Stop trying to 'have it all' – it's a trap.

Welcome to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're your host, Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a realtor and lender here in San Antonio. But most importantly, we're working moms just like you.

This podcast is all about creating a space where we can come together, share stories, and learn from each other. We love connecting with local moms in business, hearing about their journeys and how they're balancing it all. Because let's be honest, it's not always easy, but it's so worth it.

Before we dive in today's episode, we're excited to share some big news with you all.

Our business community and coworking memberships are officially open. Whether you're looking for a supportive community of moms in business or need a beautiful space to work and grow, we've got just what you need here at Working Moms of San Antonio. You can visit the link in our show notes or workingmomsofsanantonio.com. Membership for more info.

Now onto today's episode. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get started.

Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. Today I have a special guest and friend, Macy, and I am going to, uh, turn it over to her. We can talk about all things marketing.

Sounds fun. Yay, my favorite topic. Um, hi, it's so good to be here. Thank you. Um, I'm Macy. I am a seasoned strategist, and I say seasoned because one, I love cooking, can be a little spicy.

Yeah.

And I have over 25 years in marketing and media experience, so blood, sweat, and tears. And with that, I love strategy, all things strategy, and You know, one day I was cooking, meal planning, and I was in the kitchen probably doing two things at once. And that's thinking about work, client work, marketing. And it hit me and I was like, marketing and cooking are very similar. You can plan for the week. You have a budget you're working with. That's just like marketing. You're trying, you have this end goal. You have a message. You're trying to reach people. Cooking, you're trying to feed people and You can't have a great strategy, whether you're meal planning or marketing, if you don't have the right tools, the tactics, the timing, and you know, your budget and who you're cooking for or who you're marketing to. So it was very similar. And if you do too much and the ingredients are all muddy or your strategy and tools are muddy, it's just, it's a fail in the, in the kitchen, in the world. So I loved that kind of idea and I went with the seasoned strategist.

Yes.

That's fun.

First of all, I love that. I feel like this is maybe the first time I'm hearing that from you. Um, although I have been seeing like your, your headshots and the different things.

That's slowly fading that in. Yeah.

And I'm obsessed with this. I love that.

Yes. And I love food. I mean, I'm Filipino and I grew up in Louisiana and New Orleans really. And that's all we know. It's like community and feeding people. Food is a love, is our love language. Yeah. So lately I've been, you know, easing that into everything that I do. And, um, one day, one day I would love to have more like dine-in discussions. And that's where we sit at a small table, 8 to 10 people at the most. We eat and we talk, and hopefully it's me even cooking for people while we talk.

Oh my gosh.

And so it's like, ask me any questions, let's talk marketing. And then if it's a table full of people, then I, I can connect people with each other too. Yeah. Sort of like what you do with Working Moms.

Yeah.

And this time we're just like eating and having a good time, or hopefully I can feed people while I do it. Yes.

I love that. I am not the cook in our house. My husband is that. Um, I feed people just like based on, you know, they need to survive. Like when I'm cooking, it's like for sustenance.

I know. Don't get me wrong. Yeah.

It's like that too.

It's like, what is in my pantry? What can I thaw real quick? And so, I mean, it's like what? Survival of the fittest at times.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. How cool. Um, so tell me just a little bit about like what drew you to marketing? Why did you get involved in it? Um, and what do you love about it?

Oh gosh, marketing, it's a lot of things. It's the storytelling behind it. I love human psychology, human behavior. I love strategy, and that's a lot of marketing. And I really had a background in journalism, and that's also part of storytelling and, and curiosity and investigating and looking at information. So I, over time through high school, college, and after college, I was working in media, first TV, then, uh, print and whatnot. But, um, I always had to have a marketing role too. So I went further, got my grad school degree in that and, and really just dove in into marketing. And it is, it really is. It's just there are messages that we are trying to get across to people. I love helping people sell or serve others, and that's my way of serving others too. But without a good strategy behind it all, it can just, it can be a mess. And I've seen it.

Yeah.

And I think I just stumbled into it in a way. Yeah. I was asked to help my TV stations in the past or help a, um, popular, uh, magazine in Baton Rouge do the same thing. We've gotta get our message out there, boost subscriptions, do this. So there's a goal there, like how are we gonna do it though?

