Why you need to STOP marketing your new ADHD business!

Hey, new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on. Don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Hey, new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please, please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel. Squirrel. In this episode we're going to talk about why you need to stop all plans to market your brand new business. Squirrel. Squirrel. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast. Squirrel. So it's really tempting to want to cut corners in your business and in your life in a lot of ways, because we're impatient, we want to get there faster. There are a lot of examples in the world as to how this doesn't work out, but I'm going to share. The ultimate thing was like, I went to the wrong college. My first year of college or university, as the Brits would say. I went to a school that I thought had a French degree because I went to their website and they had a French program, they had a French department. And when I had applied, I had written I wanted to major in the French language, right? I had written that in. And they accepted me. And my freshman year, I get to Bridgewater State College, you know, where they'd accepted me and I was an enrolled student and I had my first meeting with my advisor and I said, I'm going to be a French major. And she said, no, you're not. And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, well, we don't have a French major here. You can't actually get a degree in French language. And I was obviously gobsmacked because that was what I wanted to do. And I had applied to the school assuming that they had a French major. This was my first lesson that just because a website has a page about a department doesn't mean that they have a major in that department. If I had just cross checked their list of liberal arts majors with the existence of this French department page, I would have clearly seen that there was no French major. There is no degree in French that I could have gotten from this college. I cut a corner. I Tried to speed things up. I tried to just say, okay, cool, this is the thing I want to do. And I didn't verify my information. And it's so easy to do this in your business, but the result is you're going to have to start from scratch. I had to change schools after this. I did this a couple times. So my freshman year of college, I went to Bridgewater State College. They didn't have a French degree. I made plans for my sophomore year of college to go to Cape Cod Community College for a semester so I could work full time and save up money, so I could just move to France for a semester and learn French there. Because I figured that would be economical, right? And then when I came back, I went to UMass Dartmouth in Massachusetts. And the summer before I got there, the five professor French department got reduced down to two people because one person retired. I think one professor died and another one transferred to another university. I got to this university and this five professor department had been boiled down to two people. Neither one was really the teacher that I needed. So I ended up having to change my plan. I majored in philosophy, but then I also left in my senior year and never went back. So. But like, this is a perfect example of what can happen in your business if you're not doing all your due diligence, if you're not making sure that you have all your boxes checked before you jump in, you're probably not gonna end up at your goal, or it can end up taking a hell of a lot longer to get to your goal. So when you're starting your business, when you're getting to the point where you need a market, your services, you need to make sure that you're doing these things. Something that I can pretty much guarantee that you will do when you start your business, is you're going to waste money on marketing at some point. This is something, it's like a rite of passage that we all have to go through. There are so many different ways that you can market your program, your service, your products. And there are so many people out there who are willing to take your money to do this for you. And I want to talk through a couple different elements that I want you to consider. When you're thinking about hiring someone to do some form of marketing for you. The first thing that a lot of people jump over is do you have a verified offer? Meaning have you gotten paid clients for this offer at its current pricing, in its current package? And if you haven't, if you don't have a Verified offer, then I want you to be very stingy on your marketing budget. The bad news is, is that there are a lot of marketers who aren't really qualified marketers who will gladly take your money and throw something together, be it a email campaign, a Facebook ads buy, do ghostwriting for you for LinkedIn when they actually don't have the skill to do so effectively. And even if they did have the skill to do so effectively, if what you're selling doesn't actually have a market that's willing to buy it, it's not going to be effective. You have a lot of groundwork that you have to do before you get to the point where you can market your services. Now this is why in my group programs and with my one on one clients, if they haven't done their market research before, the number one step that they have to go through is doing market research interviews. So let's create an example here. Say you are an extremely talented polar bear trainer. There has never been a polar bear that you've come across that you haven't been able to tame and train. And like you train polar bears to make cappuccinos. Like that is your