Overcoming Fear in Entrepreneurship | Sunny Dublick

If you are buying, let's say, like a couch or a home or a car, you're making those plus and minus categories, right? Those are massive purchases. But the majority of our day-to-day purchases are more emotion-based. How is this going to make me feel? Is this like going to make my life better, easier? And I truly believe— I wouldn't be here if I didn't— but I truly believe that marketing has the ability to help that happen for people. To help them discover products and services that can make their lives better, easier, longer lasting, all of those great things.

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Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. A special shout out to our one listener in Inola, Oklahoma. Strangely, I've been to Ainola, so maybe I've met you before. Joining me today is Sunny Dublik of Sunny Dublik Marketing. Welcome, Sunny.

I'm so excited to be here.

Well, I'm excited for you to be here. So tell our listeners who Sunny is and how she got here. Not like, how did you get on this show?

But, you know, sure. So I am originally from Philadelphia area, South Jersey. And I went to college for marketing, kind of bounced around the Philadelphia marketing ad agency and corporate marketing department scene for about the first 10 years of my career. And in 2017, I set out to do things my own way. I am an accidental entrepreneur. I'm very candid about that, in that I was part of a round of layoffs at my last corporate job. And it was one of those things where it was, you know, what am I going to do next? What's my next move? And I remember having a friend be like, well, you should just make your own business. You know how to do all this stuff. Sure.

It's so simple.

Why not? And I remember, and I think this is the thing that holds everybody back, like, no one's going to pay me, right, to do these things. So when I started, I was kind of, you know, this Swiss Army knife of I wanted to do all things for all people. And as time has gone on, I've really refined that and niched down into what it is that I am most passionate about and that I feel I do best. Which is brand strategy consulting and marketing planning.

Well, okay, so I didn't interrupt with this question, but the first question that came to mind was, how'd that work out for you, trying to be the Swiss Army knife?

I mean, I hated it. So I will say that in the beginning, like, one of the things that I am very candid with everyone I speak to about marketing about is I will not run your social media account. I am a marketer who hates social media. It's such an interesting relationship to have. Everyone's like, you can't say that, you work in marketing. Sure I can. But, um, I was running, I think, at some one time, like around like 5 accounts, and it was just constant, like constant mental pressure of— a lot of marketing is perfectionism, right? You are expected to just constantly have everything correct, and it's unsustainable. And it got to the point where I was learning and I was growing. And I will say, to the other kind of point of view, I had to figure these things out because I had clients that needed these things. So email marketing, digital ads— I got my Google Ads certification right when I first started out. I learned how to do all of these things, and I spread myself so thin so that I wasn't doing everything great. But I know I knew a little bit about everything, which serves me a lot now because when I have vendors either that I'm calling in or that my clients are working with, I can analyze things from the perspective of, wait, I know how to do this, so I know what works and what doesn't. So I don't regret it, right? I think it was a lesson that I needed to learn, but I think not specializing in what I wanted was honestly fear. It was no one's gonna pay me to think strategically and high level about their business. They're just going to want a girl who can post on Facebook for them, run some ads and run some emails. So it, it kind of came out of a lack of confidence that over the years I just had to— I mean, to be an entrepreneur, you can't not be confident.

Well, there's, there's a lot to unpack there. Okay. So why did you make this transition to specializing in branding?

So I think it was, you know, I worked for a time at a branding and marketing research agency and I absolutely loved it. Like, I loved the work that I was doing. And it was the intentionality behind marketing for me. Like, I think there's, in any given job, in any given role, there's going to be the strategic side of things, of how you think about things, how you plan for things. And there's going to be the execution. And one can't live without the other. And that's kind of a little bit of the premise of my business because I worked for both ends of the scale where I was working for agencies that were just execution-based. They'd be like, crank out ads, crank out emails, billboards, all of those things. And it was literally just like sending out work orders, getting it done through creative, running it out through production, like just constant cranking out of work, but with no high-level strategy to guide it. And then I worked on the opposite end where it was so strategically driven, but it was kind of like when you got done, it was like, here to the client, and it just fell flat and it died. So I think one of the things is having the experience on both ends, both client and agency, and then also being able to work in strategic boutique organizations as well as massive production houses gave me that, like, why can't one person weave this common thread together and have this, you know, even if I'm not the person that is constantly doing, I can find the people that can and make sure that this dream can come a reality. And I think that was a lot of what I built. Built the business around is I was so tired of seeing people waste money on marketing that just went nowhere and didn't work.