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, that's, I found my way into marketing, but I really love it. And right now I just really love working with small businesses and solopreneurs, especially moms, women. Yeah. They're trying to do it all at home. They're trying to survive and live, and in the same sense, they're trying to grow their business.

Yeah.

You know, and that's, um, lately that's where I'm really focusing on is helping, helping those small businesses because I spent years in corporate and years in agency life and I've managed multimillion dollar contract, uh, campaigns. But I realized it was the smaller businesses who were having such a hard time. They can't pay the agency fees. Um, the just to spend money and, you know, stay viable against the big ones on Google Search, Google AdWords, and you're spending a lot of money and you have to be smart about it or you can't compete at all. Yeah. So I wanted to take what I've learned over time and then help the small business owners with that. And when things nowadays with the state of social media and digital, uh, you can do it organically and save a little money there. But I'm starting to see women spend a lot of more time obsessing over social media.

Yeah.

And I have to remind them, look, Social's not the only answer. Please have an email marketing campaign in mind or a good functioning website, print maybe, or collaborations with others. It keeps changing. And that's what I want to do is help those women go with the flow, save them time so they don't have to keep up with the algorithm updates. They don't have to, you know, what's going on, worry about what's going on in the state of email marketing. I, um, I want to guide them along and keep it in line so they don't feel like they're spinning out of control and really overwhelmed trying to balance a house and a business.

Yeah, no, totally. And I love that you're helping that demographic. I mean, I am that demographic here. We are that demographic of working moms. Um, and it's so true, like so many of us can't pay a large amount, especially when you're just starting out. Um, but also don't know a damn thing about it. And so we can't really do it all of ourselves, you know? Um, and so I think it's so important to reach that group of people because we all need marketing. And without being able to get some help, I think very few can probably survive.

Yeah. And I, you know, I tell people when it starts to feel overwhelmed, it's going to take 30 to 90 days to get a good foundation because you've gotta double check what you're doing first. What's working, what's not working, what you might not even have yet. But first you have to know who your ideal customer is, really know it, not what you think it is.

Yeah.

What your friends are telling you or your family. Look at the data, look at your customers. Maybe you can tell by the zip codes that they're, you know, entering or there any other demographic information, whether they're married, single, um, a certain age group. Look at what you can collect from them or, you know, send out surveys to your, your, your customers or your leads or, um, do a focus group. But Use more than just your intuition and your gut feeling. Once you figure that out, then you talk to them and you are where they are, not where you think you need to be and where everybody else is. Yeah. So if you have like working moms and they're really busy, it could be Instagram depending on the age group. Sure. You know, really lean into that. And then it could be, you know, what you do here. And it's like helping people collaborate, networking in an easy casual way, but still everybody's learning from each other, making friends. Sure. You know, just figure out who you wanna talk to, who you wanna sell to, and then go where they are and use their words, not yours, not industry speak, unless you have to. Like if you're medicine or something like that and you really have to show that you know what you're talking about.

Sure. Of course.

But talk to your, you know, your persona, your, and you, you know, your primary and secondary. And when I say that, it's like your ideal customer.

Yeah.

And the secondary ones are the ones who kind of bleed in, you know? They're there, but they're not your major customer base. But yeah, you don't wanna lose them either. So talk to them, be where they are, go to the events they are. Um, give them something and speak to their pain points. Once you know that really well, then it's like, hey, just have one message, figure out what that is. Yeah. And that's by doing your research, you know, and that, and that's what I help people with. Once you know that, even just go one platform, stick to one, the one that they're at the most. And then really be good at repurposing. So shoot a video or just voice note it to yourself, use an AI platform to transcribe it, and all of a sudden you have a blog for your website, you have nuggets you can pull for maybe a quarter's worth of content for social media, and you can— if you're really adventurous, you want to put that on YouTube or save it for YouTube one day or for something, great, do that. But Pick one to pick one lane. Yeah. Do it well and then see where it can go later. Repurpose it later, especially if it's like evergreen or generic information.

Yeah.

Um, save time. Yeah. Save time.

That's such good advice. And I feel like I need to take that advice. Like I am not doing that even in my business. And like we have this studio that we're in and I could easily sit down here and say some things even about real estate or do whatever and then chop it up. But I don't do that, Macy. I don't do any of that stuff.

