051. How to Stand Out in a Changing Economic Climate

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Well, hello my friends. How are you today? Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for stopping by and showing up. As, as I'm turning on the the recording, one of my neighbors is revving the engine in their, I don't know, sports car or something. But it's very loud, so if you heard that in the background, don't be alarmed. Everything is fine. We're just testing out our cars over there or something, I don't know. Anyhow, thank you for being here. That kind of got me off track. I was distracted there for a moment, but I am back. I have some fun stuff to talk to you about today. This is going to be part pep talk, part instruction, part checklist and all about how we are going to achieve our 2022 goals, especially revenue goals, and how we're going to get there. I want to equip you with everything that you need to make those goals achieve those goals. So. So let's get started. So yes, as you know, we have now entered the fourth quarter and this is go time for me. I always think of this as like go time and for a lot of my clients too, the fourth quarter ends up being our largest revenue generating quarter of the year. So I am not in the re enter in the retail industry. And so you often think about that for retail businesses like with holiday shopping and so forth. Right. But for many other businesses it is also the highest quarter of the year. So I want you to be ready to welcome in all of your new clients, your new business, if that's what you want, of course. But I know that's what I want. And even in the midst of a changing economic climate, we have now experienced two quarters in the in this country, the first and second quarter were officially negative gross domestic product, which basically means the sum of all of the goods and services produced in this country pulled back a little bit. And so the first quarter, let's see, in the first quarter of this year it pulled back 1.6% and in the second quarter, point 6%. So those aren't huge numbers. But most economists would tell us that though, that two consecutive quarters of negative gdp, which is gross domestic product, signal a recession. And so there's lots of other factors I I think, and lots of other economists take in other factors such as job growth and all of that. But let's just say, you know, the economy has pulled back. That is a fact. Right. The gross domestic product has gone down for the first two quarters of the year. We have no numbers yet for Q3. I'm sure that's all being tabulated now as we have ended Q3. So we will start to see those numbers come in. But nevertheless, it's been a little slow. And you may or may not have felt that. I feel like I felt it more mentally than actually because actually my business has been growing, which I am very thankful for. But it almost becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy when we hear like all the doom and gloom in the economy, I mean, I'm sorry, in the media about the economy. It kind of gets in our head. And so, you know, I'm sure you've heard what all the, you know, all the doom and gloom out there. So when we allow it to get into our head, it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. Right? It, it begins to create, you know, if we take those thoughts on then, then you know, maybe we're pulling back or we're not doing as much as we normally would do in an economy that was humming along. But. And so that creates a slowdown in our businesses too. And that's not necessarily what we want to do. So, so there is some uncertainty on what's happening in the economy. Right? There's a shift happening in the economy and that's fine. The economy always goes through seasons. We are never always going up, we're always going down. It's a seasonal economy movement of ups and downs. So that's a fact. If you go back and look as far back as we have records, you'll see that. But here, so we have some uncertainty. We know that maybe our clients, our customers, potential customers, are feeling that and thinking that maybe they're holding back on their purchasing decisions. We don't know. However, what we do know is that people are still buying, they are still buying what we are selling. The economy is still in motion. It hasn't ground to a complete halt. It has just dipped down slightly. Right. And it is also a fact that it is possible for our businesses to grow even in a recession. It is possible for us to continue making money even in a recession. Even if we are, you know, flat or slightly lower maybe in our revenue, we're still making money. Right. And so I just want to kind of have a reality check for us. Yes, things are changing in the economy, yes, there's uncertainty, but we don't have. But we also have to remember that, yes, business is still happening. People are still buying, money is being made and spent. And so we get to take all of those facts and then get to decide how we're going to show up. And so I am coming to you with an invitation to step up to be the business, the entrepreneur that's showing up in an even bigger, bolder way. That is standing up, stepping out, and believing that your clients, your people still need what you have to offer. And when we decide that's how we want to show up, that's how we get to show up. Right? Because others are going to internalize all of the doom and gloom in the media and they're going to shrink. They're going to lay off on their marketing. They are going to maybe not launch something new or, you know, whatever, and they will be allowing that fear and certainty to take over, and they will not be growing their businesses. Right. So this is an invitation for you and me to step forward, to be courage, courageous, even in the face of economic change happening. So how I am responding to this is that I want to be sharing with you over the next, however many weeks are left in this year, all of the ways that I have found to be the simplest and have the most traction, the greatest return on efforts of time and money in growing your marketing, growing relationships and growing your audience, growing your email list, all of the ways that you can grow the marketing and sales side of your business so that you can continue bringing money in. Okay, so the next, like I said, however many weeks, I guess I should have Googled that before this, but I didn't. For the next, however many weeks it is, I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to be offering different, very practical, tactical ways that you can grow your reach, grow your marketing, both in person and online. I'm going to talk a lot about online because I find a lot of businesses that I talk to, a lot of women I talk to are doing really great in person and they want to get better online. So we're going to talk about that. But all of it's going to be focused on your marketing and your sales and growing that side of your business, because that's what I'm an expert in. That's how I can help you. And I want to help you to crush those Q4 goals, crush your 2022 goal and be ready to launch into 2023 with all, all of the optimism that you can Muster because we are all business leaders, right? We are leaders in our communities, we are leaders in our friend groups, our families, the organizations that we're part of. And so when we come to the table and we say, yeah, there's some uncertainty in the economy, but that doesn't mean I'm not showing up. I am showing up to serve you and give you everything I got, right? And it's those of us that decide to do that