There, there are a lot out, out there. I— you, you said fear. I want to dive into that. What specifically was the fear?

Um, I mean, it was at the time, it was all income-based. And I mean, isn't it for everybody, right? Everyone that's a creative that's thinking about going into their own you know, thing and making this a full-time, making that leap from one to another is, you know, you talk Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that baseline fear of just like safety and security and shelter, and income is such a big part of that, right? So I always worked for companies where I just, I signed up and I got a paycheck. It was never debatable of how much I would be paid and when. And I say that, and it's so funny because I almost see it from the opposite perspective now, especially You know, there's been so many mass layoffs over the past couple of years and you think you have security when in reality, you know, it is like, what is security when it comes to jobs? No one is really as secure as we think we are. But I think starting out, I was so nervous, even income-wise, what I would charge, asking people for what I thought I deserved and not saying this is what I'm worth. And if you can't afford to pay to work with me, or if this doesn't work for you or isn't in your budget, I'm happy to refer you to something else. Again, it's, I say this and I want to shout it from the rooftops of like, where I started is where I think most people do of like, I'm scared I'm not going to make any money doing this. I'm scared people won't compensate me. What if contracts goes wrong or I can't get more clients? It's all of that fear of what if I can't actually support myself doing this? It's scary, right? It's really scary. Absolutely.

It's highly motivating.

It's highly motivating. It's highly motivating. And the only thing that gets you through it is doing it over and over and over again until you get to a point where you say, like, this is scary, but I can figure it out.

So how did you overcome that fear? What, what gave you the courage to niche down? Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now.

I think a couple of things. One of the most kind of beautiful things that happened in my career was actually joining a mastermind group. You know that saying, you are the summation of the people that you hang around? I really needed people that were more successful than I was to be around. I needed to be in the room with people that had done things, that had grown businesses, that had gotten to a certain level, been established for a certain amount of years. Because, you know, at the beginning, I remember they coached me through my first hire. They coached me through getting an office space. I was terrified, like, what if I drop a contract or I can't afford this anymore? And I remember one of the women saying to me, she's like, Sonny, like, you're a girl that figures it out. She was like, you couldn't bartend if worst case scenario happened to like supplement some income. You couldn't figure this out or that out. Like, you figure things out, you make it work. And I think one of the biggest things too is like, I just look at past performance. Like, I— it gives me a lot of confidence knowing I've been doing this for this long. And every year I learn more and every year I feel a little bit stronger. And even being able to talk with you like this on a podcast today, my first couple of years of business, I would have been so nervous and anxious and stuttering over my words. And I think the only thing that builds confidence is just doing it, doing the work, showing up consistently and doing the work.

I thought it was my calming personality.

It's that too.

Oh, okay. So I, I think you're right. I think that there are some commonalities in everybody that starts a business, and one of those is fear. And, and the, uh, fear of not having enough money is pretty common to every entrepreneur. And where— what that looks like is a lack of clarity and focus on what makes you money because you're not worried about what actually makes you money. You just take whatever you can find. And, you know, in some cases you find work that you don't like, uh, like in your case, like, I, I don't enjoy doing this, and that pushes you a different direction. But I, you know, I, I think if If the creative entrepreneur could have a clear benchmark of saying, I just need to do X to, uh, be able to cover my expenses. One of our clients, through working with us, came to this conclusion that he only needed to work 6 days a month to cover his expenses. And just having that knowledge was transformational to him. Like, um, because then you can say, well, okay, if I only need to work 6 full days, right, uh, out of 25, that's, that's not— that doesn't seem too cumbersome. It gives you the freedom then to be more selective about what you're doing. Um, but until you've got that clarity it's paralyzing. And so you're chasing a number you don't really know what it needs to be, and so that, that, that, uh, confuses who you should be looking for.