But you, you have such a natural, you know, knack at this and you can do it. I mean, when you find, you know, you have to, but that's the other part. You have to have confidence. I mean, I struggle from that sometimes. It's like, what do I tell people next?

Yeah.

Leaning in and saying, okay, I'm just gonna do it. You know?

But that's the tough part. I feel like is getting on the camera, you know, and doing all of these things. But I'm sure you would agree, we can't avoid it now. We've gotta, we've really gotta get in there and do it.

I know.

It's not just that we don't want to.

I know. I used to be like faceless. Yes, this is great. Yeah. But now it's like they want to see you. And maybe sprinkle that in. But otherwise, if you have a friend or a family member who just shoots some B-roll with you while you're just having your day behind the scenes kind of thing, then just let that roll and have your voice go over it. You know, you, you, because of your background and what you do now, you speak so easily. Just record your voice. Yeah, maybe just the voice and forget the video part if you don't feel like it. And, you know, just run some, um, B-roll over.

Yeah.

And then cut 'em up into little nuggets and you probably got like at least 3 months worth of stuff for you. Wow.

Oh my gosh. I'm gonna have to try that. And our, our listeners will have to as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Please guys do it for, for your sanity, you know? Yeah, for sure.

I mean, so do you have any advice? Like say I'm just starting my business cuz maybe our listeners are, you know, they're just getting out there and maybe they really don't know, maybe they have no clue who their like target audience is. What do you recommend? They like look at competitors and see what's happening there? Like what, where do you start when you're really at like ground, ground zero?

Look at your competitors. Look at even their size. Are you, you, you know, are you worried like, oh, I'll never compete against the big boys and that's not what I wanna do, but locally these are who I compete against. It's just what do you want? Yeah. What is your big why? What's your end game? But then, um, and I have worksheets that I give out to clients, you know, and it, it helps 'em get down to the nitty gritty and they answer questions like, What do I offer? Who are the people that could really benefit from that? And if it seems so vague, and have someone look at it, at it if you want, or I can look at it. And, and it's, um, get down to your niche. You hear that a lot. What's your niche? Because if everyone's selling a burger, what's gonna make your burger better than everybody else's?

Yeah.

And then who can really enjoy that burger and appreciate your burger? Or some service you may have, like go down to the nitty-gritty if you have to, because if you see you haven't oversaturated market that you're gonna work with, try to drill it down as much as you can. Like I think I heard you speak one time about, um, you're in real estate and women were identifying with you better. Moms did.

Yeah.

Because you were just, you, that's how you, you may have inadvert— inadvertently fell into it, but that's how you branded and positioned yourself.

Yeah.

That's niching down a lot. Now if you wanted to go any further, you'd say this zip code or this area.

Sure.

But that's what I would tell, you know, beginners or people in that phase where they've started a, a year or two ago and it may not be working the way they thought it was. Sit there and really think, okay, really, who, what do I, what can I do? What do I have? Or can, what service do I provide? Maybe there's a one select group of people that could benefit from this and I understand their pain points. Like I have a client I'm working with and she's in financial advising and planning. If she really wanted to. And I asked her, I was like, we can't talk until you figure it out. Yeah. Niche it down. And so now it's right.

Cause everyone's in financial planning.

Exactly.

So she's just like, everyone's in real estate.

And then niche it down. Right.

Yeah.

And you figure it out. So she's like therapist.

Yeah.

She told me why and it made complete sense. And so all her messaging is going to go towards them. Whatever she puts there on social, whatever her print collateral is, the events that she might go to. If she does a podcast, who is she speaking to?

Oh, interesting. That to me sounds So specific.

Mm-hmm.

And I bet that probably scares people sometimes because people don't wanna like leave anybody out. They wanna cast that wide net where it's like, but that's where I can get all the business. Yes. But then it seems like that's not where we get business. Right.

And if you don't do it right and you don't niche down, then you're spending a lot of time and money and it's getting lost. Yeah. I mean, we all know now we're hearing about the algorithms and the, you know, now there's AI and AIO and LLMs and all these ways to search and find your answer. If you don't really get down to the nitty-gritty, you're just lost and everything you've spent is just wasted in a sense, you know? And I had one client— can be really expensive— not a client, but I worked for a company and their marketing, their messaging, everything that they did was just off. And so when we looked at the data, it was, hey, your, your consumer base comes from a certain zip code, a few zip codes here. They're actually a lot— making a lot less than you thought. And the people that you have in all your social media, your videos and your everything, they're people that they can't identify with. Mm-hmm. And you're showing them something so aspirationally off. It, it's like it was off. Everything was off. Yeah. They spent thousands and thousands of dollars before I came in.

