Marketing for practitioners that hate marketing!

Hello, friends, and welcome to Perfect Practice. Today you are in for a treat. I have my friend and somebody who I've gotten to know over the last few months. Esther Esti is a marketer extraordinaire and she actually helps people with marketing who don't love marketing. And I would go as far as saying people who hate marketing and practitioners as a whole, as you probably know as a practitioner yourself, are not trained to be marketers. However, we are required, you know, in order to spread our message, to really, really make sure that people hear what we have to say so that we can transform the world together. So, Estee, welcome. Thanks for joining me today.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, me too. So I want to read your bio because you've got, you know, some amazing experience and we can set the stage and then we'll dive right in. So you are an award winning business consultant, an exceptional marketing strategist, an avid speaker, and a found and the founder of Strand Consulting, a multinational business consultancy that is focused on helping small business owners scale their businesses to make big profits. She believes that very strongly that people can build professional and profitable businesses doing what they love. And she's here to guide you so that you can bring your vision to life with a lot more ease. You know, as he's been doing this for over 12 years and she pours her experience into her work, we've gotten to know her through a mutual mastermind that we belong to called Try for Leaders, where our, our friend Kevin Thompson hosts us. And that's how we got to know each other and, you know, got a glimpse into your marketing brilliance. So I'm super excited to dive into your world and help practitioners who are listening to this, you know, find their voice and fall back in love with putting their message out there. And I know sometimes it's a psychological tweak, sometimes it's just, you know, you know, a strategic tweak that they need. So let's dive right in and, you know, help these practitioners help more people. How's that sound?

Sounds amazing. A little bit what I live for.

Awesome. So where does your journey in marketing start? I'd love to give a little bit of background and context there.

I mean, it might start in the womb, but technically now there are family stories of, of marketing things that I've done from when I'm 7. Started my own first profitable business when I was 10 to get a degree in marketing from a business school in New York, which is where I was born and raised. And My journey in my current company started about 2011. I was working as the CIO of a multinational nonprofit. And I loved my job, I love my boss. I'd flex time, which was really important. I had three little kids at the time. I now have five less little kids that I single parent. And I just was looking for that balance always, you know, like professional good money, intellectual stimulation, contribution and freedom to be a family person, if you will. Right? And they hired this toxic middle manager who came in like a bull in a china shop. He's like, I was running a team of three people. We had massive projects all over the world, over 250. We were running eight figure budgets. And he's like, SD, your team is now my team and you're my new secretary now. I'm good at a lot of things, not a great secretary. And I was like, actually, I'm the new leaving person. Hi. But I was terrified. I had no idea where money was going to come from. I was the sole supporter of our growing family. My now ex husband was still studying and I just knew I couldn't stay. And I had this crazy dream to help small business owners. And really I was in my 20s. Okay, it was crazy at that time. It was before everyone and their brothers, Sixers, dog walkers, niece was a business Coach. This is 2011. It is a small business owner either had it or you didn't. That was just the world back then. It was a whole different place. And I had this crazy dream. I wanted to build a consulting firm for small business owners. That's what I wanted to do. And so I left my job with my insane dream. And I would hear these people like at the coffee shops, like, oh my, so talented. You should like sell your cupcakes for a dollar, Be such a good business. Like always in that voice, always in that voice. And just like, I can help you running businesses profitably. Since I'm 10 years old, I have a degree in marketing. I know how to do this. I know I can help. I have no idea how. And you know, I figured it out. Built the company to six figures in profit in under two years with no ad spend. My specialty is organic marketing strategy, where you don't spend money on ads, they pay you instead. And by 2019, we were staff in seven time zones, clients on six continents, featured in NASDAQ Entrepreneur, hosting LinkedIn Influencer Summit every year since then. Like a lot of cool stuff. So my marketing journey probably started when I was little, but really full force about 12 years ago when I started doing this with that dream, to help everyone else live their dream. My dream was to help everyone else live theirs.

I love that. So what you're saying is you have no credibility.

I have so much world experience. Credibility. Oh, that was sarcastic. Can I tell you something that, like, makes me nuts? So I meet people who measure credibility in education and where that education is from. Now, I happened to go to a very nice business school in New York, and I happen to have been registered in a master's program. And I left it because it was going to cost me too much money. While I couldn't earn money, I was like, I can earn more money without this. Why would I pay all this money, have to not earn money in order to earn less money afterwards? This makes no sense. And I wanted to start bringing my entrepreneurship programs into universities because I would meet people like, why aren't we learning this in school? And I was like, I don't know. Let me try and teach it to you. And I couldn't get in because academia feeds itself. You can only teach a degree lower than the one you have. And I never got my master's. I can't teach a bachelor's in university. And so I taught entrepreneurship in some local high schools, and we opened our own business school in 2019 online.

I love it. Yeah, definitely being sarcastic when I got that afterwards.

I got it afterwards. You know what, though? And we shouldn't go down this rabbit hole. It's not worth it. But there are a lot of prejudices out there on gender, on ethnicity, on age. And so, you know, I don't appear as the typical, really incredible business consultants when you first look at me. And I've faced a lot of that over the years.