Yep. I think, you know, for me, I always had— I'm a very big budgeter, so I've had a spreadsheet for I can't even tell you how many years, but it always just kept me in line of like how much money I had to spend every month left over after all my bills were accounted for. So I knew what my expenses were and I knew the number I needed to make. I think the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship, which you've alluded to, is that it doesn't have to be, you know, stuck into the confines of a certain amount of hours or certain times during the day and everything like that. But when you know, like, knowledge is always power, right? And knowledge gives you clarity. The car goes where the eyes go. So when you say I know that in order to make this leap, I need to find a way to make X amount of dollars. And I know that this service— I've done my competitive research, I've looked around. Let's say that I'm offering social media services. Benchmark for something like this at a freelancer that's just getting started is probably somewhere around this. If I could sign 6 of these projects month 1, then I know that I'm set to take the leap and I can go from there. And I think just if you backtrack it, it's not hard. It's the simple math, right? But I think one of the things that's challenging, and I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but there are certain things you want to do and you want your audience to buy, and there are certain things that your audience will buy, and sometimes there's a big disconnect there. So for example, when I first got started on my own, no one was coming to me saying they wanted brand strategy. And full disclosure, even at this point, not a lot of people come to me and say, I need brand strategy. Everyone comes to me and says, I need social media, I need email campaigns, I need lead funnels, that kind of thing. When we talk, A, I'm usually like, that's not what I do. And B, when you backtrack it, everyone's looking for the same thing. They all want sales, right? They all want growth, sales, X, Y, and Z. Like, it all is going in the same direction. So when I go through my process with them, which is really heavily based and founded in research, and I talk to them and I scratch underneath the surface of, you don't really need Instagram ads. What you really need is, you know, 10x the amount of sales that you've gotten year over year from last year, right? So maybe Instagram isn't the way to go. Have you ever thought about a higher level marketing plan that is integrated but includes all sorts of different channels you might not have thought of? So that's where I was able to kind of make the leap from what I was doing to where I am now, because I realized, for me at least, I'm not talking trash about anyone that has a social media-based business.

Oh, I'll talk shit on them, that's fine.

I just, for me, it was a drop in the bucket. For me, social media is just a, just dumpster fire of just people pushing out more and more content and hoping for different results. And I think that it has efficacy, but I don't think it should be your entire marketing strategy. And I think that's so common right now with clients I work with. Why isn't this working? We're posting on Instagram every day. That's not a marketing strategy, right? So I think what I found is that when I started to make the connection of people don't actually need this, they think they need this, what they really need is this, I was able to really help them in a deeper, more meaningful way. And that's something that lit me up. So, you know, anyone that's listening that is a creative, I think it's important to take into consideration both of those things. And it doesn't mean that that has to be what you do forever, but maybe as you get started, there's something super marketable that's really, really important to the clients you want to work with. Is it possible to bridge the gap to get where you're going? Right. Just something that has been really beneficial for me. Today's episode of The Profitable Creative is brought to you by Core Group. Are you tired of doing it all yourself? Do you feel like you have no plan? Let Core Group guide you to build the business of your dreams. Core Group, your go-to accountant for creatives.