Yeah.

And we just, it, it, look at your data. That's what I tell people. If you have it, look at it, you know? And if you don't yet, really sit there and go where, you know, I said niche it down. And that can help you figure out even down to the pictures you use in your ads or your posts or how you say things and where you're, you're showing up in, in person.

Yeah.

It will help you, um, save time and effort. Yeah.

I mean, we've gone through some of that even here. Uh, not necessarily that we were speaking to the wrong people, but like for example, we, we, we used to offer coworking and when I started this, I thought to myself, You guys, that's gonna be so fun. Mm-hmm. Like, I love it and I wanna work with everybody and I want everyone to come see our space and do all of that. But I didn't understand that, um, post-COVID people don't really, I mean, they're on Zooms and stuff. They can't be like out in like this sort of like bullpen type environment. Um, and so we really had to pivot. And at first, because I had spent money on it and because I had done all these things, I was like, oh my gosh, this is a failure. Like, this is horrible. Um, and then I just start, sort of had to like get wise and be like, you know what? The money's not coming in from this. Like, why am I gonna keep like beating this horse? You know what I mean? And so sometimes I imagine on even a larger scale, these companies spend a crazy amount of money.

Right.

And then it's probably hard for them to be like, but no, like we can still make this work cuz look, we did this. So you probably have to do some convincing then to be like, here's this information and shows no, this is not working.

It is. And you know, sometimes people stick to their guns and like, but I already spent all this money.

Yeah.

Okay. But you might start losing money.

Yeah.

As opposed to, you know, finding a different revenue stream.

That's right.

You pivoted fast.

Yeah. I had to learn right away cuz I was like, you know what? We better learn in a year better than 5 years. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. No, you're right. Yeah.

It was a little bit of a, what are they like a hit to the ego, you know? Cuz in my mind I was like, I have it all figured out. But no, I never have anything figured out.

You have a wonderful space and that's the greatest thing about it is like it's a good space, you know, that you were able to, pivot on and you can, yeah. You know, make it available for events and other things.

Right. So yeah, it ended up being okay, thankfully. But no, I could see how on these larger scales that could be rough.

Yeah. Yeah. I pity a lot of people in New York. Yeah. So I mean, you should use your space. I don't know if you do for like webinars, just rent it out and let people shoot their webinars here cuz maybe they're unhappy with their living room that they work out of. Yeah.

We don't do that, but maybe I should advertise that.

You should. You should. I actually know of a couple people who wanna do something similar.

Oh, well there you go. We'll have to chat after this. I know. Well, cool. So in the beginning then, that's a way for people to kind of narrow down their audience. But I imagine sometimes you get in with some people that are already sort of like mid-level, right? Mm-hmm. And so at that point, is it more about like figuring out where they should spend their money? Yeah.

If you notice that certain things from your performances, uh, performance metrics, okay, these topics were doing really well, then that's what you lean into and that's what you can even run ads to if you are able to provide something, whether it's a product or a service outside of San Antonio, then, you know, invest some money in that. Run some ads, figure out where those people are and where they're gonna see it.

You know?

Um, sometimes I'm telling people don't do Facebook ads cuz it really doesn't make sense for them.

Right.

You know? Um, and then I know people try LinkedIn and it's the same thing, but if most of your people aren't using LinkedIn, yeah, the way you're hoping they are, then you're, you know, just do it smartly, but then lean into the ads. It's the messaging. And if you have, you know, someone who can work with you in, in copywriting, in content, or even you have a great brand strategist, you know, they can help you figure out how to word it just right. So it's good on the— it's, it's right and it captures attention on the right platforms. But that's also strategy. You've gotta figure all that out. You know, I like getting a big poster board.

Yeah.

Like just drawing little circles everywhere and trying to figure this out, um, for them. Um, yeah, if they're— if they've— they have a little more experience and they've been around for a bit, I'd say go find the ones that were performing well and then lean into a paid strategy. Yeah, you don't have to invest a lot because your organic's still lifting you along. And then collaborations are free because you can tap into someone that, um, is in, in an industry that's adjacent, so you can use each other for leads. You know, your, your audience bases could be right for each other. Collaborate.

