How Sandra Overcame Marketing Fatigue and Filled Her Programs Again

Hey everyone, Scott here with another one of my rockstar clients, Sandra. Welcome. Thanks for taking the time to talk about our time and our work together. Please tell everyone a little bit about yourself, your business, and what you do.

Well, my name is Sandra, and for the past 20 years, more than 20 years, I've been teaching tai chi and qigong to bring people to a healthier space mentally, emotionally, physically. And my most recent work over the last few years has been bringing the principles and foundations of these practices into the deeper healing space. So helping people move through challenges, pain, mental and emotional challenges, so that they can flow into pain-free and joyful living.

Yeah. Well, Sandra is what I affectionately call a repeat offender. This is not our first rodeo. This is not the first time that we've worked together. We just went through another 3-month sprint. Uh, I'm curious, Sandra, what was the challenge that you were experiencing this time around before we started working together?

So last year when we worked together, I came to you for— actually, I don't even know why, but a, a different way of working, um, of sharing the message about my work. And I was just starting this deeper healing program, which kind of birthed by accident. And, uh, what I learned from you last year really helped in a more personal, connective approach with the people who knew me well, uh, the people on my mailing list, people who knew me through other programs and other studies that I'd done. And, um, rather than using the sale page and the email series and that kind of approach. It was just a more, um, connecting approach where people could relate to me on a more personal and vulnerable level, which is really, um, the basis of the work that I bring people through with their deeper healing. And so through several bouts of my monthly program filling by contacting people who already knew me and communicating people with people, students who knew me well, it wasn't any problem to fill each time round, each time round. But then I was getting to a point where I felt like I was exhausting my list, that I was getting in touch when the month was circling around to say, hey, we've got another month going here if you're interested. And there wasn't traction. Happening, and I felt like the people who were keenly interested in doing this type of work had sort of run out as far as my close-knit emailing list went. So I came back for another bout of— and it's not repeat offending, Scott Perry, just to be clear. So I wanted to work with you again to find another way of reaching my list because I do have hundreds of people on my list. I just didn't know how to communicate with them on another level to share more about my work.

Yeah. Yes. Well, it was obviously a pleasure and a privilege to work with you. Last time around and this time around. What one of the things I love about working with you is you are an implementer. We don't— you don't just want to learn stuff and then feel like that somehow is going to result in miraculously in something new happening. You actually take the things that we talk about and immediately implement them. And your situation was really unique in that you, through our work the first time around, you created and filled this program several times. I can't remember exactly how many. But you, you hit a very common wall, which is it feels like I'm— it feels like I've exhausted my warm leads. It feels like I've, I've exhausted my list, what have you. And one of the things that I have been working on with clients is, okay, well, that's an interesting assertion. Let's prove it. Because yes, if you're going to keep reaching out to people the same way over and over and over, eventually everyone that's going to respond to that way of being reached out to is going to respond and you're done. But there are alternative ways of trying to engage latent audience or possible leads, possible prospects that just have not resonated with the, the, the language so far. So it was a thrill to work through that with you and Turns out, as I recall, you didn't— hadn't exhausted your list, uh, to the level that you had thought. But even still, before we started working together again, I know that you and I have worked with other coaches in the past that, that we share in common. Um, you had other choices to, to go to. What made you decide to, to reach out to me again and work together again?