There's so much, uh, the— in what you just said. First was, I would love to see your spreadsheet because, uh, my marketing director, who's highly creative, uh, gave me a spreadsheet once, and I, I said, please don't ever send me a spreadsheet again. Oh, I love it because I'm like, this may make sense to you, but it makes no sense to me. So I'm just curious if your spreadsheet would make sense to me. Uh, that was the first thing. The second thing, this idea that, uh, what you do is not what the, uh, the, the customer wants to buy is, is uber important because I'll use an, uh, an analogy from our industry. So you, you have Intuit who has spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising over the years trying to convince business owners what they need, which is, you know, QuickBooks and TurboTax. And so when they come to us, they, they have been suggested as to what they need, but it's not really what they need. And, and I, I think as any professional, it's incumbent on us to diagnose the disease, not just treat the symptoms, right? Because the, the customer or the prospect does not know what they need. They only know what their symptoms are. And if, if we just go along treating the symptoms, they're never going to get healthy, and they're, they're eventually going to be dissatisfied. And most of us, uh, like I said, don't have the knowledge to know what we need. We just know what we've been told we need, uh, by others, right? And social media is a prime example because we all participate in it, right? So therefore we think that we need it. And of course, Meta and Google and you know, TikTok, they all make a whole lot of money off of us doing it. They honestly don't give a shit whether we're successful or not. They don't care. And so when you have those factors that are pushing you, like me as a business owner, into this, like, got to do this, got to do this, got to— why, why, why do we have to do this? One of the things that's, you know, like in, in our industry that is people come to us all the time and, you know, we've got QuickBooks. That's awesome. That's awesome. We're not touching it. What? No, we're not. We're not even getting in there. We will do what we need to do and it has nothing to do with QuickBooks. If you want to use it, great. It doesn't affect what we do at all. And to some people that's offensive and they're like, but I want you to work in my QuickBooks. That's great. We're not your person. We're not going to help you. Not that we can't help you, but we've chosen not to help you. The reason behind that is, is that every time we've worked alongside somebody in their accounting software, they've screwed it up. And it is more work for us to unscrew it up than it is for us to just do it from the beginning. But they don't understand that, and I don't need them to understand that. It's just that's, that's the, uh, I had a marketer, uh, call it a scarecrow. Like, that's the scarecrow that we put out. Like, we don't work in your QuickBooks because we don't want those people, right? Scarecrows are to drive off the clients you don't want.

Yeah, mine is Instagram. Yeah, right.

Going back to this idea of strategy versus implementation, I think there are some similarities in what we do and what you do in that regard too, because You know, to your point, marketing— every— everybody wants the same thing out of marketing. It's sales. I mean, you can wrap it up in all different shades of green, but that's what they want. And most people, myself included, don't really know how to do that. Like, like, how do we go get more people to buy our stuff? How do you approach that differently than other marketing agencies?

Well, I think, you know, you had even said this, like, this is all going to sync together, I promise.

Um, I trust you.

We're being told what we need, right? And I always have a joke that if you ask 5 marketers for an opinion on what you should do with your marketing, you'll get 5 different answers. And I think one of the things where we've lost the plot right, as clients, as marketers, as everybody, is we're trying to talk about humans and human behavior and what we want them to do like people are these logical robotic creatures, which they're not. We are not. Yes. So one of the things that I like to bring to the table when I talk to anybody is like, let's talk about consumer behavior And just like super high-level baseline, every single human, right, the average human I should say, makes between 30,000 and 35,000 decisions every single day. And some of that's just like, what time am I going to brush my teeth? Am I going to the gym this morning? What am I wearing, right? Most of those things have to be forced into our subconscious mind. You don't go for breakfast and make a list of pro and cons of should I go to McDonald's or should I do this, right? You're making snap decisions for things. And I think what we fail to realize when we put out on so much of this marketing is we are just pushing people, pushing people, and throwing more and more on their plates when they're already exhausted from making 35,000 decisions. So one of the extra kind of added layers is I think the average human at this point receives around 10,000 marketing messages a day, and only about 25% of that is going to be relevant them. Again, when Facebook opened up the floodgates and Google opened up the floodgates of advertising, half the shit you see, I'm sure, is the same where you're like, why am I getting this? Right? So I feel like because marketing has been, for lack of a better term, kind of abused in people's lives, you're seeing this across the board. There's a mass movement, especially with all of this AI nonsense coming out of people just, well, we'll just write posts on ChatGPT and we'll just write blogs with ChatGPT. No one wants to read. Your robot blog. Like, can I just say that? And it makes us more effective as marketers, all these automations, all of the AI and everything, but it doesn't make us more effective in connecting with people. And I think that's what great marketing does. So when I recommend to anybody— traditional marketing is basically just spam, right? It's what we've seen. It's just pushing out more and more communications in the hope that you will get sales. And we do it in all these fancy ways through different areas and stages of the funnel.

