At the time of this post, it’s been 5 years since I started this business, and it’s hard to believe that that much time has gone by! Along the way, I’ve succeeded, I’ve failed, and I’ve definitely tripped a time or two. But, I’ve also gained significant knowledge around marketing and I want to share this with you.
In this post, I’m sharing 3 big marketing myths that have been holding me back, and might be holding you back too! Let’s aim to bust these myths and start growing/maintaining a successful, thriving business.
#1 If I put it out there, the right people will find me
Unfortunately, creating an offer and putting it on your website hoping people will buy it because it’s there and displayed just doesn’t work – believe me, I’ve tried it. I put a myriad of offers on my website and nobody bought them because I didn’t promote them.
Having no traffic coming to your website makes this even worse, and reduces your chances of people signing up/buying your offers even more. If you’re not even checking your website traffic, and people aren’t buying from you, this is a big red flag and things need to change straight away.
What’s frustrating is that we enjoy creating offers because it’s what we’re good at and what we can share with people – our expertise. We’ve worked really hard to learn everything we can about this offer, but promoting it is probably super uncomfortable for a lot of us.
It might be mindset blocks, or it might purely be because you don’t know the first thing when it comes to marketing, it’s not something you have studied or have much experience in. The good news is that it’s a skill you can learn!
I believe that everybody who runs a business should have at least a base knowledge of marketing – like pricing psychology, how to promote your offers, how to grow your audience, how to run ads, etc.
Of course, in the future, you have the option of outsourcing your marketing, but even then, when you have a team, you have to step into the role of CEO and manage your team, and you really really want to know the basics of what they have to do.
#2 My audience doesn’t like me to sell to them and I don’t want to be pushy
I really understand this one, it’s a big mindset block for sure. Asking for the sale is definitely uncomfortable (unless maybe you are a born salesman or woman).
What’s likely making you feel uncomfortable here is not believing in your offer or subconsciously believing that you’re not good enough. But what you need to understand is that your audience wants to know what you’re offering and want to buy from you! They follow you for a reason, so of course, they want to hear about your offers of how they can work with you and how you can help them live a better life.
This doesn’t mean you have to sell in a pushy way, it’s about finding a way to sell in an aligned way that still gets results.
Here are a few tips to help with that:
- Don’t think of it as selling, but as an invitation to work with you – be excited about your offers and share that excitement, this will get people excited too.
- Be consistent – if you never email your subscribers and then suddenly you launch an online course and start sending out loads of emails, that might come across as pushy. Make sure to share stories and valuable content with your followers consistently so that when you do invite them to your new offer, they’re more open to your emails.
- Make sure your emails are interesting to read – share stories and draw people in, making sure to share valuable information too, as well as reminding people of your offer.
#3 I have to put out more offers if I want to earn more
At first glance, this makes a lot of sense and I believed this for a long time. Surely, when you have more offers, people can buy more, and you’ll earn more money, right?
So you create a range of different online courses around different topics, but then you have to promote all of them. Every single product you create will need to be promoted. Sounds like a lot of work, right? It is, and I wouldn’t recommend it.
I strongly recommend that you create one signature offer, and you stick with that for at least a year before you even think about creating something else. When you’ve been at it for a long time and you’ve created a range of offers over the years it can work of course, but when you’re just starting out, you need to focus.
Be strategic about your offers. Have a marketing plan in place and know how you’re going to promote your offers – don’t just create something and let it sit there.
Finding a way to market your offers in an aligned way can take a long time – months, sometimes years, but I hope that you can learn from my mistakes and stop believing these marketing myths I’ve shared with you so that you can build your own blissful business.
If you want to elevate your brand and offers and build a six-figure business, you’re invited in The Mentorship.
The Mentorship is a 12-month mentorship program with unparalleled support for coaches and other service providers who are ready to elevate their brand, sell out their offers and scale their business to six figures.
What really sets it apart is that you get a ton of video trainings to help you implement things and take action, but you also get 1:1 coaching, group coaching, and personal feedback and critique for work you submit.
Go to www.susannerieker.com/mentorship and get all the details.