So since I was— worked with you last year, we had kept in touch. I'd been following your Substack and getting your emails and then joining whatever calls I could that you were offering. Um, and all the while I kind of felt like you were the person that when I was ready or needed something different that I would want to go to. And, and why would that be? Because, um, you were really good at reminding me of things that I already knew. Um, I'd gotten caught in that wheel of searching for that new way or gaining more information about videos or content for posting or content for emails. And I find that speaking with you, I mean, what really helped was in your free offerings of the workshops in that you came through with the, um, be a blessing in your marketing and the rearview mirror. And so those two concepts alone you know, looking back at what we did that did work, um, and revisiting that. And then being a blessing in your marketing, sharing your work and what you do, and letting that be your marketing, not just, um, trying to think of new ways to reaching people. And it was perfect for me because I have hundreds of people on my list that have been with me for a good while And when we moved through the motions of our work together the last 3 months, and I thought I had exhausted my list, um, the main reason I was coming to you was really to learn a different way of connecting and communicating, because I knew I had all these people on my list, and how do I cultivate enough interest, enough knowledge about what I'm doing now with my work to get people to want to participate with that and bring that into a healthier way of being for them. Yeah, I hadn't planned on actually going through with offering another bout of the program, which actually happened, and it was off and running. And from a list, like I said, that I thought I had exhausted. And so it was really great to move through that process of learning how to share what I do in a way that there are no expectations and then just sort of going with the flow and seeing what happens.

Yeah. What's so important I'm finding is that so many gifted and talented healers, teachers, coaches, consultants like yourself, and I've been certainly guilty of this as well. We think that we have to spend a, spend a lot of cycles and spend a lot of time becoming better at digital marketing. And you're going to get better at whatever, wherever you're investing most of your time, attention, money, and effort. If you want to become a better digital marketer by by all means, practice that, do that, and get better at that. But if you're wanting to make the difference that only you can make doing the work that you love to do with and for people that would benefit from colliding with it, becoming a digital marketer is only going to take away the time that you should be invested— investing in elevating your craft. So the trick is, how do we turn the amazing work we do and the difference that we make into our marketing. Because now we're not dividing our time between marketing and sales and doing the work. We're doing the work and it becomes the marketing, which actually gets us better clients because we're attracting more of the right people. But we're also helping people that might not be great clients now become great clients later by doing this work out loud and in public and sharing it. So I love the way that you leaned into the process. And of course, I love the results that, that you got as well. It was really powerful to watch and a real, a real testimony to this idea that I have that this approach, this Be a Blessing marketing approach, can actually work more effectively and efficiently than what we normally hear from the gurus and the digital marketers online. So What happened, not just for you, not just in your business, but what happened for you in your life through the work that we did together and what you learned through that process?

So one of the things that I really enjoyed about the process, even though for me, I remember sharing this with you, I found it a lot of work to think in a different manner. And, you know, I'll admit at some points I was just like, Scott, just tell me what to do. And you wouldn't. You would always ask the questions and you guide, you led me on a more empowering path knowing that I would come up with the right answers for me. At any given moment. And one of the biggest lessons that I learned was that rather than putting— because we equate time with money, you know, that saying time is money. And I was spending a lot of time working through a sequence of— not a sequence, but working through following up with people when there was interest and there was a sharing or feedback or responding rather than having a fixed or designated response, like an auto response type, you know, cookie cutter email that went back to people. And in that, as I was putting the time into this, I mean, if you equate time as money, I was putting time towards actually connecting with people, and not just anyone, but people who were responsive, who were actually wanting information and wanting to learn more, rather than trying to figure out how to communicate to a broader group and then trying to figure out, well, how do you appeal to hundreds of people? Instead, I'm responding to the person in front of me that that, you know, I'm having a conversation with instead of trying to figure out how to blanket a message to a whole group of people. And then the time that was going into that, as I was learning this process, I realized, you know, equates to— if you want to equate it to time as money and money spent, instead of spending money on advertising, you know, whether that be through whatever, magazines or posting or ads all over the place, I'm putting the time as money into actually communicating on a deeper level with people who are ready for the conversation. And that made a huge difference for me because then instead of trying to put something out there and see if people respond, I'm actually taking the time to converse with people who have already responded, which made a big difference to the significance of how I was spending my time. And that was really huge for me.

Yeah, well, it's, it's It's the great illusion that if we spend time grinding out contract, grinding out content and trying to be everywhere all the, all at once, all the time on social media, talking to everyone, that somehow that miraculously will generate people willing to just, you know, fly to their, their wallet, grab their credit card and put it into a checkout page. And if instead we recapture all that time and put it in, into having intentional conversations engaged in with integrity with the right people, it's actually going to be a lot faster and going to get us a much higher quality of, uh, of client, which enables us to do better work that actually also helps elevate our craft, which creates a virtuous cycle of continuing to do better work with better clients and so on and so forth. So where would you be right now if we— if you hadn't trusted yourself enough to invest in working together again?