And right, but lots of places to measure.

Yes, lots of places to measure and lots of shiny graphs to be like, look at all the things that we did with your money. Right. But think about basic human behavior. Again, we're marketing to humans. When you need something, you do one of two things. You search for it or you ask a friend or colleague. So I always tell people when they're trying to find clients, Stop going at the height of the Mount Everest and thinking that you're going to be the ultimate TikTok or Instagram influencer without years of putting content into that machine, right? Start thinking instead, can I start smaller and more locally? And it doesn't sound sexy, right? Everyone wants to go beyond that because they're like, no, but we want to grow nationally. We want to be a global brand. And You talking to everybody is you talking to nobody. Because if you're trying to throw ads out to everyone across the globe and email communications to everyone across the globe, you're not talking to anybody specifically. If you think about the best brands, and I challenge everyone on this call to do this, if you want to be an awesome brand, I would love if you would tell me the 5 brands that you love the most and would love to emulate. Because those should be your North Stars. Are you acting like that? Everyone uses Apple. I'm an Android girl, so I can't really speak to that.

But Apple, Apple's a cult.

Apple is a cult and everyone loves it, and I just, I can't stand it. But I won't negate the fact that they have built an amazing brand of people who are so loyal. It's a movement. People feel so ingrained in the culture that they've built. And I think for me, it's one of those things where it's How do you— first and foremost, the best marketing is when you have something amazing to sell, right?

Yes.

The worst marketing is lipstick on a pig marketing where someone says, make it pretty, give us a pretty website, throw out a bunch of posts on social media, give us some ads. That is going to be right, drop in the bucket, because people are not fools. The second someone starts receiving your product or service and it sucks, They're going to be the first to tell their friends never to use you. They will give you crappy reviews, right? You will be called a fool very quickly. And so I think for me, the question becomes, when— how do I get customers? First, make an offer that is so attractive that people cannot say no to it. People want to work with you. They want to line up to work for you or work with you because what you have is so amazing. They want to buy what you're selling. And then secondly, I think for me it's how do you get found when people are looking for the things that you're providing? And how do you get the people that have purchased from you to go wild in telling everybody they know that they have to come see you? That is the best marketing. And again, it is not sexy, it is not mass marketing, but it's connection. Again, it's just human to human of I want to find this and I want people to tell me that this is good for me.

Yeah. And I've said this before, I think in this age and with the advent of AI being everywhere, connection, authentic connection is becoming increasingly important. I think when you talked about the having a great service or product. I think people don't spend enough time on that. And I think, and this has certainly been our experience, it's because we approached it from our biases and we know a whole lot more about what we're selling than the client does or the prospect does. And so that bias makes— one, I think it takes all of the emotion out of it, right? Uh, and, and two, it overly complicates it. Where I think the, the real value is, the gold, is being able to present a product or service that resonates with the prospect at an emotional level. That means, I mean, emotion resonate means it's emotional in terms that they think, not we think.

I have this, it's a joke, but I call it better benefit battles where— Tell me more. Toothpaste, fun fact, is one of the least brand loyal categories. And if you think about it, you walk into a store, you're like, is something on sale? I got to make a quick decision. Like, I don't think I even know if I buy the same toothpaste twice, right?