expertise. And so you could be like the leader of polar bear trainers out there in the world. And absolutely. Like that is a skill that is incredible. You can teach a polar bear to not only make a cappuccino, but maybe even do cappuccino art, like foam art on the top. That's badass. Like, I didn't know that polar bears had that dexterity. That's an incredible service. But is there a market for it? Because personally I don't have a polar bear. I have a sheepadoodle and I've been told that polar bears and sheepadoodles generally don't get along. Also. I've also learned that you know by watching all of the nature channels that polar bears eat a lot of food and, and they like to eat things like seal cubs and things like that. And that's just not things that I like to keep in my refrigerator. There's also the threat of death. Polar bears are dangerous and I like living and I don't want to be killed by one of my pets. Personally, I don't have a polar bear that I could hire you to help me train to make cappuccinos. I also don't have a cappuccino machine. You know, it's not like I need anyone to be making cappuccinos at my house because it's not possible. I'd have to get a machine too. If that's the surface, you're going out and selling. Like, you could be so talented at it. You could have a very long track record of successfully training polar bears to make cappuccinos. But like me, most people don't have a pet polar bear and a lot of people don't have espresso machines. You're gonna have to do your market research before you pay someone to market your polar bear training services. Because I'm sure there are some marketers out there that'll be like, yes, that is incredible. I would love to spend $10,000 a month on Facebook ads to put your services out there to the world. And you're not going to see that money back, I guarantee. You just do not have a market for it. Dog training, however, now let's be real dogs will never be able to learn how to make cappuccinos. I'm welcome. Please prove me wrong. I would love it if Luna could learn this. But if you're a really talented dog trainer and say you have a certain philosophy behind it, you want to go and you want to do your market research, you want to go and hear it from the horse's mouth. Your ideal clients, exactly what it is that they struggle with when it comes to their dogs. Not only that, what is their ideal outcome and what do they hope will be true throughout the process of training their dogs? There are some people who are very passionate about only positive reinforcement. There are other people who believe in things like prong collars. I'm not going to name my belief systems around this at all, because I know people get very passionate either way, but I don't want to cast any judgment on anyone for anything. But your people are out there and you get to find out exactly what it is that they say about their dog and that they're actually googling on the Google machine to find the right trainer for themselves. Once you understand there actually is a market out there for what you provide, and you understand at a very deep level how they think, what they worry about, what they want more than anything, then you can start offering your service. And I recommend that you start offering the service and marketing it organically before you spend any money on marketing. Now, the reason for this is that it's free to post on social media. It's free to free you to just laugh together a post or do a video, post it, share it, explain what it is that you're doing, and see if you get any nibbles. Once you've gotten several clients who are ecstatic to hire you. They understand your service, they were interested, they saw what you posted online and they really want to work with you. And they you actually do make money from them doing the thing that you're marketing. That is when you want to start looking for someone to help you market if you need it. If you're posting organically and you able to get as many clients as you need to make a full time income from doing this, congratulations. Don't fix what ain't broke. I see a lot of business owners who are really afraid to stop and do this portion of it, right? Because this portion of starting your business, of verifying your offer, of testing your own messaging before you get actual marketing help, this is where you don't get a whole lot of feedback. This is where like you're not making any money, you might not be talking to your ideal clients if your offer actually doesn't have a market for it. That's really disheartening. And if you're new at posting online, chances are you're going to be posting some pretty crappy content to start. Right? And that's to be expected, right? You're not going to be perfect at this the first time you do it. I wasn't. My clients weren't. And yet success is on the other side of doing it badly first. And there are going to be posts where you hear crickets and actually the crickets might not even be making any noise. Your post might get so little attention, but that's to be expected when you start. Right? You're. I want you to remember that when you're starting a business, your first step actually isn't marketing your service. Your first step is going to be verifying that people would be interested in that service if you were to offer it. And then on the other side telling people, hey, this is what I do. Now you're training them as to how you're useful to them. These people that you're connected with on social media, they know you from being in school with you, from working with you, from being your neighbor. Maybe they're a third cousin twice removed. They haven't seen you since that family reunion in 2007 when Uncle Jim