88. Marketing Tactic Overwhelm: How to master it

00:00:00
Welcome back. This is the three part series. This is second part of the three part series of the Deirdre is Creatively Tapped out series. I just came up with that. If you missed last episode, definitely go back and listen to it because that will provide you some context about where that name came from.

00:00:20
But in short, I was like, I am just not really feeling it creatively, and we're just going to hop on the mic and talk it out. That's pretty much I think that's a good premise. Yeah. And I personally love the name of the series, and I could not tell it was made up on the spot at all. No, not at all.

00:00:39
There was a lot of thought branding. We did a lot of customer surveys, all of the things on that. Yeah. Last week we spoke about strategy overwhelm. And today I want to talk about tactic overwhelm because we actually ended last episode on a bit of a note.

00:00:53
And I was like, oh, I want to go a bit deeper into this. So let's talk about, first of all, what is a tactic, because obviously last week we defined strategy, what it means to us and how we view it, which involves tactics as well. But to me, a tactic is really a part of that strategy. And that's not to say and again, I want to reiterate that a tactic in and of itself also still has a strategy, of course, but in and of itself, it is not a strategy. I agree with that.

00:01:25
So definitely in the frame of a strategy being a plan that carefully lays out the why, the how and when of something, in my mind, how I think about tactics are the collections of actions around the how and with a bit of the when, obviously, as well, which is where the strategy for the tactic comes in. But it's really all of the laundry list of things that can live under the how. Yes. Okay, awesome. So this is actually really important because I know that we've been gosh, we struggle with this so much.

00:01:56
I don't know what you're talking literally, I think it's every second day, I'm like, we've got to be on YouTube. We've got to do it. Everyone's on there. Everyone say, we've got to be on there. She does.

00:02:11
Yeah. I attest to this, like, literally in that voice as well. Exactly. And you pop out of the room and you say that exactly. In a very dramatic Lord Farquad kind of approach.

00:02:22
Yeah. Let's just say that we battle with this day in and day out. But I'm going to say that I'm a bit buoyed because I feel like we've grown through the journey and we've gotten a lot better at this. Yes. And the reason why this is so important, like, really getting this tactic overwhelm part down is so important is because everything I fundamentally believe this, that everyone's going to be so sick of me saying this, but the only way to success is focus.

00:02:53
I fundamentally believe that I didn't before. Before I was like, I've got entrepreneurship ADHD and that's a thing. And entrepreneurs can still be successful doing that, but you kind of have to earn the right, I found out, to have entrepreneurship ADHD. Oh, that's so interesting. We'll have to have another episode.

00:03:12
I love that. Yeah, like, people who have entrepreneurship ADHD and are successful is because they've already found success, I believe, nice. Whereas people who haven't yet found success and have entrepreneurship ADHD lean on that as an excuse to why they don't want to do the hard thing of focusing. Nice. It's like an avoidance mechanism.

00:03:36
100%. Wow, that's powerful. And I say that with no judgment because that is 100% me. I believe you're talking about yourself. I'm definitely talking about myself here.

00:03:47
But I'm like the more that I've really leaned into this and pulled this apart and been really honest with myself about this, oh my gosh. The more that I have honestly felt freer, which is like, it's so good, it's so good. And so I want to give an example of because in the last episode, I think I brought up Instagram. And then you added to that around almost like making the decision as to what it is, almost like which tactic it is that you're going to focus on. And there are a ton of resources out there.

00:04:24
And the difficult thing is and the reason why I think there's so many shoulds in our cupboard, just to extend on the analogy that we metaphor you had last week, is because we have so many voices in our heads. Like so many. And I get it, I am one right now. If you're listening to this, I am one voice, one of those voices in your head. And I'm not going to apologize for that.

00:04:53
But you know what, feel free to turn me off. If I am not serving you, feel free to turn me off because that's what I've had to do. I've had to turn a lot of the voices off. And that's because I know that I just need to focus. And if I'm not focusing, then I'm not actually setting I'm not doing anyone a favor.

00:05:12
I'm not doing myself a favor. I'm not doing my business a favor. I'm not doing my co founders a favor. I'm definitely not doing my audience a favor. So I need to be able to turn the voices off and focus.

00:05:22
And one of those things that what we're being really, I guess, disciplined as possible around this is really deciding and going in on, for example, the marketing channels that we're going to be on and each of those I view as a tactic. Right. And we mentioned this, so in the last episode, we were like I said, as an example, instagram is a tactic. It's in a drawer. And I'm like, I'm going to shelve that draw.