My wife doesn't, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

But again, you're not sitting there going through, is this one ADA approved? And does this one have 90%? But everything you see from toothpaste commercials is forcing down your throat, 98% of dentists recommend this toothpaste. And then the next company is 99% of dentists recommend this toothpaste. You don't think like that. Human be— like, to an extent, it just becomes like, who cares? You're 100% right when you say that human beings resonate on emotion. And again, it goes back to the conscious and the subconscious mind. If you are buying, let's say, like a couch or a home or a car, you're making those plus and minus categories, right? Those are massive purchases. But the majority of our day-to-day purchases are more emotion-based. How is this going to make me feel? Is this, like, going to make my life better, easier? And I truly believe— I wouldn't be here if I, if I didn't— but I truly believe that marketing has the ability to help that happen for people, to help them discover products and services that can make their lives better, easier, longer lasting, all of those great things. It's just we get lost in this idea of we have something to say, everyone wants to hear it. They don't.

They're hearing no.

And 10,000 other messages.

No, they don't. And, and to your point, you know, those larger purchases, you may go through some rational decisions, but the reality is that you're still making it emotionally. I was getting my hair cut this weekend and my, my hairstylist is a 20-something-year-old single mom. And she told me before that she was getting a new car and I asked her if she got it. She goes, No. And basically through this conversation, what I found out was she was going to buy a Bronco and she decided that she was going to get a Range Rover. And first of all, I'm like, what?

Broncos are making a comeback, right?

Well, no, but I'm sitting here looking at this young single mom and I'm like, why do you want to spend $60 grand on a vehicle? But that's, that's beside the point. But, but it was fascinating because she acknowledged that it was more expensive, but then she started talking about why it was a better deal. And even to the point where, well, in the Bronco, the, uh, air conditioning vents were in the floor, and my child can't— you know, they're not going to get the direct— but the Range Rover is up on the— right, this whole rationalization, right? She didn't even realize she was doing it, but she made that decision. She wanted the Range Rover or, and that, that the rest of it followed. Right. And so those decisions that we have to pause because they're large purchases or they're new to us, where we actually engage our brain, we're not engaging our brain the way we think we're engaging our brain. We, we are rationalizing, but, but what we're rationalizing is our feeling.

Yeah. What's really— I read a book. It's one of the most wonderful books ever. It's called The Culture Code. It was recommended to me. It's fascinating. It was this French gentleman who did these in-depth marketing research experiments, and he talks about cars, and he does this experiment in the UK, he does it in France, he does it in the US. Particularly in the United States, car is so heavily associated with identity that like, you know, some people are like, well, I would never drive a Kia. And other people are like, well, Kia means that I'm like, you know, super practical and blah, blah, blah. Um, but even like, I was on a call with, uh, two gentlemen that I'm doing a marketing research project for, and they were like, we like Ford. The other guy's like, no, I like Chevy. And they're arguing back and forth about what's better between Ford and Chevy. But it's, it's symbolic of what you choose to be seen in. And so that's what I mean in that like marketing, it's actually so much deeper. When you were talking about the rationalization It's basically confirmation bias. She already knows what she wants. She's like, well, this is going to make me feel better or feel more established or more confident. And that's wonderful for her, right? I personally am like, the Bronco sounds a little cooler, but everyone's so different. It's part of your personality and a reflection of that. And I think that's what's awesome. They, um, in this experiment, the gentleman was hired by Chrysler for the Jeep. At one point they were trying to— so I'm a Wrangler girl, that's my car of choice. I'll never have another one. And in the experiment, Jeep at that time had been like kind of taking its Wrangler and like de-boxifying it and making it more SUV-like. And people hated it and the sales dropped dramatically. And he did this experiment and he found that the reason people love the Wrangler was because it was ugly and it evoked this feeling of like the Wild West and like riding on a horse. You can take the doors off, you can take the top off, you feel rugged and like That means something to people. And when they try to take away those characteristics, people freaked out, even though research was showing everyone wanted SUVs. So it's just kind of an interesting, you know, the mind and the human mind is forever just this completely complex web. But I think we spend so much time, A, assuming that people are very simple-minded and dumb of A, like, here's the breadcrumb, buy this thing, or B, really just not talking to them in a way that makes sense for something that's going to influence them to actually think or consider what it is you have to offer.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. No, uh, 100%, the, the communication is— and our communication is, is so biased towards what we know, and, and what we know is actually getting in the way. Um, you, you, you mentioned Chevy and Ford. If you want to start a fight among men, uh, I mean, it's ridiculous. My, my daughter's, uh, boyfriend drives a Ford truck and I drive a GMC, and, uh, you would be shocked the number of memes that you can find, uh, about Fords. Uh, and I, I send them to him all the time. You know, basically that Fords break down all the time. That's, that's the whole shtick.

