Jade Boyd: Marketing is one of those things for business owners that can just feel really hard, especially if you’re the type of service provider who’s really passionate about the work that you get to do with clients and not so passionate about making sales and all of the behind the scenes work that it takes to actually reach your business goals and hit your financial goals, too, because when we’re talking about hitting your financial goals and when you’re looking towards next year thinking about how much money you want to pay yourself, how much profitability you need in your business to hit those goals, what we’re really talking about is marketing because marketing is the one thing that drives the needle and drives results and helps you reach your financial goals, right? It is the heart and soul of your business, and sometimes it can feel. Really hard, especially if you’re over complicating it, because if it is too complicated, it will take you a lot of extra time and energy to actually execute it.

But when you have a simple marketing strategy, not only is it going to take you less time to implement it also is stronger, and it’s actually more potent messaging, which drives the needle and helps you reach your goals faster.

And I coach service providers who are ready to scale. So speaking of scaling your business, it is much easier to get to that level and scale your goals when you have a clear, focused, and simple strategy. And why is that? Because simple is easy to execute. And at the end of the day, action is the only thing that will drive your business forward. So if you’re over complicating your marketing and it’s getting in your way, this episode is going to help you to simplify things so that you can get more done, make more money easily, and invest your time and energy into the marketing activities that actually work. Because I think one of the most frustrating things about marketing for business owners is that they feel that they dump a bunch of time and energy into things, and then they don’t actually move the needle.

So how can we both simplify it? And also get to the things that actually drive results because then marketing starts to feel really fun, really easy, and really exciting.

And simplifying in your business in any area is really about making decisions and being willing to commit to your decisions for at least 90 days so that you can see if it actually works. So in my coaching program, my clients stick to their marketing strategy for 90 days at a time before they make any major changes to their strategy.

Because any strategy you try will take time to work. It’s like a snowball that’s running downhill. I use this metaphor all the time. It starts small but with consistency. It starts to get bigger, and it starts to gain momentum, and it starts to get easier. And sometimes that takes a little bit of time for that momentum to build.

And of course, you can make small tweaks and changes along the way. But when I see business owners complicating marketing, it’s because they try something for less than a month or too short of a time. And when it immediately doesn’t work, they change everything in their business and start over. But Simplifying things does mean committing to something and committing to making it work and figuring out how to make your strategy work for you, not trying to find this like magical strategy that’s out there that works for everybody immediately because that’s not the case.

So in order to build a marketing strategy that feels good, that feels aligned, that actually works for your business and is simple and streamlined, here are the five things that you’re going to want to make decisions on and stick to. The first one is your core client, second, core problem, third, core offer, fourth, core message, and fifth, core content. And I’m going to dive a little bit deeper into each of these five things.

But before we get there, I just want you to take a second and imagine what it could feel like each month if you didn’t have to start from scratch to figure out how to book new clients and make money in your business. That you knew exactly what to do for your marketing. It was simple, it was systemized, it was streamlined, it was not complicated.

And what would it feel like if your marketing efforts from months and months ago were snowballing and rolling downhill on their own and driving even better results and generating consistent sales in your business? How would that feel?

You can absolutely get to the point where marketing feels easy and natural and aligned and make it something that you actually do enjoy doing in your business. And that is the goal of what we’re talking about today. And the goal of deciding these five things and creating a marketing strategy that you can stick to that doesn’t overcomplicate things.

This is what we’re working towards. So yes, it does take work. It does take some decisions and decisions are never easy to make, but it’s worth it in the end.

One of my clients a few months ago messaged me and said that her husband had asked her like where the heck are you finding all of these people because she has a very unique, small niche, and her calendar was flooded with ideal clients. And she was able to do that because first, she had a super clear and simple marketing strategy, and second, she was able to actually show up consistently in her marketing strategy for months and months. And she saw the results of that consistency compound into some amazing financial results for her business. She basically tripled her initial revenue goal that she set at the beginning of the year because she worked with me for, I think, seven or eight months at that point.

And she has created a super solid client base and business foundation that’s going to make her job moving forward and increasing her revenue goals and booking out her services even easier next year. That is the power of having a very clear strategy and showing up consistently.