It's free.

And then you're opening yourself up to a, a new set of eyeballs and ears.

Yeah.

Um, without having to invest too, too much.

People sometimes, I'm so curious about collaboration. So people sometimes want to collaborate with us.

Mm-hmm.

And that's cool. You know?

Yeah.

And I used to be the kind of person that was like, yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. But then I don't think I was ever really. Thinking about like if it was adjacent to it, like, is this gonna be helpful to us? I feel like I'm not always great at identifying that. And maybe that's something that somebody like you can help your clients with. It's hard, you know, once you start getting a certain amount of audience, I guess, or in our case, it's not necessarily, it was that amount of audience, it was more that how specific it was. Like some businesses want to talk to moms here in San Antonio because their businesses need that. Um, and. But then I felt like on the other side of that, maybe our business wasn't always needing that audience.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Understood.

And so it was a little bit hard. It's a little bit hard for me to decipher. How do you sort of guide your clients, um, to make these kind of decisions, like on who to collaborate with?

Um, another part is to look at principles.

Yeah.

Values. If, because you don't want the ick factor either.

Right.

If you're trying to like start weighing out, you know, pros and cons, but it could be even just your time. Your, you know, time is so valuable and precious. And if it feels like, look, they're asking a lot and it's just not going to be more bene— it's not gonna be as beneficial for me.

Yeah.

Then don't do it. You know? Um, it may be they're, they're low, you have their low-hanging fruit, but they don't really provide that for you. It's easy. It's okay to say no.

Yeah.

Or maybe there's something that they can provide in terms of, who knows, something in— you might have an event in the future or they can just be a guest and speak at one of your, networking events. Sure. Something you, you can work it out, finagle it. And, um, it, because you just never know. Sometimes I think there are diamonds in the rough.

Yeah.

Totally. But it's really gonna be down to time too. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. It's hard. I know. I mean, it's something that's new to us and I just like, in the beginning I was just being like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then my husband was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I don't know. I'm not sure, but it seems fun.

You never know. You never know.

Yeah. So I mean, I think you gotta probably kind kind of look at it, but that's where hiring somebody like you would be helpful, I imagine. Yeah.

Um, and you know what, there was one other thing I want to talk to you about, and you know, your listeners, is, um, is the growing, the, the ever-changing world of search.

Yeah.

Because, okay, let's say you're like— and I, I've had, I've run into, you know, some clients who just, they're unsure of collaborating, and I understand that, you know, it's like the whole a one-for-one ask.

Yeah.

And, or sometimes they felt like it was unfair for them and the other group was asking for more. So if that's not your jam, then, you know, lean in more into your search. And as this is where the world is going, you know, I heard a statistic recently and it's 24% of the people doing search now is doing it through ChatGPT. Not Google. Yeah. You know, and not Facebook or Instagram. It is ChatGPT and similar ones like Claude and, um, Perplexity and things like that, or Gemini. Um, make sure now more than ever your website is being optimized for not just SEO, but then there's the GEO and the AIOs and all these other ways of search. And for your LLMs, because what it's doing is—

I'm gonna look at you like I understand all of these acronyms and I'm gonna nod my head like this, but I don't.

So learning language models.

Yeah.

They're like the chat of the world. But you see how you're— now you— I'm sure you're going, I need a recipe, or I need a plan, or what is this? That's— you're doing it, and there it's learning not just from you but from others. So it's predictive, and it's going to give you answers. So why not put out everything that you have now in terms of training those bots to provide Erika Radis Realtor depending on it, or Working Moms of San Antonio as an answer Yeah. So use the time when you can and make sure your, um, your website speaks to all those. And a good way to do is to find someone who knows, is a good search specialist or someone with marketing background. And also chat can get you there, like those AI, um, models like ChatGPT and Gemini. They can kind of get you there. It's just what kind of answer, what kind of questions you ask it. Yeah. So you can say, well, help me optimize my website for Yeah. You know, and then it can kind of cue you in, but you have to give it good information in order for it to give you something better out.

Right, right.

And then it's the same when you start posting on social media. If that's— you have to start training your account and the bots to consider you as an authority, to consider you as an answer in these search engines of all ways.