I think I'd be that— and I remember using the same phrasing last year when we spoke, you know, that hamster on the wheel trying to think through How am I going to reach my people? I mean, I was never about trying to get newer people. I like, you know, I want to add 100 people to my mailing list or I want to expand my mailing list. I have a significant enough number on my mailing list and I really, I just couldn't grapple with, well, how am I like, how am I going to reach these people? I'm posting, I'm sharing videos, I'm sharing testimonials, reviews, like how? And you're let, you know, let your marketing be a blessing or, you know, blessings in your marketing. That for me really clicks. I mean, you were the one that pointed out to me that if I get a few people in a room and just chat like this, that's where I'm really effective and I'm really good at that. And so why am I not doing that more? And that is, I'm on a path now of sharing more of my work without expectation to help people in any way that I can to be a blessing. And anyone who's ready to do more is ready.

Yeah. The theme of this conversation for me is that you, like everyone else I've ever worked with, already possess everything you need. And the way that marketing is set up in the digital world is it wants to make you feel like things— you're not, you're not— your business is not where you want it to be because there's something missing. And guess what? I've got the missing piece. You know, take this course, learn this script, grab this swipe file. Like somehow miraculously, this, this is the one thing that you're missing. And actually it's Not, not only is that not true, but you could actually stop doing most of the things that you're already doing and it would not have any impact on the leads you're generating. And in fact, if you stop doing all those things that you don't need to do or doing too much of and invested it in being a little bit more intentional about who you're reaching out to and how you're reaching out to them, you will actually get a faster result. And I just want to say too that the biggest force multiplier for anyone's success is to begin with being great at what you do. And one of the reasons that you were able to achieve the success that you did both the last time we worked and this time is you're really good at what you do. I've sat in on some of your sessions and I've witnessed the way that you show up and the way that you engage with people in real time and speak to everyone's unique challenges and questions and, uh, needs, wants, dreams, and desires. And it's, it's, it's really inspiring to witness, but you must begin there. And so anything you can do to practice your craft and turn that into your marketing, which is what Be a Blessing Marketing is all about, is going to be a force multiplier, not for just getting the word out, but also for developing your craft, which gets you better clients and commands higher prices and so forth. So just to wrap up, Sandra, you and I began our journey together many, I guess a year, maybe more than a year ago. And it all began with just jumping on what I call a catalyst call. Other coaches call them discovery calls. I don't believe in discovery. I think what people need to do emerges from conversation. It's not discovered in conversation. So for anyone that is watching this and has got an inkling that maybe it might be worthwhile to go ahead and opt in, fill out a short questionnaire and jump on a 50-minute call with Scott Perry to help clarify where they are, where they want to be, what's in the way, and how they can craft a path to success, but they're a little bit hesitant. What would you tell them?

I would tell them, don't hesitate. I mean, it's a 15-minute call. Scott's offering it free. Why wouldn't you take him up on it? And absolutely, you're going to learn something. I mean, Scott is a no-holds-barred person. He shares openly. He shares from the vast amazing resources that he has access to, and he genuinely wants to help you. And so even if it's that one 15-minute call, whether you decide to do further work with him or not, he will offer you something. You will get a gem or a treasure that is going to be effective if you implement.

I really appreciate that. Couldn't have said it better myself, Sandra. I know that we're going to stay connected through the Catalyst Club community of, uh, paid subscribers to the Substack. So always appreciate your participation and the, the vast contributions that you bring to those conversations, and, uh, just the blessing that you are to the people in our community. Uh, a thrill, a privilege, and a pleasure to work with you this last go-round. Hopefully it's not the last time, and I just can't thank you enough for taking the time to talk with me today.

Thank you, Scott Perry, and I want to thank you for your kind words. That really means a lot.