Well, you definitely do things differently, and that's one of the reasons I wanted you to come on the show, because we want to show people a different way of doing things and a way that feels organic to them, as you mentioned, and a way that feels good, that doesn't feel slimy. And I hear over and over from practitioners that I coach that. That they'll say, I hate marketing. In fact, I just had this conversation with my wife. I was telling her, hey, we should, you know, write this sequence of emails. And she's like, I hate copywriting. I'm like, you don't have to write sales copy, write service copy. Right? You're not trying to sell someone your product. You're trying to sell them on themselves, that you believe that they can heal and they deserve to heal. And you've written tons of emails. You Respond to dozens of emails every single day. That's not sales copy, that service copy. So just pretend you're writing your ideal friend who needs your services. Pretend you're writing them email that is of service to them and of value to them. And you can kind of get out, get out of that writer's block. Because I think a lot of times we might think that we've got to be a professional copywriter. And while it's helpful to be able to write good sales copy, I don't think it's necessary, especially as a practitioner or a health coach or somebody who's trying to help somebody from a, you know, with the health journey that they're trying to get on. Because that, I mean, people can sniff right through that, right? They can see right through that when you're not speaking in your voice and when you're not speaking authentically. So I would love to know from your experience what is a common mistake or maybe the most common mistake mindset wise that people make with marketing.

I think the most common one is that need to be everywhere and do everything. That's that there are probably three most common that's on the top three, right? That like I have to build my website, I have to be on all the social channels and I have to send the emails and I have to have an email sequence and I have. And it's like this list. You know, as the, as the world gets smaller and smaller and everyone shows us what they're doing, we feel like we have to do all of it, you know, and small business owners look at big companies like we have to do all the big companies doing that was part of why I started my firm. You know, our first tagline was big business tools on small business budgets. You know, what can you do? And it is different. You know, I see people are like, oh my God, I hired this great marketer, he's worked for Coca Cola and Nike. And I'm like, yeah, but you don't have the budget or brand recognition of either of those and not talk anyone down like that. Maybe they bring great value, but the fact that they need to know how to take those tools down to a micro business level. You can't do what Nike and Coca Cola and Target, even Under Armour does. You don't have the budget, you don't have the name recognition, you don't have, duh, makes me nuts. You don't need to do that much. And you, and this will be the, the second mistake since you asked me for one. I'll give you Two is thinking that you need to do the things that other people are doing that are bigger, more veterans. Well, they're already successful. I should do that. Yes. And you're not there.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Because, you know, sometimes these companies, they have, you know, investor money, right? They have public funds that they're working with. They have brute force. Their LTV is probably different than how our LTV is set up. That's lifetime value for. Not for you, but anyone else who may not.

Sometimes they do stuff and it doesn't work. Just because someone does something does not mean it works. Right. Every big company has failures. Every small business had failures. So you're watching a competing influencer on Instagram and you're like, they're doing all these things. I gotta do all those things. You don't even know if those things are working for them. All you know is that they're doing them. You'll go, I have to do it because they're successful. What does that mean? They're successful. What does that mean?

Yeah, you. I mean, the truth is, we have no idea, right? Like, we're not.

And I'm on the back end of it, so I can tell you sometimes yes and sometimes no. I've spoken to influencers who have hundreds of thousands of followers who aren't making a dime, and I've spoken to people who have a few hundred followers who are making seven figures plus. There's no one path. There's no one set of requirements, and it's definitely not all requirements. You choose your success and then you choose the path that works for you with your assets, abilities, preferences to get there. And there's a path for everyone.

I love that because sometimes people think that they need to have big numbers, right? They need to have a million followers or 10,000 followers in order to be able to, you know, be successful. But it's really not the number of followers. It's the quality of your message and how much people resonate with your message. Sometimes people might just be following you for entertainment purposes, but not for transformational purposes, right?

Absolutely. And sometimes people just buy followers. Less common now, but it was really common about five, six years back. A lot of people were buying, but it's still there. But it's, you know, now that Instagram took away their 10k rule for swipe ups, it's a little less appealing. You have to buy at least 10k followers so you could get your swipe ups few years ago.

Yeah. It's almost like they create a culture of that Right. Where you think that, oh, if I don't have this, it almost invalidates in some people's eyes, their own business, because they need to get to this certain number, and they're willing to do whatever it takes sometimes to get to that. So if we're not. If we're not going after numbers, what is it that we're going after in our marketing?