I never even thought of that, but yeah.

So instead of just reposting a post, Give it some thought and give it where it's going to use those keywords. It may, might even say San Antonio because you want to be found in San Antonio. You're already training these, these bots, these algorithms to recognize you. And there's so many tools and tips and tactics to even get you to the point. It's just, it's— I'm thinking about putting a checklist together and be like, ask your GPTs to do this.

Yeah.

You know, when you write a post, write it smartly because like they said in Instagram, hashtags don't matter anymore, but the keywords in your captions do. Mm-hmm. And that's how they're gonna find you. Cuz then Google is also listen, um, looking into that and it might sit, you know, might put your post or your account in as an answer that someone's searching.

So when you're having, cuz I use ChatGPT every single day of my life. Yeah. Um, one day it was down like for a brief amount of time and I was like, I guess I'm not working. Like, that's it.

So I've done that and then I'm like, what else is out there? That's how I found Perplexity. Yeah.

So I was like, mm, not today, Erika. Yeah. But, um, so when you're doing these things, when you're having it, cuz I have it write captions and do different things. And of course then I try to edit it a little bit. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, to make it seem like a human woman. Um, but when you're doing that, it would be a good idea to say like, but make this really keyword rich for X or whatever. Yeah.

Who are you trying to talk to?

Yeah.

Who are you trying to reach right now? If you said this one post is mainly for people who might feel overwhelmed by time. You know, they run out of time all the time. They feel overwhelmed and burdened. I want those people. Maybe it's women. Get down to the nitty-gritty again. I want women 40+ or moms in the San Antonio area who feel overwhelmed and this and this and this kind of post can help these kind of people. Like you're talking to a pain point. Yeah. Or a great story behind, you know, something about you or the business and it will help Chat figure out how to give you that first or second draft.

Yeah.

That then you can fix. And, um, just recently at one of your events, I was talking to some moms and someone said, well, I saw a post. Um, and then recently I saw another post in a diff— by another person in a different industry. It was the same exact post.

Stop. Really? Yes. I've never witnessed that.

And I started seeing it too. Really? And you're like, oh, one, the emojis are a dead giveaway.

Yeah. But then it was, she was like, it's the same exact one. Wow.

They— because it is, it's just learning and spitting, spitting things out, what it thinks that, that person in that industry wants. Yes. So it's spitting out the same answer to so many people.

Yeah.

So don't— I was like, don't forget to make it more you, you know, read it over and add in your own kind of words. But yeah, she noticed it.

How wild. I've never, I've never seen quite that, although I will say, um, You know, there are many realtors and there, you know, there are even other networking groups and things of that nature where I've seen things and I'm like, why are you using what I'm saying? Like, I'm like, are you watching me? Like, why are you? But no, it's not. It's probably this, you know what I mean?

It's just gotten so used to saying, yeah, this is what people like to hear.

Yeah.

Let me just give it out to as many people.

Yeah.

You know, because it's just retaining information and spitting it back out. And if no, any, no one says, ew, I don't like that. Yeah. It's not gonna know that. We can't do that.

Oh, how, how crazy. What a world we live in. But I will say, I mean, I love the AI. There's so many people that are like, no, don't use AI. And I get it. Like, to be honest with you, like some of this stuff that's like about like the carbon footprint of it and all, like that's way up here on me and I don't know what's happening and I'm not gonna pretend to know what's happening.

Yeah.

But, um, I need it for work and so I'm gonna keep using it. Oh, I know. And I mean, I was listening to someone, can you imagine if we had to write every single email? No. By hand still, I couldn't get through all these emails.

Erika, I wouldn't have even signed up for this podcast. I would've been like, I don't know what to write. Yeah.

Yeah.

So no, I get it and I get it. It's like, um, we see it everywhere and I was listening to a podcast today and it was about even though you say you don't wanna use AI, you are using it. It's like giving you the weather.

Mm-hmm.

You're looking at something, you're pulling up something and the app's telling you something.

Yeah.

You know, so we are using it.

Yeah.

So lean in, but do it right. Do it.

Responsibly.

Yeah. And then just make sure you have your own voice because, yeah, you don't want to sound like everybody else.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, I think the more and more everybody starts using it, it's just— it's going to get muddy.

Yeah.

And I think people are now saying that they're a little less trustful with what they read because they know everybody's using it.