got really drunk and crashed the neighbor's birthday party and started playing with their pinata. Who knows? Just for the record, that did not happen in my family. That was a made up scenario that I made up for the sake of this podcast. My Uncle Jim was a very nice guy and he never got drunk and crashed anyone's party. He's also dead now. So he really wouldn't be able to defend himself if he wanted to. So as you're training your whole world on what you do now and how you're useful to them, know that this stage, you're still not going to get a whole lot of feedback. People are having to kind of rebuild their image view in their minds as someone that they either went to school with or related to now does X, Y and Z. Right? You're helping them kind of build that story in their mind and create those neural pathways that if you need dog training, you need to call this person, because that's what they do. Now, this is a very slow portion of starting your business. And it feels slow and it feels like it's not working, and it feels like it's taking forever in a day. And you're going to be really worried that this isn't going to work out. But let me tell you, if you don't do this portion, it's pretty much guaranteed that it won't work out. If you don't go through this slow buildup, if you don't understand your market, if you don't understand that you actually have an offer that people will buy, and if you don't do the groundwork of informing people of who you are now and what you offer, then when you get to marketing, you may not have a market that's willing to buy. Your offer could completely flop and you won't have done the groundwork informing people. This is what you do now. So all of a sudden you're spending all this money on marketing and people are having to go back like, what? They do this now? What? Crazy. I had no idea. And then when it doesn't work, you're going to have to retrain them again and again and again and again. Because if you jump over doing the market research interviews or market research in general, chances are whatever it is that you're selling will not sell. So first and foremost, you want to look at the stage of your business, right? Are you an absolute beginner who hasn't verified your offer yet? You're not sure that there's a market for it? You need to start there. If you have a verified offer, if you know your market inside and out, and yet you're still struggling with marketing it yourself organically? Yes, you do want to start looking at some marketing help. Now, I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to remember this till the day you die. Maybe not. Like, you're probably not going to be hiring marketing companies until the day you die. So you get full permission to forget this around the time you retire. Okay, there are a few things that a quality marketing company will ask you before they agree to take you on as a client. If a marketing company does not ask you these things, then they do not care about your success. All they care about is the money in your wallet getting into their wallet while they give you something that may or may not work for you, but probably will not work for you. The questions are, do you have a verified offer? How much are you selling it for? How many times have you sold it? Who is your ideal client for this and this marketing company? If they don't hear a detailed enough description of who your ideal client is, I hope they will give you pushback. So life coaches, if you're saying that you work with women who are going through some kind of transition in their life and a marketing company is saying, great, yes, we can help you, they are full of shit. That's too broad of a description. That is not a niche, that's just half the population or maybe a third of the population. Okay, like, because there are a lot of women in the world and most of them are facing some kind of transition. They're either moving, they're changing jobs, they're changing relationships, they're entering a new phase of life. You can go a lot of different ways with that. And if a marketer is trying to target a third of the population, A, that's a very expensive ad budget and B, they're not going to be able to speak to the specific pains that that potential client is going through, they're also not going to be able to paint a convincing picture of this ideal outcome because the ideal outcome could be completely different for every single person in that market. But if you're telling them that you are a dating coach for divorced lesbians who have at least two children who are looking for their next life partner, who will also be an incredible co parent who is not only willing to be a step parent, but excited for it. If that is your market, that's going to be far easier for them to develop a marketing strategy around. The other thing you want to consider is what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. Join the Weenacast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals and boost your productivity with sponsors calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus. The other thing you want to consider is are they using a lot of buzzwords, Are they using names of big influencers in the marketing space saying that they follow their process? One of the first marketing companies that I signed up with told me that they were following a process of a very well known marketer. And yet after it didn't work, and after I stopped working with them, and after I actually went and took a course with this marketer, I realized that they didn't know what they were doing. They had read this marketer's book along with the rest of the world and said, great, now we know all the