Going after a clear path to conversions. Right. The goal of marketing, I've created my own definition, is the creation and communication of value of your product or service to your target customer or client to convince them to buy. That is marketing. That's all of it. So there's four Cs. There is create, communicate, customer or client, and convince. And if you're missing any one of these four, that's why your marketing isn't working. Right. So your marketing creates value. Your actual offer, the pricing, that's part of what creates value. Where people find you, how they find you when they do that creates value. Your messaging is what communicates value. And then you want to be talking to the right people that want what you have to offer in the way you offer it. And then you still. And this is where I think we could spend a moment, quote, unquote, convince them to buy. And I think this is where a lot of people get stuck. One of the things we teach all of our students and our clients is how to sell without being salesy. Because that stereotypical used car salesman, a couple of them left out there, it's like, oh, my God, no, this car is not 11. It's amazing. Now it's yellow color for fun. No one peed on it. Oh, my God, look, those leather seat. Those are. That's cracked. Yeah, leather. But it's really like, leather. And it's going to be amazing. And like, oh, Domino. Yeah, knock off one of those ears. It was not really there to begin with. This car purse, like a kitten, maybe line. But don't worry, it's so gone. It's so gone. And if that's your personality, have fun. But for most people, that's not. And that's how they think of sales. I remember such a great moment years ago. We were doing dinner with a group of friends, and one of the guys I haven't seen in a long time, like, hey, you know, what are you up to? He's like, oh, I do corporate real estate. Like, oh, cool. So sales. He's like, no, so mad at me. No, I don't do sales. I was like, okay, my bad. What do you. What do you do? Maybe does development, you know, I don't know. He's like, well, I just research different property and investment opportunities, and I put together presentations, and then I meet potential investors and show them it might be worth it for them. I'm like, sorry, something stuck in my throat that sales. That is sales, you know, this misunderstanding that sales is to manipulate someone to do something against their will for your own benefit. That's just. It's one way and it's not always. And about the definition of sales. To sell is just to explain in my world, how to sell without being salesy is to just explain to someone why they might want to get something and how it could help them. That's really it. I'll tell you another great story if you let go for it, since I'm on a roll. So one of our students was a kind of practitioner, Reiki certified coach, that type, and she had been through this really great training program, was employed. We all know this story. We all know this human, right? And she's a real human. But I've also met many people in a similar situation. And she, while she's in this program, this training coaching program, she was just telling all her friends about it because she was loving it. And everyone she would meet, she would tell them that's what she was up to and she was getting clients. She's like, this is amazing. I have a business. This is great. So she graduates the program and she's like, okay. She quits her job, hires a marketing team. Oh, this is by the book. Okay. Has a marketing team, gets a logo, gets a website, gets her social set up and no clients. He's like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to sell. I don't know what happens. It's broken. I need to get another job. She's like, freaking out. And we sat down and it's like, okay, what was working before? She's like, well, before I was just excited, and I was just telling people what I was excited about and, you know, how it could help them and how it was helping me, and they just bought it. I was like, what are you doing now? She's like, well, now I have to sell them. I'm like, that was sales. That was it. You were doing it. You just got to do that again. That is it. She's like, and this disconnect, Sales. Sales is just you explaining as yourself to people who are interested what interests you that could benefit them, that you do. That's it. Yes. There is a framework and there is a way to do it, but that's what it is. In essence. It's an offer of value to someone who sees the value, and then there's an exchange of value in return, which usually is money. Sometimes it's barter, sometimes it's housing. People get all kinds of things. Especially when you're in the healing profession, it's beautiful. There's so many people who can benefit from what you do. You can barter almost anything.

One thing that's come up is a term called bro marketing. And the world is now filled with Internet marketers. And we won't name any names, but I get mad. Yeah, but I'd love your thoughts on that, because a lot of times what happens is the way we buy isn't necessarily the way our clients want to buy. So if you have an online business, you might think that, oh, I bought this product from an online marketer, let's say, who provides value to me. That doesn't mean that you have to sell that way. And sometimes that's what happens. And I've seen that happen and backfire. And people are like, well, this guy's making, or this person is making. You know, they're successful, obviously, because we can see the growth of their business. But when I try to do that same strategy or, you know, they try to sell me their webinar formula, for example, or their sales formula, it just falls flat.

So mad. I mean, it's. Yes, because it's authentic to them and not to you. It's authentic to them and not to you. They can sell that way because that is who they are. And the fact that you bought it is because you bought their authenticity. You bought who they are, and they sold you who they are and what they have to offer. And when you do it and it's not authentic to you, you're not selling like they are. You're copying the externals. You're missing all the stuff that's inside. One of my favorite analogies that I created to try to explain this is imagine you're out, it's a hot summer day, and you see this cute little snow cone stand on a corner. There's, like, a line all the way down the block. You're like, well, this is brilliant. All he's got is ice shavings and, you know, some flavored syrup. Everyone's buying. I could do that. There's more than enough people. All right, so block away. You open up your own little snow cone stand, and no one's buying from you because he's not selling snow cones, he's selling icebergs. You have no idea what was going on under there. All you saw was the outside. All you saw was the webinar or the formula or the ad or the like. You have no idea of all the underpinnings. When something works, there are at least we do. It's a 12 step program. There are 10 to 12 moving parts depending on the industry. You might have one, you probably only see one or two of anyone else's business before you get all into it. And when you try to copy that the thing that you were buying. And I'll tell you, I've done this myself, I've done it myself. I have tried other people, I've done the same thing. I tell my clients not to do, but in my own moments, I've done exactly that. I've had amazing trainings and webinars that people loved. And then someone's like, oh, but you should see this new one. I'm like, oh, that one does look really good. Oh, I should try that. And then I do it and it's terrible. And I'm like, right, that's not mine. Mine is really good for me. His is really good for him. So I make the same mistakes because it's shiny. It's so shiny, it's like candy. Like you think it's going to be so sweet. You just need to be you. You just need to be you. And if you really resonate with what someone else is doing, it really fits for you and you get all of the under layers of why it works. So if you're copying someone's webinar, that's a promotional and possibly a conversion strategy. Are you reaching the right people? Are you in alignment with your message? Are you positioned accurately in your industry? Does your offer make sense? Does the pricing make sense? When people seek you out, does your presence reinforce what they're see saying? What's your number? Scale? Right. So we don't need big numbers. We need conversions to reach a hundred thousand people. And one person buys something that's not necessarily a winning strategy. Why are we spending all the time to get in front of a hundred thousand people who either don't care or you're not communicating your rights. Don't do that.

Yeah, so true. You know, the thing that I find is authenticity is what really attracts the right type of person. And if we're not authentic to who we are, it shines through or comes through in everything that we do. And even if we're not authentic to who we are in our messaging and how we show up in the world, I find that we attract the wrong people.

Absolutely.

And then even though they buy from us. Yeah, even though they buy. Even if they buy.