Or most people are using it. I would say that's probably true.

And so that's why you have to really push authenticity right now. Mm-hmm.

That's good advice.

Push, push you, push your stories, push who you can help, and then tell them about you. Totally. And occasionally show your face. Yeah.

It's okay to make it weird, right? If you're weird, like that's cool.

At least you're a human. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Um, I feel like I was just gonna ask you something and now I lost my train of thought. Oh, sorry. What was it? No, it's me. It's my brain. It's my, I like to call it mom brain even though my youngest child is 8.

So, you know, it just doesn't, it just doesn't go away.

Um, I think I was going to ask you, uh, if, if you were going to give advice, um, to mom, like what do you feel like the biggest misconception that moms in business right now, or even women in business feel that they have to be doing in marketing?

Look at others maybe for ideas, but don't feel bad that you can't keep up. You know, maybe someone's just a little bit better at content batching. That's why you see so many posts by them. Don't make that, don't let that intimidate you because perfectionist paralysis is, or something like that.

Yeah.

So it's okay.

Okay.

I mean, I don't post every day. I can't. And don't let that intimidate you when you see others who can.

Mm-hmm.

You know, if you need to and you still think like, oh, I have to do this, I have to be present on social. Then set aside a day, maybe two, a weekend, you know, have the husband take the kids away, you know, and just word vomit into voice notes. From there, it'll make it easier because you can pull— let AI help you make transcripts and blogs out of that. And then you can content batch, whether it's you just typing and fixing it in your own voice or recording it on camera on your phone. Find— there are tools out there and people to lean on.

Yeah.

Use that. Use that so it's not so overwhelming because it can be. And I know that seeing people online all the time can be overwhelming and make you feel like you're not good enough, but you have something to say. And once you know what that is and who you're going to help, just turn that off and sit aside for a couple of days and just churn that, you know, churn it out. In time you will see what's performing better. And don't look at likes and followers. That's nothing anymore. Look at where people are talking back to you. Like, oh wow, this really like made sense. Or thanks for helping me. Then you know that those are the ones that you just need to do more of. Hmm.

Yeah.

Stop trying to think of different ideas and things to talk about. Don't have to chase every trend. Just lean into what you're good at and what was helping people. And it'll become easier and easier and easier for you. And then after a while you've banked a lot of content. All you have to do is change the caption. You don't have to redesign something. You don't have to reshoot anything. It's easier. It'll be easier and it'll be okay.

Yeah, that's great advice. Oh my gosh, I feel like I need to do that now.

Just relax a little bit and just take that weekend.

You know, I mean, I, I really think, and I can't speak to every industry, but I can speak to what I know. Um, at least in terms of real estate and social media, I get very little business from, from social media. Mm-hmm. I always like to think about, now for working moms, we get a lot of traction, uh, because I think it's just, you know, we're saying who we're for. We're working moms here in San Antonio. Yeah. It's very easy, um, that part of it. But for real estate, for me, I've always thought of it as like my Instagram is like almost like a storefront, like a window. Right.

Mm-hmm.

And so if I keep changing stuff, people know I'm still doing it. Right. Mm-hmm. And so that doesn't have to be every day, but like here, you know, periodically it's like, oh yeah, there I am. I'm still in business, you know, versus I'm not gonna get usually a phone call like, hey, I saw you on Instagram, you know?

Right.

My business is more word of mouth and referrals and that kind of stuff. Um, and networking. But so maybe some of our listeners are the same way. As long as you're just like sort of present a little bit, maybe that takes some of the pressure off where you don't have to be posting 43 times a day. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, maybe that's not even the way you're getting business, you know?

And that's, that's marketing strategy right there. Don't only think social media is end all be all. And if you don't have a great website or have it yet, there's still the networking or there's still referrals. That's all marketing, you know? Um, lean into something. Maybe it's just a digital business card that people scan to a QR code and it goes to a Google form. There's so many ways to just make it a little bit easier. And don't, you don't have to post every day nowadays with the way it is. It's like even if you're posting every day and it's nothing anyone's interested in, yeah, no one saw it.

Right.

So you just spent all that time and effort. In time, like with you, just do it every once in a while. It's the same. You find out what's working and it's just a, hey, I'm here. It's almost like a different picture that you take. Yeah.