My dad always told me it stood for found on road dead. Yes.

Or, or fix or repair daily. Either way. But it's so funny. And like his dad drives a GMC and, and then like they, they get into it and, and the point is they're both perfectly fine trucks. It's— but you're talking about your identity as a person. Right. And so when you translate that to anything you're selling, it has to make that person feel good. It has to make them feel a certain way. And if it's not, it doesn't matter what the features and benefits are. It really doesn't. That, that, that, like, Ford doesn't have a wireless charging pad in their vehicles. GMC does.

Yeah, exactly. It's like one of those.

Is that going to move the needle?

Is that going to—

no. No, because it's, I'm a Ford guy.

Like, yeah, I think the top recommendation that I have, and it's a question I ask everyone I work with, and it's funny to see the resistance to this question, is who is this for? And you'll hear people, usually it starts out of like, it's for everybody. And I'm like, err, false.

Please God, no.

Right? And I get super into like, where do they hang out? What kind of news sources do they read? Are they introverted or are they extroverted? Like, I want you to describe your customer as a person. And I get a little creepy and I usually name the customer.

No, I think that's the ideal.

That's—

we did this with a marketing agency this year, which we had never done before. And he did not let— before, it was like the process was more like you're describing, more generalized. He made us pick out specific clients that the, the litmus test was you would feel comfortable getting them a, a birthday gift, or you would be comfortable having dinner or lunch with them. So that level of intimacy that you have with them, and then all of his questions were geared to that specific person, not, not the more general, you know, methodology that we'd done before. And it's fascinating, the insights you get, because you're dealing with a real person, not an imaginary one, right?

Yes. And it's— I mean, the more you can describe them, it gives you perspective that you didn't have before. Like, I am a big like law of attraction person. And if you don't have the clarity on what you want or who you're talking to, how do you expect them to find you and to connect with you and understand you? So, you know, there are times I go through this exercise and people start describing to me this client, and then we have that secondary conversation of, okay, who are the clients that you're working with now? Do any of them fit this description? It's like, well, no. So where is their misalignment, right? Where is it? Are you not finding what you really want, or is this not the client that you're, you know, or do you even know, does this person exist?

Like, and right, um, yeah, I think maybe an easier set of questions would, would start with a negative, like, who do you not want?

Like, yeah, who would you turn away?

Yes. Well, and that's, that's difficult because most people start with that, well, I want to sell to everybody. Um, but, but to be successful. And I, I've said this multiple times, it, it— not having a clearly defined target customer niche was the biggest mistake I made in business. It delayed, uh, profitable growth much longer than it should have because I had that similar fear. I, I didn't let it rise to my conscious level that that was— but, but it was that bias that that if I restrain my marketing and sales to one specific type of person, I'm clearly, I'm saying no to everybody else. Yes.

And otherwise, like, I liken it to this, like, I liken it to dating, right? Because you don't want to be the person that's like, I have no criteria for the person that I want in a partner. Same, like, you don't want to be the person who has no criteria on what you want from a client. You know, girls and guys are on apps being like, they need to be 6'5", Scorpio, own a home, wants kids. Like, you're adding all these criteria. Why would you not do the same thing for your business? Because you want— you're looking for that person, those people that are going to buy from you, that organically connect with you. So I think not getting clear on that, I completely agree with you, is such a miss. It took me even years to niche down. I mean, I used to joke my niches— I have no niches when it came to industry. I gotta be honest, B2C is not where I shine. I'm a B2B girl, and it's some of the most unsexy, you know, industries that I'm in. But for me, it's fun because I can make them creative, and it's a challenge in how to do so. I'm a big person of like shaking things up and taking something that's been done over and over and making it new again. And I often have times that clients will say to me, well, you've never worked in, you know, tech or financial services or any of those things. And my response is, that makes me better because I'm able to look at this with a fresh set of eyes and apply kind of tactics that I've used over the past 10 to 15 years with all these different industries and have something be more creative and more connecting to the people that you want to work with. And I think when you get focused, when you get specific, that's where the gold is. That's where the jewels are, right? Because you know what's for you and what's not for you. And if not, you're just a sitting duck being like, I hope somebody comes by and buys from me, right?

So, yeah. And I think to really kind of hit that fear head on, is, okay, if you're, if you're going to target this specific part of the market, this is who your target customer is, do a little research to say, okay, how big is this potential market? And, and think in terms of what if you were number one in that market, like you controlled 10% of it, what would that look like? And in our case, it was like, well, that would be plenty. Like, there's no fear there. Like, so in our case, it was redirecting our efforts and not— we weren't really forgoing anything. We weren't losing anything. We had all that we could say grace over if we could just be the number one in this space.

Yep. I think I heard this somewhere and it stuck with me, of oftentimes we are our own ideal client. So a lot of the characteristics that we have— if you don't know where to start, say that you work, that you're a dentist. I was talking about toothpaste earlier, right? But like the kind of people that you want to work with. Well, why did you form this dentistry? What about that was important to you? Or are you trying to break free of like the kind of just, you know, check off the checklist, I'm charging way too much, you know, scary dentist that's, you know, overdrilling and overcharging, that kind of thing? And if so, talk about that because people will resonate with that. And what kind of people are in your circle, and can you start there? Like, I think when people come out with an offering, the sense is they want to tell the world, right? We want to tell everybody. And there is exactly what you're saying, that fear of alienating potential customers. But the more that you dive into who you are authentically, the more people are going to connect with you. And again, I go back to think about those 5 brands that are the, the ones that you feel like are talking directly to you, right? They can't be talking to everybody and that works. They would isolate everybody because they weren't being specific. So when you're authentic in who you are, and you're talking to people in a way that kind of makes them feel connected to you, that is the best kind of marketing. And it doesn't mean that you're going to isolate people that will buy from you. Like, those people might still be coming in, but the more hyper-specific that you get, the more that you're going to draw in the right people, and that's going to expand upon itself. Not everyone I work with is my ideal customer, right? Like, I have, I have an ideal customer, her name's Serena. I have like a 2-page profile of like everything about her, right? But most of the time I'm not working with exactly her, but there are elements that I am like, if I'm working with someone, I really need these couple of things. Everything else can be ancillary. But in my messaging, I'm very, very specific about who I am and the kind of people I want to work with. I don't always get it 100%, but like, I think that's what the miss is. So the more that you allow yourself to be clear in who you want and the more you allow yourself to be clear in who you are, that just makes everything just feel really synchronous and direct and easy. And like, again, that's where great marketing actually gets to happen.

Sunny, how do people find you if they want to learn more?

So I am big on LinkedIn. That is the only social media platform that you will find me on professionally. But other than that, my website is sunnydublik.com. Um, but yeah, I do offer free consultations for people that are just interested in how they get started and all of that good stuff. But I would love to chat with you if that is of interest.

Well, we'll have that information in the show notes. I very much appreciate your time and your experience share. Listeners, if you'd like what you heard, please subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast, uh, rate the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message and tell us what you'd like to hear. Until then, ta-ta for now.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon.

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