It invites you in the end. Absolutely. I was just doing laser laser coaching yesterday, two days ago in a different mastermind presentation for a different mastermind group. And one of the people came on. He's like, okay. Like, you know, I did a. It was like a mini presentation. And then they asked me to laser coach a few of the participants. And so when the guys comes on, he's like, okay, should I just show you my website? I'm like, what do you do? What are you doing? They just wanted me to critique the website, but what's the context? And turns out they're building a sales funnel for an offer that they've never tested. It's like, well, we have four people signed up. Like, where'd you get those four people? There are existing clients. So you've taken your existing clients and offered them an upsell and now you want to blast that out via web funnel through a social media strategy. But you have no idea who the best people are except the that existing clients. A small percentage of them will upsell into it. You don't know what the messaging is. You don't know if anyone likes your offer, but you need to get on some phone calls. He's like, oh, that's not sustainable. We can't get on the phone with everyone. I said, what about the first 20 people? If you can't sell that thing on the phone, you can't sell it on a website. And everyone misses this because we're inundated with messaging and braille marketing and, you know, radio ads that are like, point, click, business, let's go shopify.com, you know, and you're just like, oh, it's that simple. It's not. It's a practice like anything else, and it's a discipline. And anyone can do it and anyone can learn it and anyone can make it work for them, but you need to do that.

So let's get into that. Where. Where does one start? So if somebody is like, willing to wipe the slate clean and say, okay, I'm going back to the drawing board, where do we start?

So we start at making sure we're really clear on our value proposition and our ideal target. We start by just getting really clear. Why am I here? What am I doing? Who are my best people to serve? Right? And there's a whole path to defining that. But before you do it. You can't do anything else before you know that because otherwise you don't know your messaging and you don't know who you should be talking to. And if you do that and you're wrong, at least you've tested and you could say, hey, wow, these aren't my people. They don't like it. Or these are my people. I know I can solve their problem, but they don't seem to like what I'm offering, so I have to change my offer. That's basic. They level one value proposition, connection, right? Who am I? Who am I serving? What am I doing for them? That's level one. Once I know that, and let's assume we know that, we know our best people now we're going to use what I call our swan strength to reach our bees. This is a absolute SD creation. Sometimes my students are like, I looked mine and I couldn't find your thing. I'm like, that's because I made it. It's not, it's not. You're not going to just find it online. I made it. And SWAN strength is s w o n speaking, writing one on one and networking. Every business owner, freelancer, entrepreneur, human I've met has at least one of these skills. Really strong, sometimes more than one. There's usually always one standout. So speaking is that big tent personality. I love speaking. I started, I launched my business in the beginning through speaking, speaking until I've grown it every time. We've had to reboot it for various reasons and it's how I grow it, even when it's successful. I love speaking. I love big crowds. Put a few thousand people in a room, put a few dozen people around, I don't care. I love it. Put me on a stage, I'm so happy. You use your speaking skill, whether it's at seminars, to groups, in webinars, on social media, right Then you're doing, posting and maybe videos. But you're talking. If your skill is speaking, you're looking for where you can speak to get in front of people. You're honing the skill of selling from stage. If you're trying to do stage presentations, these are skills. I've studied these things for over a decade. These are real things. You might have some of it, naturally you might want to hone it a little bit more. But if you're a speaker, speak. If you're a writer, write. If you're not a writer, you don't have to write. I said, did you say I don't have to write? I did. I said, if you're not a writer, don't write very much. And if you are, yes, write very much. You can write on social channels, you can write a blog, but not on your own website. It is not 1998. No one is going to find your blog on your website by accident. No one's going to be searching for, you know, how to heal my headache and just to trip over your blog post and hire you, like, just not. That is not the world we live in right now. 1995, maybe because you were one of six blog posts on the whole interview webs, you know, it's just not the world. Now you write for a guest blog post, you write for a periodical that your audience is ready reading. You're always looking to leverage existing audiences when you're launching because that's how you build your audience. So where do you provide value now? The hardest personalities to do this are usually people like, but I'm not a speaker and I'm not a writer and I'm not a networker either, right? Because networkers, they just go on meetup.com they go to the nearest networking, they sign up for BNI, they're all over LinkedIn, they love networking and they're out there and they're talking and they're talking, talking. So speakers sometimes get stuck because they're like, I don't know where to speak, for how to speak, or should webinars look for opportunities to present to other existing audiences. Writers also sometimes like, I should write a blog, but you would be better writing a guest blog because someone else has an audience that you can contribute to and networkers get out there. The one on ones I find struggle the most because they're like, but I don't really like speaking and I don't really love writing and I don't really like networking. What do I do? And I always call those the one on one personalities. They're super skill in these intimate deep connections, these one on one connections. They're intimate relationships. And what they need to do is leverage those connections and leverage that skill. You want to sit down first with your immediate network who is in your world that has access to your audience or has access to someone who has access to your audience. Maybe it's second degree removed. Don't worry, these are the people who love you. These are intimate connections. I mean one on one personalities have these. They have them because that's how they dedicate their time. Maybe you have three, six, a dozen, however many reach out, say, hey, I'd love To update you on what I'm up to these days and just have a chat. They're going to say, of course. And if not, you're regularly talking to them, that's fine too. And tell them, this is what I'm up to. And I'm looking to get in front of these specific people. Right. As a friend of ours says, Jules, he calls them the blue elephant.

Right?