Still here in San Antonio 30 years later.

Hello.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, well, before we finish up, I really quickly wanna touch on the email marketing side of things. Mm-hmm. Because that thing is my favorite.

I love that. That's great.

Now there was a time where I feel like email marketing was like on the outs. And now I feel like it's totally coming back. Tell me what your perspective is from being a marketing strategist.

I love it. Yeah, I love it. Um, short though, don't go too long. Yours are good. Like I get yours and I read it and I even just skimming the first couple of paragraphs. I'm like, okay, I get it.

Yeah.

Cool, cool. If I need anything more, I scroll down to the bit. Sure. And you keep a good format. So I just know I can find the events at the bottom.

Right.

This is what I need to do. That's where they are. Yeah. So I love it. And as we've seen in the past, like if TikTok goes away, Everything went away for you if you like really leaned in there. If you spent all this time on Facebook or, um, Instagram, this happened once, um, and you get hacked, all that equity's gone if you can't get it back.

That's scary.

So lean into your email marketing. It is yours. It is yours alone. You don't have to share it with anyone.

Yeah.

And then just do it right. Um, you know, a good cadence, um, short, good messaging, like what you do. You're fine. I'm a big fan of email marketing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good. Me too. I like it. I just know so many of these people that like they have all these, they have like crazy big lists and they don't send anything to them. And I'm like, you probably should though. Um, and I just, like you said, like anything else could be taken away. At least you own that. Mm-hmm. I even know people, and I'm sure every industry is different, but I even know people that have used their com— like through real estate have used the, like the brokerage's CRM. And they, you, they, you put your own leads in there, your own contacts. And if you change, like that's theirs now, you don't get that anymore. Yeah. It terrifies me. Oh my gosh. And so I always keep like my own little stuff. I, I mean, I pay for it myself. I have my own deal. And so it's like, nope, you don't, this does not belong to you. My contacts and my connections don't belong to you. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And, and the fun thing is if you like to nerd out on like different things, it's could, you could even segment them. Yeah. Depending on what you've collected from them, then you might know I'm gonna only send this kind of email to these people. Or, you know, like business owners, if you're listening.

Yeah.

If you have your own email marketing list and you just know from your customers that some of these people haven't come back in a while, how do you win them back? You just segment them out and send them their own little messages.

Yeah.

And you can even just really get down into that too. And, um, no, it's good because those, that's yours. Yeah. That's your, you know, those are your contacts, your people. And you don't have to lose it to anyone else.

Totally. How do you feel about a freebie?

Love freebies. Oh, I do too. My inbox is full of them.

Me too. I, you guys, I give my email address to everybody. It doesn't take much more than a 10% off for me. No.

Download this PDF for this.

And I don't even have like, some people have like secret, like separate emails for like all that junk. Nope. It just goes right to my regular old email and I just deal with it every day.

I hate you. Well, thank you. One's a Bath and Body Works kind and one's like the PDFs for business kind. And then there's me. But it is, I love 'em. I, um, I'm offering one as well.

Yay.

And that, um, one is, if anyone's interested, it's the persona checklist. If you really wanna rethink it or you're at that point where you have to niche down, I can send out a PDF. I don't know, I can give it to you and you figure out how to do that. Yeah.

We can put it in the show notes. Yeah.

And then you can just, um, they can, it can, it's like a worksheet and you go through it. So it's Several questions, but it makes you really think about what you're doing and who you're serving and what you're offering if you're trying to figure out if you need to niche down or not.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. Yes, we will put it in the show notes. Mm-hmm. Um, for sure. Well, um, as we wrap up, I usually like to ask our guests if they will just share, uh, with our listeners how they can get ahold of you for your marketing services.

Oh, sure. Um, I'm on LinkedIn under my name, Macy Bove, uh, theseasonedstrategist.com, and then Facebook and Instagram, uh, The Seasoned Strategist.

Perfect. We will put that in the show notes as well. And I love that Seasoned Strategist. I love how you're working that in there.

Very— I start cooking and talking, I'll be like, come over, you're my first guest.

Oh my gosh, I will. I would love that. Um, and thank you so much for being on. I feel like it was super informative.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Perfect.

And then I'll really quickly thank our listeners for tuning into this week's episode, and we will catch you guys next time. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We hope you loved today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic suggestion or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.