00:05:44
I'm going to shelve that should right? Because obviously people are going to be like, of course you should be on Instagram. There's 2 billion people, whatever the stat is to be on there and everyone's on there, and you're missing out if you're not implementing reels and blah, blah. And so I'm like, for a long time, I was like, oh my gosh, we need to be on Instagram. We should be on Instagram.

00:06:03
But there's the voices that we listen to that tell us that we should be doing things. And the reason why I bring that up is because how it can help us is if we can use this moment to commit to the one or two voices that we're going to listen to, then that will help us actually then decide what tactics to focus on, right? So for me, if the person that I was going to go all in on was like, you have to be on Instagram, then there's a reason why I've chosen that person to be the one that I'm going to commit to, then of course I would be on Instagram. Right? That's just what follows another resource that you can have.

00:06:41
So one that we're actually doing, what we're actually in the middle of is our state of podcast marketing report for the coming year, where we surveyed a whole host of entrepreneurs who podcast and what it is that they what channels or what tactics, I guess they're using, things like that. And it's all by, I guess, the main marker of success, which is revenue. So it's based on what a high income earning podcast is doing versus lower income earning podcasters. And we can definitely lean on data as well to tell us what it is that we should be focusing on. But then the other thing that we can just use and there's no shade in this, is just like, fundamentally, what do you like?

00:07:21
And that's where the conversation with you and this is kind of the thread I wanted to pull on from last week's episode where you mentioned. Why is it that we decided to not be focusing on Instagram as a channel, as a tactic, is because I personally don't like being on there. Like, literally, I'll open the app, I don't know, once a week, maybe twice a week. And I'm surprised when I have DMs on this. Oh, I really should yeah, I really should attend to those.

00:07:48
And you mentioned that it's also a channel that our audience isn't on. And this is the particular thing that I wanted to pull on because I don't know if that's an accurate statement, because I would say that our audience is on Instagram, but what are they on Instagram for? Exactly. And this was a conversation that we have had between the two of us when we made the decision to not necessarily invest in Instagram is because it's like, yeah, no, our audience is on Instagram. We see them, but what we see them doing is using it as a tactic to grow their business.

00:08:23
They're not using it as a pleasurable I don't know if anyone finds social media pleasurable, but as a means to discover the things themselves, which means to learn for their business. Yeah, exactly. To grow their business as opposed to potentially consume other people's businesses by way, as it relates to their business. What am I saying? So an example would be for someone like myself, I'm on Instagram for cooking recipes.

00:08:50
I love it for that. But I'm not there for entrepreneurial advice, largely speaking. So I think that's the distinction, to your point, all of those statistics about how many people use Instagram absolutely true. And all the other platforms. But having that to your point, the distinction around what are they on there for very actively is such a no brainer when you think about it that way.

00:09:12
But we skip a lot of that because again, we go, yeah, there is a lot of people on there, right. It's great for visibility. We need to be on there, obviously. Yes, but it's not that. Yes.

00:09:20
So we do have to go deeper. And this is the invitation for you to go deeper as well in terms of trying to figure out what those tactics are that's going to work for you. Because a lot of us do. We stop at that surface level of there are a ton of people out there and my audience is on there because, look, they have accounts and they're posting, and it's true they are on there, but are they on there for the purpose that you're wanting them to be on there for? And by the way, we are using Instagram as an example.

00:09:48
That might not be the case. The same for your audience and for your purpose. Okay? So do not listen. Do not hear this and think that we're saying don't be on Instagram.

00:09:56
Yeah. If you're creating cooking videos and I am your ideal person, be on Instagram, reach out to yeah, I'll buy all of your things. I'll sign up to everything you have. Okay. So that's like the first thing I want to talk about, which is almost like prioritizing a strategic pillar is actually what I think that we need to start with and oh, okay.

00:10:15
What do I mean when I say prioritize a strategic pillar? Yeah. What do I mean? Let me think about me. You're not going to answer it.

00:10:24
Got it. Okay. In my mind, I'm like, I always go back to my own overarching strategy, which, if you've heard me talk about the traffic pyramid enough, and if you haven't, go back to an episode that I've done. We'll link it in the show notes on the traffic pyramid. But to me, I'm like, okay, so that's a strategy.

00:10:44
And then the traffic pyramid has four tiers, and to me, each of those tiers is actually a strategic pillar in and of itself. Do we want to be focusing on just passive organic marketing, active organic marketing? Is it leveraging other people's audiences? Is it paid ads? Right?