So specific. I love how she says that. Like, if I say blue elephant, you can see that. You can see in your head what a blue elephant is. When you describe your target audience, the people you're trying to reach gotta be that clear. The person you're talking is gonna be like, oh, my God, I know how to get in front of them. I know people who know those people. I know those people. They're always hanging out over here. They're doing that thing. And then that's gonna get you in front of them. And then you can leverage your secondary skill, whether it's writing or speaking or again, just one on one conversations. Just there's. And I have seen every single time, without fail. And we've put hundreds and hundreds of students through this program. And our clients as well, worked with over a few thousand business owners. Okay. Over the last number of years. Every time we do this, the one on one personality is like, I don't have anybody. I don't have anybody. I don't have anybody. Oh, well, does this. Two examples. Two of my favorite ones. One example was a woman who's like, buddy, I don't have anybody. I don't have anybody. And then she's like, oh, you know, one of my good friends is an Instagram influencer and she has like a few hundred thousand followers. And she's always saying to me if I want her to promote me, and I'm always telling her no, because I have to build my own channel. Is that where you mean Estee? Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. That would be very, very exactly what I mean. Another amazing example was someone who had an educational offering, also one on one personality, amazing offering. It was like a combination product with service layer. It was very cool thing. And. And he was trying to get it into the school systems and also sell it through Amazon. It was like a whole thing. And he's like, also like, yeah, it's a cute idea, but I don't think I have anybody. And then suddenly he's like, oh, wait. My mom worked for the board of Education in XYZ City, and she was always telling me that, like, she could get me connected there and I. That route. Is that what you mean? That is what I mean.

All right, so when we, when we think about somebody who is, let's say, a practitioner, because that's where our audience is right now. So speaking, I believe that's one of the most impactful ways. But it's not. May not be for somebody else if they don't like to speak, right?

You use your strength. You want to speak, speak. You don't. Don't you like to write? Write. But write. You are trying to reach your bees. B is an acronym, the same way SWAN is an acronym. So we're using our SWAN strength to reach our bees. It's the body, eyes and ears of your audience. Where are they physically? Are they at events, conferences, outdoor gatherings? Where are they? Where are their eyes? What are they looking at? What social channels? Don't. I can't make these stories up, right? I really can't. I once got a call from a guy that did continuing education for geriatrics, and he said to me, I know my business to be more successful. I was just really active on Facebook, like, that's possible. So what do you do? It says continuing education for geriatrics. I said, okay, so are you targeting, you know, the children, the assisted living facilities? Like, who are you trying to aim? He's like, no, we aim actually at geriatrics that are still living on their own, that are self managed. I was like, in part of our offering is community for them. A lot of them live alone. I'm like, so let me get this straight. You're targeting septuagenarians, like the 70, 80 plus mark of people who are independently living, which is not that many, you know, unfortunately, that are not in, you know, group homes and things like that. And you want to reach them on Facebook, like, are they on Facebook? He's like, I don't know. I'm not. That answer. Did not. Which I, I didn't even take them at the client. I was like, okay, you're going to print carts, you're going to put them all the local eateries and local community centers and gatherings. And then you're going to have your people and you can do a mailing where you know they live. Like, this is very simple. You're not going to do Facebook ads. This would be a very big waste of money. And as a health practitioner, you want to get in front of your bees where they are body, eyes and ears. Ears are referral partners. Especially as a health practitioner, your ideal target is working with other health practitioners. Other, you know, I keep always one foot in like the business world and one in the conscious community. And I really like to hang out in both. There are so many channels and gatherings and, and groups and healing practices. Once you're in that space, that's where they are. You know, someone who likes a sound bath, likes an energy healing, likes the reiki, like the 16 other disciplines that are like branching off around it and they want to do their, what is it? Ancestral. I forgot what it's called now, but the, that thing and then that, like your best referral partners are people who are in your world. You have a unique gift. You're bringing. What is your unique gift that they might refer you get into their ears. What problems are they facing? We. I once had someone who specialized with holistic treatment for pcos for women. And I said to her, okay, where else are these women going? And she thought of that instead of, you know, people who, women who deal with this have a hormonal imbalance and a lot of them have, you know, unwanted hair, facial hair in places they want to get rid of. And so they're actually dealing with the salons on that. So I could really. I've gotten a few referrals from local salons and beauty practitioners. Those are your queen bees. Your queen bees are the people, organizations, institutions, individuals that your bees flock to. You find one queen bee that's almost an unlimited lead flow.

I see that. Yeah, definitely. Like, you know, I, I encourage my clients. You know, don't just hide behind social media or online strategies. Get out there in the world. Right. You know, and it's not even just about, you know, finding that yoga studio, but go do yoga there, right? Be in the presence of all of those people who could likely benefit and are much more likely to be open to your services than, you know, just random people online. You know, these people, time, money and energy and they're going into that environment where they, you know, they're saying, they're raising their hand and saying this form of health and wellness and self care is important to me. I'm willing to spend time and money to be here, which means I think they're much more likely to obviously use our services as healthcare practitioners. Holistic healthcare practitioners. Sorry, I interrupted you. Go ahead.