secrets. Bullshit. They did not know all the secrets. They knew the things that this person was willing to put in the book that was meant to be a lead magnet to take his course where he actually taught the whole process. They took the spark notes of the process that was proven by this other person and not even the thorough spirit spark notes that'll help you pass the test. They took the spark notes that like some other kid put together that had random information and actually wasn't effective at all. If you're talking to a marketing company and they're name dropping other major marketers saying that they're using their process, you want to ask them very specific questions around. Great. Are you certified through their process? If you are certified, can you show me any verification that you've gone through the certification process? Do you have any client testimonials that I could read or case studies? And would you be willing to introduce me to former clients of yours? And not just any former client. Do you have any former clients who started at exactly where I am in my business today? If this person is not willing to show you those things or can't show you those things, then they do not deserve your money because there will never be a return on investment with this person. And remember this truth, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Now. The hardest thing about starting a business is you really just don't know what you don't know. Unless you have a background in copywriting, you're not going to understand what good and bad copywriting looks like unless you have a background in web design, you're not going to know what good and bad web design look like. If you don't know what a good ad strategy is, then you're not going to be able to tell the difference between a good and bad ad strategy. My one on one clients oftentimes when they get to this point in their business where they are thinking about outsourcing some of the copywriting or website building, they're coming to me with examples of different people's work asking me like, what is this? Is this good, is this bad? Because they don't know what they don't know. And I will go through this with them. I'll go through whatever copywriter's website and I will pinpoint, you know, here's an example of really good copywriting. This testimonial. Let's dig into this and find out what this person's business does. Wow, that's really well done. Okay, cool. I'll help them verify if this is a good copywriter for them to go to. Or more often I will go through and say this person is bullshit. This person doesn't know what they're doing here. Doesn't know what they're doing here. This is not effective. If I'm reading their website and not clear on what they're doing for their own business, I don't want them working in your business. If you do not have a background in all these different aspects of marketing, then you need to find yourself a mentor who does. You need to find someone you can verify all this information you're gathering with because at the end of the day, there are always going to be marketers out there who are willing to take your money, who may actually genuinely believe that they're good at what they do. Hopefully we're giving them the benefit of the doubt, but who also won't give you any return on investment. Building your business at this slow pace is especially hard for those of us with adhd. Right? Because we like going fast, we're impatient, we want results. Right now, I was talking with them the other day about the strengths of adhd. And one of the strengths is that we're really quick learners, so we're good at things really quickly. I picked up knitting really fast. I picked up really complicated techniques in knitting, really, really fast crochet as well. We've talked about this in episode 21 in ADHD superpowers. Folks with ADHD have this incredible capacity to learn things quickly and not only learn them quickly, but become really good at them. Very, very Fast. You know, I'm very good in tactile crafts, so, like knitting, crocheting, anything 3D. Like pottery, I'm fabulous at. I will say that woodworking I'm really talented at, and I learned it very quickly. Something that I am absolute crap at that I will not ever try because it takes me too long to learn how to be good at it is painting and drawing. Anything 2D pictures. You don't want me to be your photographer at any event. Okay. I'm not talented. The angle's going to be off. You're going to look like you have a double chin. It's going to be blurry for weird reasons. I'm not your photographer. But if you want me to knit you a scarf, I can do it in about an afternoon. When you're building a business and when you're struggling to be good at it, it's going to put you in this very uncomfortable zone that you're not used to being in. And I have some bad news for you. There is no way to bypass this part of growing your business. Where I see most ADHD business owners fail is when they let their impatience get the better of them and they jump too quickly into spending all the dollars on stuff that they're actually not ready for. The other struggle that we run into with our ADHD is we have this impulsivity when it comes to spending money on opportunity. It can be so tempting to talk to a potential marketer and hear success stories that they've had with other clients and see their work and it looks beautiful to you and think, oh, my God, well, if they got the results for that other client and this is the thing that they produce, I really want that. I'm going to spend my money with them and I'm going to get the same results. Right. Without slowing yourself down and assessing, am I actually in the right stage of