00:10:59
And then so we want to prioritize one of those strategic pillars at any one time. Knowing again, if you go back to last week's episode and theme, knowing that we're going to implement all of that, but not all at the one time because it's actually going to be impossible and sorry, I shouldn't say impossible, it is possible, but to the detriment of your business, your health, your well being, maybe your relationships. I mean, how important are those things? Really? Approach with caution.

00:11:33
Yes. And by the way, again, everything that we talk about, we've done before. We've done the thing where we've gone all in on trying to implement everything on the traffic pyramid. And let's just say it has not gone well. No health, what was it?

00:11:51
Sanity, health? Relationship issues burned to the ground. It has not gone well. And I know a lot of us learn by having to have gone through it and feeling the pain. So I totally get that.

00:12:01
So if you need to go feel the pain, fine, go feel the pain of trying to do it all. But if some of us are we want to just listen to if I'm one of the voices, which I would be so grateful and thrilled if I am one of your voices, then know that we need to prioritize max two, if not just one, and then within that pillar, we then need to prioritize a tactic. Because each of the pillars, I can tell you, every single strategic pillar, no matter if it's marketing or not, has so many tactics that you can implement under there. Yes. So many.

00:12:42
Let's talk through some of these. Yeah. So I just want to say I'm glad you brought the strategic pillar thing up because now that helps me because I think that's the thing, the strategy like a traffic pyramid is there's so much in there. Yes. But then having that extra layer before the tactics is super helpful.

00:12:57
Yeah. Okay, great. Nice. Yeah, cool. We're all learning.

00:13:00
We are learning. We're learning on the fly. Okay, so you got one or two and then the tactics under each you're saying under each strategic pillar, choose one. Well, let's talk about this. Okay.

00:13:11
Because it depends on I mean, everything depends. Even when I say prioritize the strategic pillar, it also depends on things like how big your team is, how much resources you have, how involved your business is. Exactly. For example, if we were all here minting the heck out of it and we're like, yeah, we're just going to outsource to an Ads agency there. And you can do that, right?

00:13:36
Yeah. Knowing that you still need the resources in your team to be managing that. Because again, if you're a solopreneur or you have a very small team like we do, it is still very, I say impossible. It's not impossible, but it's, like, incredibly difficult. And anyway, it's not a good thing to still try to do all of it, because even when we think that we outsource, that's still something else we're putting on our plate.

00:14:07
Right? And Bona, you know this firsthand. Oh, yeah. Something I've been that has been very, very top of mind, for sure, some of you do. We sent an email out a few weeks ago.

00:14:20
I lost track of time talking about how we had to cut from our team. We made a really, really difficult decision. It was not a fun time for us, and a big part of that decision was because of this pain that we were going through, where, again, in my mind, I go back to because, gosh, I'm going all over the place, but bear with me, okay? This will all come together, hopefully. Fingers crossed.

00:14:50
I mentioned last episode that I listened to ten XCS and then two X. Like, I'm on my fourth time. One of the strategies is who, not how, that they talk about. Right? Find your who's.

00:15:04
Don't try to figure out the how. And so I was like, all right, we're going all in. We're going all in. We're going to get all the who's. And so we built our team up without realizing that it doesn't really work that way.

00:15:17
Just because you get a who does not mean that you actually outsource thinking and the management and everything as like and I don't think that Dan Sullivan and Ben Harding meant it in that way. Did I say Dan Sullivan? It's dan Sullivan meant it in that way, but that's how at that time, I had heard it. Yes. Okay.

00:15:39
So I don't want to blame it on the strategy. I don't want to blame it on because a lot of it is also how we as individuals also implement it. So we've been through the pain of we built our team out. We were like, yes, okay, they're going to own this, and they're going to own that. And Bona does a lot of the management of looking after these people, and it was not fun.

00:15:59
Let's just say it was not fun. It was adding more to your plate, actually, than before we hired these people. And that's why I say that, to come back to prioritizing the tactics. And it depends. Everything depends when you have a small team, and especially if it's just you have to be so disciplined around how many things you put on your plate.

00:16:19
Right? One strategic pillar, one tactic. For us, we have a little bit like, we have small teams, but we have three of us co founders. So it's like we could probably do two strategic pillars. Yes.