Oh, no, absolutely. I'm sorry, I interrupted you. And just be in that space and know how to tell people what you do in a way that engages them. Don't hide, don't be embarrassed. It's not salesy, it's. I actually think it's the opposite. I really view people who are unwilling to share what they're doing in a way that can benefit others as it's, it's backwards. Right? You're so much trying not to sell because you don't want to manipulate anybody. You don't want to be salesy, that you are withholding, holding your gift from people who need it. Well, they should just know. What do you should know, they should guess, they should figure it out. When someone asks you what you do and you say massage therapy, they should know that you have this whole really cool thing with crystals. How are they supposed to know? And when you say I'm a Healer, you and 16 billion other people, how are they supposed to know? You've got to know how to say it. And yeah, I get, I get upset about this because a lot of people who talk about hating marketing, it's. To me, it's because you don't know what marketing really is. You know, what you think it is. I love marketing, but I don't like any of the kind of marketing that you hate. I hate that stuff too. I love real marketing, real authentic communication of what we offer and who we help and how we help them so that we can then engage them further to help them more. Because you need to be paid for your time or you can't dedicate your life to this. If you're independently wealthy and you have a trust fund and you just want to go out there and heal people for free. Amazing. Great for you. Most people can't do that. Most people to dedicate their life and time to helping others need to be paid for it. Otherwise they can only do it part time. Wouldn't it be nicer if you could do it full time? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to the world and the people you want to serve? If you got paid enough to keep serving them more and more, would it? Absolutely would. So just know how to say it. It's like you go on a first date and you're like, listen, you know, at some point I'm going to be disheveled, I'm going to be a little smelly, I'm going to look a little messy. So I should go on my first date looking a little disheveled and messy and smelly because he. She's got to like me for me. That's not how we do first date, okay? On the first date we look presentable. We want to be on our best babe. That's just how we do first dates. We want to be authentic. We want to be ourselves, but we don't want to show them our worst possible state. And in marketing, I feel like people do that. They're like, well, I'm just going to be me. I'm just going to be me. I don't. So it's not neat and it's not professional and it's not whatever. Because I hate marketing. I'm just going to let them know I'm a healer. And if they get it, they get it. No, they don't get it. It's not how we do it, it's not how we play.

This has been like a really good reframe for I hope our listeners and certainly I'm picking up some wonderful nuggets here and I'm writing them down as you're speaking. What would you say would be an immediate next step? Somebody who's listening to this can take, I would love for you to, let's just say hypothetically I was to call you and say, hey, I agree with everything that you're saying. What's my next step? What would you say?

Well, I'll give you a really cool free present that you could do as a next step from me which is a three day marketing success challenge. So if you go to my website sdstar.com freegift so it's E--I-E S T-A-R-R.com freegift sdstar.com/free gift, you can have a present 3D marketing success challenge that gives you the clarity and confidence to market yourself successfully. I think that's a great next step. And if we were to get on a call, I would explore with you depending on your budget and your abilities. My dedication for over 12 years now has been to make sure that this level of information and strategy is available for micro business owners. So we have authors offers starting as low as the hundreds of dollars and all the way up into the tens of thousands depending on the scale and scope of what the company needs. Totally happy to help you. This is, you know, I just got the most beautiful testimonial today. As I was telling you right before we hopped on our main marketing strategy program, we just wrapped our first partner cohorts with another company and one of the guys said, he's like, listen, I didn't know if I was going to take this. Like I'm really busy, I have a lot going on. But I saw that it was the whole thing. He's like, I'm always hiring all these freelancers and trying to piece things together from Fiverr and Upwork, it's like, and this is the whole thing, it's the branding, marketing, sales, it's how the whole thing comes together in one place. He's like, I get it now, I get it now. And so that to me is my next step for you. I want you to get it. I don't need you to do it. I need you to understand it the same way everyone understands how you build a house. You don't need the details, but you know the difference between a contractor and a plumber, an electrician and interior designer and marketing. Most people don't. I don't need you to build the house. You can, there's lots of things you can do like that. But it's really hard to even hire the right people when you don't get how the whole picture works. And my dedication and my big picture vision and mission and what I do is that that information is common knowledge for all potential and existing business owners because then they have the recipe they need for their success.

I love that. I love that you help people no matter where they are on their journey. And what I'm really appreciating is how we can really step into our authentic self because that's who we know how to be best. Although we may not be showing up that way in our messaging and that makes it feel a little bit icky. It makes us feel out of alignment and out of our resonant frequency. You know, when we're doing something that is working perhaps for somebody else, it may, it, I almost guarantee it's not going to work for the next person because you're out of alignment and there's a frequency that you're emitting that people can sniff, right? So to speak. They can, they can see right through it. And as, as, as genuinely as you want to help them, you may not be doing yourself or them a favor because they're not seeing the real you. They're not getting to know the essence of why you do what you do and who you are. And you know, I've also always, you know, really aligned with the statement that people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And you know, I find that a lot of times that gets left out of the equation as well. So I'd love to know, where does that fit in to the equation?

Well, you know, law of attraction is a super law, right? So if you're out of alignment, you're going to be attracting people who are out of alignment as well. And then you're going to wonder why? Right? So you're not feeling congruence with your message. You're feeling like this push pull. And then you start attracting potential clients who are doing that same kind of push pull. They're interested, but they're not. You're like, I don't understand what's. How am I tracking this? Because you're in that exact place. You know, law of attraction as a super law always fascinates me because anytime I'm like, how can I possibly be attracting? This was like, oh, because not the angle you were focused on. It's a different angle, but it's always there. And to be authentic in your true self is, like I said, foundational. You tap into your purpose.

Right?

So I'll just, I'll list you the. The kind of 12 steps of our program so you understand the order. Number one, you find your core branding concept, right? This is your. See, this is the genesis, is your essence. This is the DNA of everything that comes afterwards. This is your essential why. It's a little bit like Simon Sinek, start with why, but different. Because it's the SD version. This is the why you do what you do. And I've created this infographic that's a flower. And I've gotten some interesting feedback. Like, it's so feminine. Like, yeah, you know why? Because a girl, B, you want to keep pushing and building your business harder. You want to nurture it and just let it grow, right? So we bring a feminine energy with the structure to it. So imagine a flower. The seed is the DNA of your entire business. This is your why. You find that you build out your roots. These are all your branding elements. So every single thing in marketing that's out there today is somewhere in my flower, right? Your brand story, your vision, mission, your pitch hook, your usp, your brand archetype, all those things, those are roots. Those are just elements of your brand. Something that really, I find so challenging for people. There's so many things that they don't know where they go. Like, oh, I've done my brand story. Okay, now what? That was just a branding route. All you've done is put a root underground. Nothing happens. Now you're not out there. And then the seed connects to the center of the flower. That's your target audience. That's stem. That's the problem you solve for people. It's called the 2am problem. That's a whole teaching in and of itself. But it, it gets your messaging really fine tuned really fast. It's a fun one. And so when you find Your essence. You find that 2am problem you solve for people and you connect to those people. You solve the biggest problems. For now, you've got a solid organic foundation. You don't want something organic. You want to throw a lot of money at it. Tape it together with really expensive masking tape.

Cool.

You want something that grows by itself more and more, again and again, year after year. Make sure that connection's there. Now we've got six petals. We've got our positioning. You've got to look at the competitive marketplace. You've got to see, why are you different. You got to figure out, are you low, mid, high end? And why should someone buy from you over somebody else? Who are your best partners? Who are your main direct competitors? Who are your indirect competitors? How do you position yourself so that when someone's like, well, why would I get something from you over X, Y, Z? Again, you're not convincing them you are genuine in your explanation. Well, here's why. You wouldn't let them decide. You're not being pushy. You're giving them. You're gifting them with information that you've researched on why someone will go with you or not. They can decide. Then you have your actual product. They're all peas because they're petals. I know, it's cute. So you have your product, which is your actual offer as a service practitioner. Your product could be ours. Could be a package of hours or package of sessions. It could be a online program. Sorry, just. It comes out in that voice, but it could be some kind of information product. I just. I have a whole teaching on the right time and way to build information products that actually sell and benefit. So that's a whole, whole other can that I don't want to. Yeah, I'll just put on the shelf for the moment. You have your product, you have your price. Now, each of these elements is connected to the center of the flower. I keep the visual. Your positioning is how your target, your ideal target, sees you. The offer you're making is what your ideal target wants from you. Can't tell you how many clients. We've reworked their offer because people wanted something slightly different. Your price is in line with your people and the offer and your positioning. Each petal leans on the previous. It's a step program in order. Then you have your presence. You can't set up your presence offline or online. Any offline collateral. Your online assets, from websites to social channels to listservs, any of that before you know who you are, who your people are. The problem you solve your position and your offer. You don't set things up before that because they don't make sense. And you set it up. Then your fifth pedal is your promotion. Now you're ready to get out there because otherwise you get out there but you've got nothing to stand on. And people skip that step also. These are all mistakes. Now, one of my best featured articles on Entrepreneur was called Top six Marketing Money Wasters.

Right?

It was like front page for like three days. It was great because it's so common, all these things that people miss. And then lastly, have your sales process and the leaves which are on the flower, those are your graphical and linguistic branding. That's your visuals and your logo and your business name and your tagline. They're leaves, they're extras. Yeah, you want to have them. But you know what, if the rest of your flower is amazing, you're going to sell really, really well even without them. And if your leaves are amazing, but the rest of your flower isn't just, it's not going to work, right? They're, they're really, they're not vestigial, but like a little bit, right. We use them, but they're meant to enhance. And so once you've done all of this, your Last step, your 12th step is your sales process. Once you know who you are and who your people are and the problem you solve for them. You know how to communicate, you know why someone buy from you over somebody else or not, right? Just realistically not to convince, but just to explain you know what your offer is at a price point that your people want to pay for that offer in line with your position. And you have a presence set up. You've gone out there to get people's attention because they're not going to just find you. So you've used your swan strength to reach your bees or some queen bees who've handed you other bees. Now you need a sales process. The sales process itself has like 10 parts inside it. And you're like, it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. Like any new discipline is overwhelming. But once you learn it, it's just automatic. You just do it. You put people through a sales process that takes them from attention to sell and from sell to resell and upsell and to strategic recommendations and referrals. Because your existing happy clients are not only your best continued clients, they're your best referral partners. And so that's how you build a self sustaining sales cycle. And that is the essence of organic marketing strategy.

Clearly you've done this many, many times. A couple of times. Right. So I want to invite everyone to. To make sure they get the free gift. I've actually posted it in the link below and we'll share it in the show Notes. If you're listening to the podcast, you can sense Etsy's Estee's passion. I was, I was gonna. I was so afraid I was gonna call you Etsy because my son has an Etsy store. I'm sure that I'm, I'm assuming, get it a lot.

I always tell people, Estee Lauder. Estee Lauder is also an Estee. It's a French accent. So Estee Lauder.

It's easy. So, yeah. So, you know, I posted the offer. It's a free gift, you know, our gift to help all of you reach more people in a more impactful way so that the world gets healthier and happier and more whole because of it. And marketing doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be something that's frustrating for you. If you have a formula and you're willing to go through the steps as we've outlined today, then you've got a framework that's going to help you move your message in the right direction, put it in front of the right people so that they can take action and find their wholeness once again. So thank you, S.D.