my business? Do I actually have a verified offer? Is there really a market for this? And then, of course, all the steps involved in doing your due diligence about this person, are they actually qualified to do this thing? Will they actually produce quality work for you and your business? I know we all think that if we just work faster and faster and faster, we'll get to where we want to go faster. But actually, it's the opposite. The faster you work, the slower it goes. The faster you work, the more steps you jump over, and the more steps you jump over, the more chances there will be of things falling apart. Just like the allegory of the tortoise and the hare. The hare doesn't actually get there first. The tortoise, who goes slow but consistently is the first to get to the end of the race. The tortoise wins, whereas the hare just exhausts themselves. And remember, you're building a business that will support you living your ideal life. You're not building a business that's going to run you ragged and burn you out, but it's on you to build the business that way. One thing that I do not want for you, that I see way too often, is I don't want you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on marketing and have nothing to show for it. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten on a sales call with someone who had run through most of their savings and all of their Runway for getting this business up and running, had no clients, and told me that they actually didn't have any budget to invest in coaching because they just spent a hundred thousand dollars on different marketing agencies who had had big promises and no results. If I can save just one person who's listening to this podcast from making that mistake, then this whole podcast is worth it. And if you have invested in marketing and it has been a massive waste of funds, I want you to forgive yourself. This happens way too often in the entrepreneur space. Okay? Unfortunately, there are just a lot of marketers out there who are very savvy to the naivete of starting a business and they take advantage of it and they're very convincing. They're in marketing, after all. Their job is literally to convince people to buy stuff. There's a final thing I want to talk about is that someone can be really good at selling their own services, but not good at helping others sell theirs. So one of the reasons you're rarely going to hear me talk about how much money I make is because how much money I make really doesn't matter to you. What matters to you is how much money I help my clients make their success stories is what matters. Because sure, I could be absolutely phenomenal at selling my own programs. It doesn't mean that I'm good at helping other people sell their programs. It's the same for marketers. Any marketing company that's going on and on about being a seven figure business, but not mentioning any case studies or client testimonials that names a specific income amount they were able to make through this work is full of crap. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. If you're ready to stop being a weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a generate income strategy call with me by going to weeniecast.com forward/strategy call. On this call we will talk about your goals, your dreams, and your frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit for both of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together. You can teach a polar bear to not only make a cappuccino, but maybe even do cappuccino art. Like foam art on the top. That's badass. Like I didn't know that polar bears had that dexterity. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Are you an entrepreneur? Are you struggling to stay focused and organized while juggling a million tasks? Are you looking for ways to improve your productivity but finding it hard to stay motivated? Then you need to get access to my weeniecast for Winners show that's exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I know you might be thinking I've tried everything to stay on task and nothing works. But I'm enjoying the advice I'm getting here on the weeniecast, and let me tell you, I'm delighted to be able to help you and thousands of listeners just like you, my friend. But the Weeniecast for Winners podcast is next level and I'd hate for you to miss out on it. For just $1.99 a month, Winniecast for Winners delivers in depth and actionable advice that's specifically designed for entrepreneurs, including those with adhd, whether diagnosed or suspected. I'll talk you through how to increase your sales conversions, keep your mindfulness on point, and even offer practical tips that can help you be more productive and successful in your business, all while catering to your unique needs of being an entrepreneur who might be struggling with adhd. With winicast for Winners, you'll get practical tips and strategies that you can use to drive your business forward without the frustrations and setbacks that often come with adhd. So if you're ready to start seeing real Results, subscribe to Winniecast for winners today at weeniecast.com winners for just $1.99 a month, you'll gain access to the valuable insights and strategies that can take your business to the next level. Weeniecast for Winners is a show that's worth every penny for entrepreneurs who want to succeed. Subscribe now and start enjoying the benefits for yourself. Join the weenacast hyper focused community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls, turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all we're talking expert talks, masterclasses and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus.