169. Mid-Year Reset Part 2: The Marketing Metrics Every Woman Entrepreneur Needs

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. Hello, I'm Melissa Kellogg-Lueck, and I'm so excited to be here today. I am the founder and CEO of the Avanti Business Academy for Women. And I have the Substack publication, Marketing Like a Woman. And so we talk about marketing for women entrepreneurs here. I've been helping small businesses and entrepreneurs with their marketing for over 21 years. But I began focusing on helping women after I experienced myself feeling like such a miserable failure at marketing myself. Even though I had helped countless other companies for a decade at that point. And I didn't believe what I had was valuable in all honesty, right? And because of that, I was overcomplicating marketing, over-perfecting everything, trying to make up for this lack of belief in my value, that I have something valuable to offer. And my marketing just became exhausting. And so if you've ever felt that exhaustion, that disappointment, that failure around your marketing, you're in the right place. Okay. Because then what I realized is what I've known about marketing for decades is that it really only requires 3 things. And we're going to talk about that today, that if you want to get back to doing the work you love and working with the people you love and not feeling so awful about marketing and sales. I'm going to show you today what really are the only 3 fundamentals that you need to be doing. And I know that for sure, and practicing that in my own business for 21 years and teaching that and coaching and serving women entrepreneurs. So having made that shift, I have gone on to teach and coach hundreds of women and how to simplify their marketing. And have a little more joy and enjoyment of their business and get back to the work they love. So that's what we're all about here. Thank you so much for tuning in. Here we are in the middle of the year. And last week I started a special series about the mid-year reset. I love coming to this midpoint of the year and just taking a moment to pause. And to reflect on what's happened so far this year, because I set goals, you set goals and objectives and plans at the beginning of the year. And so we get to this midpoint and it's a great time to check in and how's it going? What is working? What is not working? What are we learning? And so I talked all about how you evaluate your performance, your business at this point in the year. That is a very Productive way of evaluating. And you're welcome to go back and look, but basically I talked about the 3 questions we always answer around evaluation and they have to be in this order. So question number 1 is what worked and where did you see growth in yourself and your business? What do you think and feel is working well? And then also looking at the data. And then number 2 question is Where do you see room for improvement, right? What's not working? Where do you see opportunities to improve? That would be question number 2. And again, thinking about how your sense of your business, and then also looking at the data. And then the number 3 question is, what did you learn? What are you learning? What do you want to do differently in the second half of the year? And so I covered all of that in depth last week. And so this week, What I really want to teach and to cover is about tracking and about metrics. So many of the women that I talk to, and many of them become students and clients, they are doing a lot of things, a lot of marketing actions, and they're not sure what is working, what is not working, what they should lean into, what's actually creating sales opportunities. What is just something that they're doing because everyone else is doing it, or someone told them they need to do it, and what's actually making the needle move in the business. So if you're feeling like you're doing a lot, you're showing up, you're posting, you're networking, you're sending emails, you're podcasting, guesting on podcasts, speaking all over, and yet at the end of the month, you look at your revenue and you think, this isn't working. I thought I would be doing this much activity. I should be making that much money. And then it feels like something's missing, right? So what we really want to be able to do is know exactly what is working and not working through data. Yes, we look at our sense and what we feel like is working and not working, but then we also want to have some metrics to look at as well, because your business is always trying to tell you a story and the numbers are how it tells you the story. So if you're keeping metrics, then it allows us to tune into the wisdom in your business and to look and see what the messages that your business is trying to give us. There's usually a gap in what we feel and what is actually true, right? And so that's where the data helps. You want to measure the things that you want to get better. Measuring matters. What you measure will improve. So if you want your marketing to get better, you wanna be bringing in more sales, you've gotta measure all along the way, right? So most entrepreneurs are measuring only one thing and it's revenue, right? How much money's coming in? Is it enough to pay my bills? Right? And when the money isn't coming in, oftentimes, and I don't know if this is a female thing or what, but I see this so often, we take it personally. That means something is wrong with us. We're bad at business or we're not cut out to be entrepreneurs, right? But really that is not necessarily the case. That's very all or nothing thinking, like I'm all good or all bad. But really what the truth normally is, there's some things that are working and some things that aren't working. And so how do we know what's working, what's not working, and how do we measure, or how do we improve those? We improve those by measuring so we can look and see where things are breaking down. Right? And there's a lot of activities that happen upstream from revenue. So all those activities that you're doing to create revenue, we've gotta be measuring each one of those things so we can see the effectiveness of it. And this is precisely why I love teaching a simple marketing system. I have a simple 3-step system so that the measurement and the improvement, the evaluation can all be much easier because you're not trying to keep track of measuring 50 different things. You're measuring probably 3 things, right? And so when we constrain and we're focused on mastering a few, just very few marketing activities, we can get really good at them and dial them in and know exactly how we're creating clients and revenue at any point in time. So when we look at our numbers this way, when we evaluate our marketing this way, it takes the, the story of you being the problem out of that, right? It's the marketing activities that are the problem. We can fix those, right? There's not something inherently wrong with you. You are just fine as you are. We just need to dial in each one of these steps along our marketing journey, right? And so that's the system I wanna teach you today is really how to create that tracking that really matters to you as the CEO of your business. I'm sorry if I'm talking fast, I'm really excited. And just with all the action going on this morning, I'm like, ah, I just need to exhale. Okay. Just a quick overview. I'm going to do a deeper teaching on this next week, but a quick overview of the 3-step formula that I teach, simple marketing formula that I teach, is that there's only 3 things that you need to be consistently doing in your marketing in order to bring in all the clients and revenue you want. And if you're doing these 3 things consistently over time, you can build your business to whatever size that you want it to be. And I know this having practiced this and taught this for 21 years. And I always say when I started my career in marketing 25 years ago, we were using AM radio ads and Yellow Pages ads for marketing to market our business, right? And we were bringing in clients and making money then. So it doesn't mean that those were the perfect things. Those were great things for then. But there was no Facebook, there was no social media, and we still were able to market our business and make money. And so it's not the actual tool that creates the success. It's you performing that tool consistently and enjoying it, right? Having that energy, that attractive energy of enjoyment and effectiveness, right? So the 3 things that we need to be always doing in order to market our business It's number one, be bringing new people in. So you need to always be bringing new people into your world. And I always say, pick 1 to 3 things that you want to be really great at as far as meeting new people. So for me, it's like networking is a huge deal for me. Social media, speaking engagements. Those are my top 3 ways that I meet new people, right? So I am, mastering those 3 things. And then number 2 is nurturing those relationships. So once you're meeting these new people and bringing them into your world, how are you nurturing and growing relationships with them person to person? And the reason that we do that is because, especially for those of us in service-based, trust-driven industries, our clients need to trust us before they want to work with us. And so we have to grow and nurture, or we want to— I love it, actually. We want to be growing and nurturing relationships with each and every one of those people so that they can learn to know and trust us, right? And then have the desire to work with us when they need what we have to offer. And so nurturing activities Just like the new activities, you want to keep it 1 to 3, keep it simple. So that could be coffee chats. Maybe you meet people for coffee. That could be— social media is a great way for nurturing relationships, right? That could be phone calls, doing direct reach-outs and having one-on-one conversations with people. I have a podcast that is what I consider that a nurturing activity. Where people get to continue to learn and learn how I think and get to know and trust me if they want to, of course. So think about for yourself, how am I meeting new people? And I'm always happy to answer questions around, is this activity a new activity bringing in new people, or is this activity nurturing relationships? And there are things that are both. For example, Social media, you can meet new people on social media and you can also nurture relationships on there. There's usually some different strategies for those, but that can be something that doubles up as both. And networking can be an activity to meet new people. It can also be an activity to nurture relationships. If you're going back consistently and becoming involved with a particular community or organization and people get to know you, like you, and trust you because they see you there every week or every month, right? So just think about for yourself, what are those three? What are those? What are the nurture activities? And then the third activity is making offers and invitations. What that means is you're consistently and constantly making invitations, inviting people to go to the next step in the relationship journey with you. So I always give the analogy, this is like dating. Right? I just celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary, so I haven't dated in decades, but I do remember it, right? But it's dating in a way where when you meet someone for the first time, you have a conversation, you feel that spark, and you want to see them again, you offer to make a plan to see each other again. Let's exchange phone numbers and I'll call you, or that sort of thing. And then maybe you talk on the phone for a while and you decide it'll be really great to have coffee together. Let's make a plan to have coffee. And so you invite them to coffee and then you have coffee and it's still amazing and you want to spend more time together. So maybe you invite them to go for a hike with you, right? So it's all of these steps along the way in that relationship journey to getting to know and trust one another more and more. And so it's the same for our businesses, right? We wanna be thinking about for every way that we're meeting new people and nurturing relationships, what are the invitations and the offers we're making to get to know one another better? And always be making those offers. Some people will teach, you've gotta have like the give, give, get rule, right? You give and then you make an offer. Or you give value 80% of the time and then only make offers 20% of the time. That's way too confusing. You can throw all of that in the trash and always be making an offer or an invitation. That doesn't mean you're always saying, buy my thing, buy my thing. That means you are inviting them to the next level in the relationship. And you're thinking of when you plan that out, you're thinking of the person that wants and needs and can afford what you have to offer. So often we create processes and offers thinking about people that don't want our thing, right? But if you think about and design and create and talk to people that are your best fit clients and they want and need and can afford your offer, then your ability to make offers and invitations changes. It becomes so much easier and so much more aligned, right? So those are the 3 aspects of the marketing plan that I create with my clients, right? So you can create your own. And then those are the 3 things that you're going to be measuring too. For example, say, We're going to be measuring all of the ways that you meet new people. I use a spreadsheet for this, which is what I find to be the easiest. Say your 3 methods for meeting new people are like mine. You are out networking, you are active on social media, and you do speaking engagements, right? You want to measure those 3 things. You want to set a goal. For example, I'll have a goal. Say I want to attend 10 networking events each month. So that's my goal, 10 networking events. And at each one of those events, my goal is to meet 3 people, right? And so by the end of the month, I've met 30 new people, right? Or on social media, what is my goal for posting? Maybe my goal is to post once a day for business days. So that's 20 posts a month. And post really great content that builds my audience, right? So then I can measure how many people did I add to my audience, right? How many new people did I bring into my world? Or for speaking engagements, what's my goal for that? So my goal is to have one speaking engagement a month, and that at those speaking engagements, my goal is to convert 80% of the room to my email list. Right. And so maybe that's, I don't know, 20 people a month. Okay. So I've set out those goals, right? And so that's what I'm going to be measuring all throughout the month. And then look at it at the end of the month. This is how we build our demand creation tracker. So you're going to do that same thing for all of your nurture activities. Remember it's 1 to 3. And then also thinking about offers and how many offers you're making and have a goal for that, right? I like to track it as I go because waiting to the end of the month, I gotta go back and look at so many things, right? And then once I get to the end of the month, I can look at all of my activities and I'll score myself, right? So maybe I had a goal of going to 10 networking events, maybe I only got to 8. So then that would be 80%, right? So I'd score myself an 80%. And then I take all those scores and I average them and come out with an average. I shared the story that when I was developing this process, I got to a point where one month I felt like I had just been crushing it. I felt like I was going to all the things, I was posting all the time, I was doing everything I had planned. That was my sense. Right. But then my revenue was only 50% of what I wanted it to be. I only hit 50% of my goal. So then I was like, man, what the heck is going on? So then when I went back and tracked and actually looked at how many networking events I went to, how many people I met, how many social media posts did I do? How much did my audience grow? And I had went back and measured each one of those things. And averaged my score, I saw that I'd only completed 48% of my planned marketing activities. And that was what the actual data said, even though I felt like I was like 80, 90, 99%. I thought I was in A or B territory and I was actually less than 50%. So then I look at my revenues, 50%, and I was like, huh, well, that just figures, doesn't it? And so since I have taught this to so many clients and they've done the same thing, they're seeing the same thing happen, right? Where you think you're going great and then you do your score and you're only 50%. It's no wonder that your revenue is not what you want it to be because it does take consistent action in order to create consistent results. Now, action isn't the only thing because we could post a bunch of slop on social media all day long. We could go to 10 networking events, walk in the room and walk out and say, check, I did it. But it's not about that. There's also the value and the energy and the quality and connection that you're bringing to that event, that activity. And so I always like to encourage my students and my clients to start out with just creating a simple marketing plan and you getting consistent with that. And then we can start increasing the effectiveness, right? Or increasing the value. So having this tool to measure and know what to measure and measure what matters will take you so far in learning to be able to look at your business and understand what exactly is working and not working when it comes to creating revenue. Because like I said at the beginning, it's not either all working or all not working. There's some things that are working, there's some things that are not. And so we need to be able to look at our business to determine what is working, what's not working, and be able to dial in and lean into what's working and adjust and improve what's not working. So start simple, right? Always start simple and start measuring and start seeing what you learn. Start seeing what kind of awareness comes up for you. That is your assignment for this week, to create your tracker, however you want to do it. I love spreadsheets. I know not everyone is a spreadsheet lover, but I love spreadsheets. So that's just the easiest way for me to do it. And also, if you would like to walk through this process with me personally, I would love to take you through this whole evaluation. In, create your marketing plan, create your tracker so that you know you're measuring what matters. And we can do that together in a 90-minute— I call get it done session. And you can walk away with that entire marketing plan simplified for you, the way you like to show up in the world and your tracker so that you understand exactly what you need to measure. It really is such an effective way to gain massive momentum in your marketing. And in your business and create those sales opportunities and that revenue consistently that you want coming in. So that's what I have for you today, my friends. It's been so great to be with you today. I will definitely be back here next week. Next week, I'm going to go into greater detail on how to simplify your marketing, because really when your marketing is simplified, you're able to amplify your reach, your impact, and spend more time working in your zone of genius doing the work that you love with the clients that you love. Marketing does not have to be complicated, I promise. And so I invite you to join me for that. I'm going to walk you through creating your 3-step marketing plan, and we're gonna have so much fun. So thanks for being here, and I will talk to you again next week. Bye! Hey, if you like this podcast, I want to invite you to become part of my community. Each Friday, I'm going to deliver to inbox my weekly celebration as well as my thoughts on the latest in business and marketing. I want to keep you in the know about my upcoming events, free trainings, book clubs, all the fun things, even some free gifts. And of course, I'm going to let you know about these new podcast episodes. I'll see you there.