So let’s dive into what this looks like. So first, having a core client. 80 percent of your revenue is going to come from 20 percent of your clients anyway, so you might as well focus your marketing on that specific core client and who you want to work with most of the time anyway. So I think about core client in terms of choosing your niche. Who are you talking to? Who are you serving? Who are you building your business around? This is the one person whose needs that you want to meet better than anybody else. And this is the client that you’re going to tailor all of your marketing towards and serve again, 80 percent of the time.

And niching down does not mean that you immediately just stop working with anyone else, or even stop working with anyone outside of your core client eventually. In fact, when your marketing is dialed in and becomes more effective, you’ll notice that you gain a lot of attention outside of your niche too, and people will still want to be and your offers and get help from you, even if they aren’t your core client. But you’re not going to waste your time marketing to every single person who might be able to benefit from your services. You’re going to market to that one person so that your messaging isn’t all over the place and you’re not talking about a million different things and to a million different people. You’re talking to one very specific person.

And this may seem like a super basic thing, but if you don’t get the foundations right, it’s hard to build anything that is sustainable off of it. So we never graduate from the basics in business. I say that a lot because a lot of business owners think like, Oh, I’m past that, or I learned that a long time ago, it’s not important anymore. But when we’re talking about your marketing strategy, these things don’t change for any business for Fortune 500 businesses, or if we’re solopreneurs, it doesn’t matter. This is just the tried and true reality of what it takes to build effective marketing. And a lot of people will skip past this and then question why marketing feels so hard, but you have to get the foundations right. If you want to move on to more complicated things later.

So core client, an example here. So I serve service providers who are already great at their craft. They’re great at what they do, but they’re getting burnout on one on one services. And that is a very specific ideal client who’s in a very specific place in their business. It’s not just any service provider. They have to already have enough experience to be sure of, loving what they do and to be good at it before they’re ready to get to the point where they’re able to scale, which is what my program helps them do. So there’s many different ways to choose your core client in my program. I have a workbook that goes through a bunch of different questions to help you identify who your core client is and whether or not it’s a good core client for you to serve or not, because it’s not enough just to be specific, it has to be a good fit for you too.

So core client is number one, core problem is number two. So the reason why you want to be clear on what your core problem is, again, the problem that you’re solving for the majority of your clients, the one problem that you’re talking about in your marketing is because solving a specific problem makes you more referable and it also builds your reputation and your brand around being the expert in that area.

So a lot of people talk about this in terms of double niching. So you can niche down to the audience that you serve, but you can also niche down into the problem that you solve. So if you’re doing five different things for the same core client, it’s not super niche, right? If you’re doing their bookkeeping and their graphic design and their social media, those are just random examples, but you’re doing it for one type of client, but it’s still not super niche down because you’re solving too many problems.

And so by double niching and identifying what that core problem is you want to solve, you’re able to build your reputation as an expert in your area. and be more referable because people are only talking about you in terms of that one thing that you do really well.

So when thinking about your core problem, I want you to think about what do your clients want most? If you are solving a bunch of different problems right now, and it feels really complicated, what are your core clients want most? And what are they willing to pay most for? What do you want to build your reputation around? So an example on my end, I’m a business coach, which is a type of niche, but the problem that I solve is helping service providers scale.

And scaling is its own very unique form of problem when it comes to serving business owners because there’s a lot of problems that service providers who are already good at their craft and are burnt out on one on one services, there’s lots of different problems that I could solve for them. But for me, the best problem that I want to serve and the most valuable problem that I can solve for them is the problem of scaling,

And it’s what I’m really good at because I am really good at the strategy and I love doing it, something that I never get tired of talking about and coaching people through, and so it’s a really good fit, not only for my market, but for me. So again, when you’re thinking about these things, it’s not enough just to have a clear strategy that makes sense in general, but also a strategy that makes sense for you and what feels good to you and what you, are naturally good at.

So again, with my clients, I have a structure that I go through with each of these five areas to help them really narrow down, brainstorm, and come up with a bunch of different ideas for what this could look like, and then narrow down and make a decision that they can commit to for the next 90 days in their marketing so they can test whether or not that messaging works.