My pleasure. And then you have that real pipeline, not the one where some guy's like, I'm going to get you unlimited leads. Yeah, but are they good ones? Doesn't matter. Can I sell them? Who cares? Not my job.

Yeah, yeah, you bring up a good point. Because that happens often, right? You get the. You get the, you know, Internet marketer or the marketer that comes in and says, well, we put a thousand leads into your pipeline or whatever that number is. And you're like, okay, well, they're not, you know, they're not the right fit. And some of that could be the messaging is off. Right? Or the authenticity.

Are they the right people? Is the messaging right? Is the offer correct? Do you have the right legitimacy? Are you positioned well in the industry? It's all those pieces. That's why we do all those parts before promotion. Promotions where you go get their attention. And it could be that all those things pre promotion are right, but you don't have a proper sales process. So they come in, they're interested, and then you run a sales prevention strategy, which people do. I've done it. Some of my clients have Done it like, it happens. You know, we had, at one point, I could only call it a sales prevention strategy. Just there was, like, different tech glitches and, like, holes in our system. And it was like, wow, all these people want to buy things from us, and they can't. And every entrepreneur I know has gone through this at some point. Every single one, you know, And I've had people at all different levels, some who are earning, you know, a few thousand dollars a month and some who are earning millions, plus. It happens. But you could get all the leads in the world if running a sales prevention strategy, they're not buying.

Yeah, I want to bring something up real quick as a case study. We've had events where we've had 10,000 people register. We've had events, our most recent one, where we had around 3,000 people register. And our return on investment was much greater with the 3,000 people because our message was so much more clear. And the way we articulated the offer and presented it, you know, we. We built up rapport with. With everyone. We shared case studies and testimonials. We had edification. We had positioning. Like, a lot of the things that you're talking about, I didn't do them with the knowledge that I have now. I kind of did them without even knowing, unconsciously. But now I can apply what you've taught us as we go into our next event, because we can lean into those strategies which are highly ethical. They're not manipulative, so I can feel good about them versus other strategies that just feel out of alignment and out of resonance with me. So I appreciate this framework that you've shared with us today. It's so powerful, so valuable. And I. I encourage people to go back and listen to this, right? And maybe take some notes and just check off the boxes. Do you have these things in place? And if you don't, then check out the free gift. You know, I would do that regardless. And, you know, let. Let these frameworks support you on your journey ahead, because we all know that more people need the services that you have to offer. And you know yourself that you do great work. Now, listen, if you do crappy work, if people get worse because they work with you and they get unhealthier because they work with you, then by all means, like, just erase everything that you just learned. Don't do this because we don't want to put good leads in front of bad practitioners, right? We don't want to put good people in the wrong place. We want to put good people in front of good practitioners so that you can work your magic and change their life.

Absolutely. And your people that you want to serve deserve you figuring this out. You deserve it and they deserve it. You deserve to earn what you need to enjoy and live the life you love while serving others and helping heal them. You both deserve to figure this out. That's why I'm here.

Amazing. Estee, thank you so much. We are posting the link. Is there anywhere else that people can connect with you or follow the work that you are doing or see examples of how you put yourself out there in the world or some of your clients do?

Totally. So at this specific moment in time, we're coming out of about a two year hibernation, so you can follow me on socials and on my own podcast and we will be reigniting all of those within the next six months. You know, couple, couple interesting things over the last few years. And so we, we went into hiding. Hibernation is really the best example. And like that, you know, grand hog, like just coming out, I'm like, this break. What's happening? We're gonna go again. Okay, so SD Star on LinkedIn, Instagram business breakthrough podcast with SD Star on iTunes, Spotify, everywhere. You get your podcasts and yeah, I'm really hard to lose. That's the truth. But you can definitely follow me. And just keep in mind that when you go there and you're like, but you haven't been here in like two years. That is correct. But hang tight, I'm coming back.

But I, I feel like this message is timeless. So whether, whether you're tuning into this message from two years ago, I, I feel like this message isn't something that a year from now you're going to be like, oh my God, why did I listen to that? It doesn't make sense. It's going to make truth is you.

Can even look at the content from two years ago. It's still absolutely timely. Sorry, totally interrupted you. I guess it's my own feeling of like, I feel bad sending you somewhere that's not active, but at the same time, there's a lot of good stuff there. You could keep yourself busy for months listening to the few hundred podcast episodes that are already there. I've been running that show for over four years before we put it on pause. And the hundreds of posts and videos on the socials. So I take it back. I don't feel bad. Go hang out. The fact that there's nothing super recent, you're gonna have even more fun seeing something I posted two years ago, you're like, I. I needed that today. Yes, you did.

Yeah. You know, I'm a big fan of ancient wisdom. Not that two years ago was ancient, but I like to refer to it as timeless wisdom. Right. So the Quran, the cabal, the. I'm sorry, the Bhagavad Gita, like, you know, the Tao Te Ching, like, these are books that you can read, scriptures you can read over and over and over again. And regardless of where you are in the, you know, time horizon, they're going to be relevant to you and so appreciate you sharing today and, you know, directing us there. We'll. We'll make sure that we have some show notes that direct people to your podcast as well.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for listening.

Yes. So there you have it, my friends. Check out the free resources that SD has created for us. Leverage them, use them to your power. Connect with her, follow some of the work that she's doing, and let's start changing the world. We know that the world needs us more than ever as each day goes by more and more than ever. So have an awesome, awesome day, everyone. Lots of love to you, and here's to you.