeah, yeah, so the matrix, you know, the matrix language comes into the, comes from the fact that when your ideal clients sort of step into your matrix, they're receiving messaging through email. Yes. But they're also kind of immersed in it from a social media perspective as well. So what we're looking at is 90 days of evergreen content that rolls out across email and social media. And in email it might roll out sequentially. Right. The most, the most obvious place that we help folks sort of install it is that place again where folks join your list. They get that initial sort of invite and then instead of sending them off to a newsletter, we send them through the nurture matrix. Right. So they'll receive a 12 email nurture sequence that's designed again, like engineered really specifically to take them along their buyer's journey before they go into your main list, before they go into your launch list, that sort of thing. Right. So we're doing deep nurture upfront and on social media. We also want to bring this in. And this doesn't replace all the content you need on social media. We all know social is a beast and you need to have, on social you need content that's like top of funnel content, bottom of the funnel content, all that. But what is often missing, Amber, is bringing some of those nurture themes into your social content. So the idea is when someone steps into your world, yes, they're receiving step across email and yes, when they come across you on social, they're receiving it as well. And we have some clients who are, you know, they've got, they've been in business for quite some time and they do some very cool ads, you know, with, with some of the organic content that we create. They'll actually put some of that, you know, do paid nurture, which is like a next level strategy, but very cool. And that Also sort of amplifies that matrix effect. It's sort of we step in and then we're immersed with these messages that are really supportive and helping us, helping us having, creating kind of what I call the lean in factor so that they are progressively getting ready to step in and work with you.

So good. 90 days, you love data. What sort of results as someone implements this pre sell cell and nurture framework and sequence over 90 days and then you go to. Wait, let me ask one clarifying question first. Are you selling anything in the 90 days?

It really again, maybe. Yeah. So maybe so maybe. I don't believe that nurture is like. And this is another sort of fallacy. If you see with nurture, it's like I'm nurturing. I sent out a sequence where I didn't like make a call to action. I wasn't being salesy, so I was nurturing. I actually think, you know, some of this messaging that we come up with, you know, with our clients, it's like not making an invitation is actually like of disservice. So it's not the big sales pitch that you would do in a sales sequence, but it's sort of like if this really resonated with you, click here to book a call, click here to apply, click here to learn more. So we don't, you know, we're not absent of paid calls to action. And certainly if you have a business where you have maybe a suite of things that you offer, so everything, you know, from lower price point to higher, you might even sprinkle in some of your earlier sort of like taster, you know, sort of offers as well. Sometimes it's really smart to do that. Right.

So good. Okay, amazing. So in this 90 day nurture sequence, there may or may not be offers, there may be some smaller offers leading up to larger offers and invitations. What kind of lift do your clients do? You see when you're implementing the nurture matrix with people on engagement, on sales, on all of these things that we want to be looking at as business owners and marketers.

Yeah. So generally it's really interesting with engagement, we don't always see higher engagement. What we see is deeper engagement. And this is why qualitative and quantitative data are really important. Right. Because you look at the engagement numbers and we might get some feedback saying, oh, I'm not seeing that many more comments or likes or shares or anything else. But the quality of responses going deeper. I'm going from having like a bunch of emojis, you know, fire emoji, fire Emoji and to actually having, you know, a discourse, a conversation in my comments, which is, you know, really indicative of people paying attention and being sort of moved by the messaging. Right? So that might be more common on engagement front. From a sales perspective, what they're usually seeing, again, it's often more quantitative. They're seeing, or, sorry, qualitative. They're seeing better applications come in for their programs. They're seeing sales calls move more quickly because someone shows up to the sales call now saying, yeah, when you posted that message about xyz, and they'll repeat it, they'll repeat it back when you post that message about, I just knew that I had to call you. So sales calls are moving a lot faster. And I think. And I think that's the piece. It's. It's the sales calls are moving a lot faster. That's a bit of a quantitative thing, but it's the conversation that's happening on the sales calls, that qualitative piece that really, really shifts. Right? So we're seeing, you know, folks just showing up on call, ready to buy. If you're someone who has a wait list, what they're seeing is more people showing up on the waitlist. And what they're able to do from that is do things like an early bird opening, right. Once they hit a certain threshold in terms of people on the wait list, they can kind of decide, ooh, I think I'm going to make the offer a little bit earlier. And we've had clients who've done that. One that I think of in particular, she does like a, you know, only opens for enrollment once a year. And we said, you know what, let's, let's implement this, run it for 90, do a waitlist sequence or, sorry, throughout it, do a wait list. And then once we get, you know, maybe about a month or two months or so before your regular annual launch, let's open with just a quick email, you know, campaign to folks who are on the wait list. And she had her program then 40% full before she actually went into launch.