00:16:34
And within that, we could probably do two to three tactics because we can handle that with ourselves. Now, even if we had a small team and we had so much money at our disposed, so much resources, then yeah, maybe. And then we looked to outsource and we truly outsource to experts, like people that we trust to know their Ish and be able to implement without us having to manage or oversee things. Right. That's why I say the number depends on your situation.

00:17:05
Yes. But yeah, that's kind of to round back to what you were saying around oh, is it one strategic pill and one tactic? It depends. It depends, yeah. Again, we can't say for us, okay, and it doesn't sound great to say this, but in the traffic pyramid, I would say we do three of the pillars, but we don't go all in on them.

00:17:31
And what do I say mean by that? I mean that we don't implement all of the tactics that we could under each of them. And that was actually a decision that we made. Yes. And again, let me give you an example.

00:17:43
Think about this as a bit of a matrix, and I'll use an example of even passive organic marketing. And this is where a lot of the channels comes in. This is where our decision about, okay, what channels do we want to be on? Comes into it. Right.

00:17:58
Even in that one tier, there's like how many channels? Like 1520? I don't know, like a lot. Crazy right there's. Everything from podcast is a channel.

00:18:06
YouTube blog, all the social media, all the social media platforms. Email is a channel, everything is a channel. And we made a decision to be like, no, we're going to only be on a handful. Literally max five. I'm like, I just lifted my hand up when I said handful.

00:18:24
I was like, yeah, actually that's right, it is five. That's poetic. Right? And then we're going to be like, okay. And then active organic marketing.

00:18:33
Even in that there are so many tactics that we could be leveraging. And that's the reason why as well, that we made a decision to only be on a handful of channels is because then we can really start to go a lot deeper in the tier two tactics, and then even in leveraging other people's audiences. Oh, my gosh. Endless amount of tactics. Like I could be guesting on podcasts, I could be doing virtual summits, I could be doing relationship marketing in different there's so many different ways that you can be doing that.

00:19:02
It's endless, literally endless. And so for us, it was like, okay, let's just focus on one or two tactics that we can consistently commit to. Yes. And that's what we've done. And so that is also, I should say, when I say prioritize the strategic pillar, I want us to be able to move with flexibility.

00:19:23
So I'm giving you the permission to but it's also going back to last week when you know what that whole strategy is like when you have all of the component drawers in the cupboard. That's when you can be flexible. And I think there's different levers you can pull, too, as you were just talking about the third tier, which is leveraging other people's audiences. The when is a big pillar, too, right? Because Kelly Mosser, who's going to be speaking at Capshovians Live, talks about this podcast tour.

00:19:50
And you can do it weekly. Not weekly. I'm sure you could do it quarterly. You could do it monthly. There's different ways you can flex in terms of time as well.

00:19:57
And virtual summits, you can just be like, we just do the one a year. You could do multiple. But it's I think the when is a really powerful lever. Again, once you have the strategy and you know how these different tactics work, you can make that decision and feel more empowered with that. Too.

00:20:11
Yeah, totally. And that all flexes in, because for us, we do a virtual summit a year. But like, for example, even Alex Sanfilippo, he has his pod talks. That's kind of a virtual summit when you think about it. And he does a quarterly model.

00:20:24
Yeah, he does that quarterly. And he's decided to really focus more on that than, for example, something else that we might focus on more. So it is different, but you can see how everything still falls under this one underlying strategy, which we spoke about last week, how to cut through strategic overwhelm. And then now we're going, okay, once you shelve those, shoulds, you do the same thing on the tactic side, right? Like shelve those shoulds as well, because only what's going to work for you, no one else is going to know that, only you.

00:20:57
And it's okay for you to just lean into what it is that you enjoy doing and what it is that is going to get results for you and your business. Okay, so we've spoken about prioritizing a strategic pillar. We've talked about prioritizing a tactic. I do want to talk about how to understand when and where those things do fit in. And I think you were starting to talk about you were going into this, because, again, each tactic has a strategy which in and of itself can get overwhelming.

00:21:26
Yes. And so let's talk about virtual summits. And actually, Jenny, she's going to be talking she's going to be at Capshovians Live as well, talking about this very topic about virtual summits. That's her thing. I'm so excited to learn from her.

00:21:37
She's going to be amazing. And so if we use that as an example for me, I follow a particular strategy for our virtual summits. Yes, Alex follows a particular strategy for his virtual summits. And you can see same tactic, virtual summits, different strategies. So this is what we mean.

00:21:56
Each tactic has a strategy, and they could be different, or they could be the same. It really depends, again, on maybe where you learned it from, who you learned it from, et cetera. So knowing, first of all, that each tactic has a strategy is important because this is how you then understand and start to map out yourself as well when and where things fit. Yes. And so for us, it was like, okay, well, I mean, we could probably do a quarterly virtual summon if we wanted to, but because of the particular strategy that we followed, it just doesn't make sense.

00:22:26
So we're just going to keep it annual, and then we're going to do other things in the other time. We're going to lean on different levers at that time. Yes. So basically, all of that to say this episode is like a do whatever you want, pick your adventure. But I do think there's certain principles, as you were just saying that, and even you talking me through strategic pillars with the traffic pyramid is absolutely, you do have to have the self knowledge to go, okay, this is going to work for me.

00:22:56
The virtual summit example is really good. But I think those marketing principles and I know you're going to go into this a lot more detail at Capshovian's Live, but almost like, why is the pyramid set up in that structure? Right. What role does passive organic marketing play in your business? In order to make leveraging other people's audiences really powerful, which one should you do first and at what intensity?

00:23:19
And some things have to be done in parallel. Absolutely. I think that's the kicker. Yes. And that's what we spend too much time trying to work out for ourselves when people have already worked it out.

00:23:29
And that's not to say that you blindly do what someone else tells you, but those core principles are what you can again, you can just be like, okay, this works. Now, in the same way, I'm sure the food pyramid is obviously no longer relevant, but there's a general thing around what healthy eating looks like. You just obviously opt out the things that suit your lifestyle, suit your allergies, and things like that. Similarly, here there are those principles with the scale sandwich and the traffic pyramid that are principles that you just adhere to because that's taken care of. You taken care of for you, and then that's where you go, okay, given my preferences, where my audience is for the things that I'm putting out in a consuming point of view, what are my priorities around leveraging other people's audiences?

00:24:13
Do I want to run ads? All those decisions become much easier. Yes. I like that. I think I intuitively thought that, but we never actually put words to that, which is awesome.

00:24:26
Yeah. I think that sequence is that's vital. Yeah. And so I guess just to close this off, really what I want to because I was a little bit facetious when I was like, just do what you want. It's going to do what you want.

00:24:37
But the thing that the important part of doing what you want is when you make the decision, you stick with it. So you can make the decision to do whatever the heck you want, but then you got to stick with it because this is where we and again, gosh, we've fallen down on this a lot, where you go like, this is a great idea. Yeah. Everyone's telling us we should do this and we're going to do it. And again, not really realizing maybe at the time that it wasn't really something that we had a passion for or that we really liked doing.

00:25:14
We didn't really find it enjoyable, and so it was really easy to just give it up, and that's okay. I know I'm being really stick with it. But some of us, sometimes we do have to go through the journey, and we just have to try it, and we have to realize that actually, this is not for us. We have to put our hand on the hot kettle and get burnt and realize, okay, let's not do that. So I get that, but I think we all know if we be really honest with ourselves, I think a lot of us know when it is that we're trying, like when we're doing the squirrel thing and when we're doing it for when we're changing our minds, quote, unquote, because not alignment.

00:25:51
It's not in alignment. Yeah. And so I guess that's what I just really wanted to call out, which is once you do make a decision, you've got to stick with it. And even if it doesn't feel like it's in alignment, you've got to stick with it for a period of time that makes you really sure of that. Like, we were doing Instagram for a long time.

00:26:09
I did it even with my first business, like a decade ago. So that's ten years. But then really recently, even with our coaching business and with Cap Show, we've been doing it for years. So you think about that. We know I know by now when you say you don't like Instagram yeah, I know.

00:26:28
I'm very confident in that. And I don't mean do something for ten years. Give it a really good amount of time before you and know deep in your gut that you're not just turning away from it because of any other reason other than the fact that it's just not something that you enjoy or are in alignment with. Yeah. Love it.

00:26:47
Cool. Okay, so next week is going to be the last part of this series, and we're going to talk about more implementation of this because we can't help it. I mean, you're an implementer, and I like to get very tactical about things. We're going to bring this together around. Okay, what are some of the things that we can actually do to actually get a result for our business to get to?

00:27:09
The why? Yeah. And the step that you're likely missing if you've. Been doing this a few times. Like us.

00:27:13
Oh, what a hook. Love that. All right, you got to tune in. We'll see you next week. I'm Deirdre.

00:27:19
I'm Bona. Stay awesome. Stay awesome.