that will continue to generate revenue, to grow new and different ways, even during a recession. And sometimes growth isn't always about financial growth, right? Maybe it's growing, learning new ways to communicate with our potential clients. Maybe it's developing greater value, growing in our value so we can help our clients get what they want easier and faster. And so recessionary times often invite lots of innovation. So I just invite you to be open to the spirit of innovation too. Right? And so the first thing, so I'm just going to kind of go over, just give you a list of all the things I want to be talking about. And this is a little checklist for you. You can consider. And I might be changing these as the weeks go on, as new inspiration comes, but some of the things that I wrote down that have really given me the greatest traction towards my goals tactically, things I've actually done, that's what I want to talk to you about. So the first one, and I know we, I, I know I talk about this, I think I've talked about this quite a few times on the podcast, but I'm going to even I'm teaching it in a whole new way. And it's increasing the value that you offer to your clients, to your potential clients, to your audience. And all that means is basically it's like helping your best fit client get what they want easier and faster and better. Right? And so we always want to be focusing on how we can do that. And when we focus on that, we come up with ideas and we share them with our people through our marketing, we are going to grow our revenue. And that has been one of the greatest ways that I have exponentially grown my business, my revenue, and also really stepped into my purpose and what I absolutely love doing. So I'm going to talk about how to do that. I'm going to also talk about connecting with your circle and how to do this, of connecting with your circle of people that's already in your orbit, right? Your network, so to speak, and how to know the difference between your close circle and your wide circle and how we communicate and Grow our business within the network that we already have. So many times we think, oh, I'm not in front of enough people, I'm not in contact with enough people. Well, you might be. You might just not be communicating with them in a way they understand so that they can work with you or refer other people to work with you. Right. So we're going to talk about that. That's been a huge win for me because these people are already all around you and if they understood exactly what you do and how you do it, they would want to work with you or they know people that would. Right. We're going to talk about how you can connect with online and create relationships online with your raving fans. And I say raving fans. It's kind of funny because a lot of times when we go to post on social media, we're never thinking about the people that love us. We're thinking about all the people that are going to criticize us and that don't like us and they're that are our haters or our critics or that think what we're doing is, you know, not a worthy profession or whatever. So I really want to teach you how to create relationships online, business relationships. I'm not going to be going over dating apps, but talk about those business relationships because you really can use the communities that you're already part of online to build those relationships. And that's where clients come from. Right. And just like you would if you went to a networking function, the spaces that we're in online are just as effective. So we'll be talking about that. I'm going to take you through an exercise on creating an unlimited basically amount of ideas for content for you to use in your marketing. You know, posts or newsletters or talks. If you talk, you know, do speaking engagements just help you come up with a bunch of ideas that are going to speak to your best fit client and really attract them to you. So we're going to talk about that. Let's see what else we're gonna. I'm going to teach you how to create a balanced marketing plan. So a lot of times what I see is folks are have a marketing plan that is focused on like lots of long term like nurturing type strategies and those are important. But you also have to have strategies in place that are bringing clients in today. Or maybe you have lots of strategies that are bringing clients in today but you're not doing any long term nurturing so that you are bringing people through their client journey to work with you over the Long term. So I want to teach you how to create that balanced marketing plan. And let's see what else. I want to talk to you about how to make your offers irresistible so people want to buy from you. And so it feels great to make offers. It feels great to talk to potential clients about your offers. It feels great for them to buy from you and they feel great about paying you for what they're getting. And then we're also going to be talking about some of the other aspects of creating an offer, like pricing and how do you price an offer and, and some of the thoughts around the strategy around that. I also want to dip into how to build your email list because that is your business's greatest asset, one of your greatest assets. I know we all have lots of assets in our business, and that's a great one. And how. And then what to do with those people on your email list once you have them. So I know lots of business owners that I talk to have an email list that they don't do anything with or that they are in contact with once in a while. And so I want to talk through some of the strategies around email marketing and actually help you to grow that email list and then create those relationships from it and how to move those people through the client journey. That's another thing I want to talk about is the client journey and really understanding that and mapping that out so that you know what happens to an individual when they find out about you all the way through to them signing on the dotted line and working with you and all the different steps that they take and how that you are serving them and nurturing that relationship all along the way. That has also been something that has really created great traction for me in my sales and marketing. So that is just a preview, but that's a little checklist for you of the different things. And so maybe you've got all of these things dialed in and if you do, give me a call. I want to interview on you on the podcast. But for most of us, there's always places where we can tidy up, where we can tighten up our marketing, where we can just go that little extra mile and those little changes create big results. And so I want to walk you through over the next, let's see, October, November, December, three months, this final quarter. Q4, let's go. I'm going to walk you through all of the ways that I know to help you create all that you want, all the revenue you want to in your business, so you can achieve that 2022 goal that Q4 goal and launch yourself into 2023 feeling great. So that's what I have for you today. My friends and I hope that this has been helpful and I really look forward to seeing you next time. Have a good one. Bye. If you if you like this podcast then you have got to sign up for my free on demand video training Grow youw Sales Doing what yout Love where I teach you in depth my simple process that you can implement right away to harness your mindset and your skills to grow your sales to whatever level you want. So go grab that now. The link is in the show notes and I'll see you next time. Sa.