I mean, come on, right? That is the dream. This is awesome.

Exactly. That's the piece. When I say pre solo, like, that's really what I mean. What they're seeing then again, is, is entering launch with people already in the program. That's sort of the biggest quantitative result. And then from there they're realizing, like, hey, I actually don't need to launch quite so hard because I'm not bringing in that many people. And at Orisha, we sort of we discourage our clients from using the launch language because again, the energy of it all is often like I gotta go crazy. And it gets really, really frenetic. So we use the term active enrollment campaigns. And so most give up launch and sort of what launch usually involves and go with an active enrollment campaign. But it is, it's so much easier and it's kind of, it's almost like a value add or they'll, they'll start to use their active enrollment period as actually like a lead gen piece. You know, we have a client who start who stopped doing sort of the major launch and but wanted to continue doing a five day sort of challenge and they just use that as lead gen and fill the last remaining spots of their program because they're already, you know, 50, 60. And I know again, not every business is able to sort of bring people in early. So of course this is where it's like, it depends and it's based on your business and everything else. Right. But for those who are able to have the setup where they can bring people into the program a little bit earlier, they do that and then their quote unquote launch becomes either a lead generator or just a value add, like a give back that they do for their community because it's a way that they're giving out free content and you know, yeah, just, just being of service. Right. Whether or not people are ready to work with them.

So good. Which just feels so incredibly aligned because so many, especially coaching consulting space, we want to serve, we want to show up and pour into community and you are just shifting the dialogue entirely to be able to have that emphasis, to be able to have focus. That's really cool. You know, when you mentioned we don't really use the term launch, it's funny, we know we are in launch mode at any given time, but we've, we shift our language too. It's not card open, cart closed because it feels so transactional. Enrollment end date. It's our open enrollment, enrollment season.

Yeah, same, same. It's so I'm like, there are some marketing words that I just like. I'm a marketer so I'll use them. Right. Like, I don't super love the word lead. Right. You know, you're a human. But it's, it's awkward. We're talking about lead gen so I will use that. But card open and close is one of the ones where I'm like, yeah, it's so true.

It's the same in the HR space. I worked in that space in consulting for A while as well. And resource, like you're a resource. We're gonna use you like, ah, you're human. You are incredibly talented.

Yeah, I love it.

Similar shift there because our words have power, which you know every day in every email that you're writing with all of your campaigns. And speaking of the words that we're using in the leads, lead gen versus nurture, how do we combine them and where do you prioritize and put emphasis?

Yeah, it's really tough to decide who is, who needs to take the lead because the reality is we need to be generating new leads at any given time. Yeah. Here's what I'll say about that. It's in a perfect world. It is all happening in perfect concert and we can spend as much time in all areas of our funnel. Where I see there being a huge imbalance right now is that so many folks are pouring into their lead gen and they're pouring into their launch and they're just like hyper focused. So many marketers teach on these things again, it's amazing. And the middle of the funnel needs some love. Yeah.

Don't forget about space in between.

Right. Not just, oh well, I sent them a newsletter. It's. It's cool. But some intentionality, some strategy and really weaving some purpose so that the middle of the funnel actually is a place that can support your bottom line conversions. Right. So you want to really prioritize. For most folks listening, I'm going to venture out and guess you probably need to be spending some time in the middle of your funnel. You probably need to put lead gen on pause for a second and come back and revisit your nurture and then you can go back. Here's the biggest reason why. When you are top focused and focused on the top of the funnel, focused on lead gen and you don't have anything intentional going on in. From a nurture perspective, you're essentially creating a leaky bucket in your business because all these leads are coming in and they're filtering out. And you might want to argue, well, no, they're staying on my list. You know, look at you. This is where I invite you to look at your data. When people opt into your list after they get their initial freebie or whatever it is, what is the open rate look like? Right. Are they, are they still opening at the same. Once they get to the newsletter time, are they still like, do your open rates drop off suddenly? That's an indication that folks are leaning out. They are disconnected. So it's not that they're leaving Your list. But they're not paying attention, right? They're not paying attention. Or you might want to look at your unsubscribe numbers as well because maybe they actually are straight up leaving and that's another place where they're leaking out. Right. So what my recommendation always is if you are not intentional in the middle of your funnel right now, pause your lead gen, get a framework in place, you know, something like the nurture matrix. And again, that's why it being evergreen is so supportive. Right? You create it and then it's in place. And yes, you go back and you revisit it. You have a schedule for when you go back and revisit it. But once you create it and put it in place, then at least, you know, okay, so once they come through the top of my funnel, if they're not ready to buy yet, I'm super serving them. I'm like, it's extending the funnel. I think the biggest change that I've seen in sort of funnel marketing, you know, in the way that we all are used to seeing it in online business, is that we used to have this idea that you just have this like, you know, 10 day blitz of funnel activity and then the funnel, that's the end of the funnel and it's like, oh, that's really interesting. Right? So essentially, if they don't buy, click a button, you know, book a call, whatever in that 10 days, 15 days, whatever, whatever it might be. Like, what are we saying? You're dead to me. Yeah, like, you know what I mean? We don't, we don't care anymore. And that's not true at all. Right? That's not true. That's why we try to create a newsletter and we try to do all these other things. But what we have to remember is that the online space has changed. You know, the coaching consulting, you know, service provider space has changed. Like there's so much content coming at folks. There is, there's so much choice in terms of who they're going to work with that it really serves to, not to. Yes. Have that initial funnel for people who are just ready and you know that that's who they are, that that's the 2% they're ready to buy right away. But understand that your, your, your customers like their, their buyer's journey is longer because they've got more information to take in. And then this is going to vary depending on what industry you're in. Right. You know, we were having a conversation, not a cl. A conversation with a coach who is Coaching new parents with like, sleeping and stuff like that. And so, you know, in some ways their buying cycle is really like, short, right? Because they're in the pain of it and they need help. And then also, I mean, you're a parent too. Like, we try to fix things and it actually takes us longer to go and get help because we're like, we're parents. We should know how to make our children sleep. Right? And so, so in other ways, when you really think about it, the buying cycle actually needs to be a little bit longer because it's likely that like, these parents have tried everything and probably gone through like six months of hell. And they're like, okay, yeah, we actually can't do this. And if you had. Are you nodding because you had a sleep pirate? Because I had a sleep pirate.

Oh, my God. Yeah, we did. Big time, big time. And I got help and I'm like. And for me it was. I'm just so tired, I couldn't even think or make decisions. Like, I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know.

I just know I need some help. I can't even think.

Right. So you can imagine that buyer's journey is very different than, you know, say, a coach who's helping someone with, with their business or something else. Right? So it's just being really aware that the buyer's journey is, is not that 10 day funnel that, you know, the funnel masters of the world have sold and we need to be intentional about what comes next. So to really answer the question, it's like, yes, all aspects of the funnel are important. And, you know, 90% of the people listening probably need to pause top of funnel and bottom of funnel, focus a little bit on nurture, and then you can go back and you'll have a beautiful, you know, ecosystem that can actually support people.

Yes. Something you said made me think of. I've heard people say my list is just a bunch of freebie seekers. Nobody's buying. And like, no, it's similar to lead, right? Like, no, they're people who are experiencing challenges. Maybe they're not even getting your email. We have to look at deliverability, Right. Maybe it's a longer nurture cycle. And I know I have abso freaking lutely been connecting with people for years. And they said, I find I'm finally ready.

Right? Absolutely, absolutely. And that. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's remembering too, that if they're not receiving what they need to help them make the decision, then it's going to take two years. But if they're receiving, what will help them make the decision? It doesn't have to be two years. Like we want to shorten, right? We want to shorten the buyer cycle and we can do that. Right? Saying that people are on your list because they're freebie seekers. When you're just kind of doling out a ton of like how to content to them all the time, letting them think that actually they can solve it themselves, right? Like, yeah, they're freebie seekers because you're telling them essentially that they can go and they can follow enough tips and figure it out. You actually need to flip the script and the messaging needs to be around again. This perspective shifting messaging, we call them the core nurture themes. Right? Like when it is that style of content, you are not giving them something to do, you're giving them something to think about. And that process engages them, you know, both mentally, emotionally and all the other ways. And then they become ready to buy. That's where the lean in factor again starts to come. It's like, yeah, I can't do this by myself. I need help.

Four nurture themes, Core nurture themes. How many core nurture themes are there? What are these?

Twelve usually. Yeah, twelve usually. Yeah, twelve usually. And this is what I'm talking about when I say we're looking at the ideal client and we're looking at the core perspective shifts that they need to make. We turn those into. We essentially name those the core nurture themes in our process. Yeah.

So good. Oh, if someone wants to look at, I mean, you know, obviously I would just be here all day listening. Yep. Okay. So in this to protect everyone's time. So otherwise I'll just, just keep Tameka here. We'll be listening forever. You have something to help people assess how they're doing in their nurturing right now.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's a really great place for folks to start. We have our nurture opportunity scorecard. You can get it for free. And it really takes you through just some of the most important things to look at across your social media and your email in terms of like, are you hitting those messages? Are you, you know, is your asset competent composition in terms of the types of social that you're putting out, is that supportive for nurture? You know, are the calls to action support? It like really just helps you look at what you're doing right now from a nurture perspective and helps you to start to figure out, okay, where might I want to change. It comes with a little you know, training video. So you won't be kind of with your checklist or your assessment, trying to figure it on your own. There's a little bit of guidance there that can really help help you out. And if you're sort of thinking, I don't even want to get this because I know that I'm not doing any nurture anyway, Tamika and Amber, what's really great is that I invite you to download it anyway, watch the training. And that actually will inform you, you know, it'll give you some ideas about what you should be thinking about as you get started. So you don't have to take it from a place of, ooh, look at all the things I'm not doing. It's really about, these are all the areas that I can improve. Right. Like, again, most of the folks listening are not going to be marketers. And even if you are a marketer, there's so many, you know, it's such a big field, so you can't expect to know every single thing. Right. And when you have that approach, when that's the mindset, it really is hard to kind of grow. You're always in this, like, shame, blame, you know, I didn't do it spiral, bad girl spiral, bad boy spiral. Right. So you want to take an assessment like this and look at it as, okay, I'm. I'm gonna. I'm gonna be a marketing scientist now. I'm going to, you know, figure out some things that I can potentially change and then. And then go from there. Right. So you can grab that@nurturematrix.com score and it'll help you sort of assess the gaps and opportunities within your current efforts.

Oh, my goodness. Amazing. Nurturematrix.com scorecard. We will also link that up in the notes for anyone who's out and about right now. Get it, get it, get it. So you can assess this. And, Tamika, I've got to say, I. In having, like, a strategic marketing conversation, I know there is work to be done for me, for many of us in our nurture sequence and in the relationships we're building with our community. But I feel so grounded, like, oh, we've got this. Like, this is about just being human, connecting as humans and having conversation with people. Where are people's minds at? And you're going to guide us through it. And everybody grab that assessment. I would love to hear how you are feeling about this after you take that assessment. I know Tamika would love to hear from you. Tamika, where do we find you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts as you take the assessment. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Arisha Creative Orisha Creative O.

R I S H A yes. Thank you so much for being here. Love you. Love how you approach marketing and your thoughts on this. Have a wonderful day.

Thank you so much. Amber. It has been a pleasure.

Holy moly. Did you also feel so grounded at the end of this episode in this session with Tamika? I know I've got some work to do on my nurture sequences and my matrix because it is not 90 days long and I know I've got some nurture opportunities to pull through into my social media. I hope you also got some takeaways in in this episode to enhance and improve the relationships with your community as well as close that time frame in which people make the decision to work from you. Definitely let us know what you think. Subscribe to the Podcast Share a review if you got something good out of this. And I'd love to hear from you on social as well. I'm Amber McHugh on Instagram Amber McHugh on Facebook Amber McEwen Almost all the places I will see you out there and I can't wait to catch up in our next episode of the Write On Time podcast. All the love.