The third area here is core offer, and this is probably the most crucial thing because it really affects your ability to scale, and again, I help my clients scale their business, and your offers can either limit you or open up doors in your business, and if you give people 30 different offers and ask them to decide how they want to solve their problem, it confuses people and they don’t end up buying. So simple sells and simple scales. So when we’re talking about your core offer, there should be one signature offer in your business. But again, you’re selling 80 percent of the time that most of your marketing is leading to. It is so much easier to close leads when you have 1 signature offer that’s very clear who it’s for and what problem it solves. It’s also easier to systemize and streamline that service so that you’re not wasting a ton of time doing different things for every single person who comes in your door. If you have 1 core offer. You’re gonna have a lot better system, you’re gonna have a lot better automations, and you’re gonna have a lot better client experience around that, too, because you will be really good at it.

So, some examples of this. When I was doing brand photography, a branding session was my signature offer. It’s what I was marketing all of the time. Did I still do headshots and product photography and the random other requests that people would ask me to do? Yeah, I did, but I didn’t market all of those things.

I was niching as a brand photographer for creatives, and that’s all I spent my marketing time and efforts and money on right. Now as a coach, my signature offer is The Business Edit. It’s my signature group coaching program and all of my marketing, my sales funnel, my emails, my podcast. Everything is centered around and leading towards that one offer, which means that every piece of content I create in my business has a purpose and leads people in a certain direction, and it’s very clear.

I’m not marketing 10 different ways to solve your problem every other month and confusing people on which one is right for them. There’s just one path to go, and it is the signature path that I lead everyone towards, and that creates simple marketing. It makes my job as a marketer in my business really simple and streamlined and effective, right?

Because every piece of content has a purpose.

The next one I want to talk about is core message. So the purpose of your core message is to really just clearly communicate. Who your offer is for, what problem it solves, and the transformation that it provides, basically why people should buy it. And you should be able to answer the question, what do you do? Or what’s your business about? In a very simple sentence, without panicking or delivering a sermon or telling people like you have to go read the wholesale’s page or, go follow me on Instagram to get a feel for what I do, or the worst thing is saying like, well, it’s kind of hard to explain because if you can’t explain what you do, you can’t expect other people to understand and buy from you or refer you to other people either, right?

Or become known for a certain thing because they don’t know what you do.

And I think this is one of the most transformational pieces of this five step framework because when you do have clarity on that core message, the rest of your marketing messaging becomes easier because the rest of your marketing messaging is built off of this core message for your business.

And then the last piece here is having core content. And there’s two different ways that I think about this. The first one is having core content pillars. So having the topics in your business that you talk about again and again that you’re building your content plans off of. But really that’s built into a core content plan.

This is a repeatable monthly marketing plan that you can execute and take as a starting point every single month and build your marketing off of and know that it’s going to lead people in the right direction and know that it’s going to push that snowball further and further down the hill and gain momentum and make your job as a marketer easier and consistency is everything. So building your marketing plan around clear messaging around content platforms that are aligned to your strategy, to the person you’re serving, to the problem you’re solving, to what you’re good at and what you enjoy doing, and also having a really clear plan for how to repurpose that content so that you’re working smarter and not harder every single month.

There is nothing more simple and streamlined and transformational in your marketing than having this solid plan, which is built off of your strategy. It’s built off of your core client and the problem you solve and your messaging and your offer, but you build that into a content plan that tells you exactly what to do. So it’s not just the strategy. It’s the plan. It’s the to do list. It’s the action items that you take every single month. And it’s not just creating content consistently, but making content that converts. And for many people, there’s going to be a content element to this, but I also incorporate with my coaching clients, business minimalist marketing strategies or what I call business minimalist marketing strategies, like collaborations and relationship marketing strategies to build real relationships and to build community and to bring people deeper into your like inner circle and move people through your sales funnel faster because you’re building that know, like trust factor faster than just creating passive content that they’re reading, right? And ultimately, that gets them to the sale faster, too.

So the goal is to have one thing decided in each of these five areas to simplify and streamline your marketing. And if you have more than one in any of these categories, it just adds complexity to your business, which makes it harder to execute, especially if you don’t have a team yet. Because if you are serving multiple audiences or solving multiple problems or you have multiple offers, that means that you are literally running multiple marketing strategies at the same time, which is totally possible to do and large businesses do it every single day, but it’s harder to do unless you have a skilled team who is truly autonomous where you’re not telling them everything that has to be done or creating every piece of content yourself or proofreading everything that goes out. To get to that point where you’re able to successfully run multiple marketing strategies takes a little bit of time, so if you’re still in that element of trading time for money and figuring out a way to scale your business, which is where I help people, it is faster and easier to grow your business and to scale your business if you stick to one marketing strategy and do that to the best of your ability while you’re building your team.

And when I say building your team, I don’t mean hiring 30 employees. I just mean bringing contractors or other people into your business who are able to take some of that load off of your plate so that you are able to get more time back to spend in your CEO role and in the area of your business that only you can do.

And marketing is not one of those areas. There’s lots of things in marketing that can be hired out for sure.

And for most business owners who I see overcomplicating things, they’re doing it for one of two reasons. Either, one, they’re moving on too quickly and saying that it didn’t work and are getting some shiny object syndrome, thinking, like, the next newest thing is going to be the thing that works, but really, it’s just the thing that you stick to and commit to making work, that’s ultimately going to end up working. Which again is why I have my clients commit to something for 90 days so that they can truly see if it’s going to work or not. There’s going to be plenty of shiny objects and promises of other things that are quick and easy to do. But any strategy that you want to implement, it’s going to take some time to see if it works and it’s going to take some time showing up consistently, even if it’s a great strategy to see it work.

And the second reason why I see business owners overcomplicating things is because they have this mindset that in order to make more, they have to do more. And that is absolutely not the case, especially when we’re thinking in context of the next year. You are going to make more money doing more of what you’re already doing for the audience that you’re already serving.

And a very small portion of your increase in revenue is going to come from serving a brand new audience that you’ve never worked with before, or solving a brand new problem that you’ve never solved for people before. Right? So, with my clients, I help them figure out how to scale by doing what they’re already doing to make more money instead of doing something brand new.

And yes, that does take changes in your business and requires a little bit of doing things differently and trying things that you haven’t tried before. But it doesn’t mean going out and recreating this whole new marketing strategy and trying to attract this brand new audience and do something completely different than what you’ve already been doing.

So my challenge to you going into the new year, if you’re listening to this in real time, or even going into your next quarter, if you’re listening to this in the future, is to get really clear on what your marketing strategy is, so that you are able to simplify and streamline things, and that you are able to make marketing this thing that feels easy, that feels clear, and actually works.

And if you’re at that point in your business where you’re already great at what you’re doing, you’re loving working with your clients, but you’ve maxed out your ability to take on any more one on one clients. And you know that what you’re doing is not sustainable. If you want to hit your next revenue goal, consider applying for the business edit group coaching program.

Applications are always live. Enrollment periods are open right now and periodically throughout the year, but you can apply at any time and do a discovery call. And I’m happy to help you figure out if this is a good fit for you or not. And this program truly is designed from A to Z to help you declutter and simplify your business because we all operate better when things are clear and simple and streamlined, but also it’s more effective in every area of your business.

So today we touched a little bit about what that looks like in marketing, but there’s so many different areas of your business that could be simplified and streamlined to help you deliver better results and make more money so that you can give yourself a raise. Without having to burn yourself out or hustle or work more hours, because if I know anything about you, you’re probably already working too much as it is.

So, consider visiting the link in the bio and filling out the application today. You can also visit the landing page to learn a little bit more about the program and what it’s about. Also, feel free to DM me on Instagram if you have any questions about this episode, I have conversations in my DMs all the time, it is me responding to those things. So if you have any questions or want to dive deeper, feel free to DM me on Instagram and I’m happy to answer anything that you have.

So until next time, Business Minimalists, take what you learned today and get 1 percent better this week.