My absolute favorite way to get a client is
not from social media. It's not from email. It is
from my friends. They send me the best clients. In today's
episode, we're going to talk about how we make new friends, build
relationships and have the people that we know be a
resource for us as we're building our business. We have the amazing Jessica
Abel on the show today to talk all about that and more. But
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Welcome to episode number 367 of the Mindful Marketing
Podcast where I'm on a mission to help you with simpler, smart,
smarter marketing. Especially for those of you out here who are
busy like me and I'm excited to just pick Jessica's
brain today. Jessica, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm
super excited to be here. I'm also very excited that you're here.
I feel like I've known of you for a while, but it
wasn't until recently when we worked together on your last event
that I really got to know more about your work and what you do. But
for those people tuning in, tell us a little bit about your history and how
you got into relationship based marketing. Sure.
I have a background as an artist, basically artist and writer.
I'm a cartoonist. I've published a number of graphic novels
and book length comics including out on the
Wire, probably one of my best. Known books, which is about. It's a
nonfiction book about narrative techniques on
long form audio. So podcasting, radio, this American
Life, Radiolab, that kind of thing like how do. They build their stories?
And that's my background. About 10 years ago
or so I. Was finishing out on the Wire
and You know, this is a book that I'm extremely proud of and,
and love how it went into the world. And it's still, you know, it's being
used in, by all kinds of people in classrooms and all kinds of stuff. But
making comics is, it's grueling, let's just be honest.
Like, it's just this incredibly difficult process. And
I had been making comics for 20 years plus at that point. I'd been
teaching. I wrote two textbooks about comics, like deep in that world. And,
and what I had not been. Able to figure out
was how to. Make a living as an author, how to
make selling books work for me. And so
I was doing what most authors do, which is I was teaching, I had
adjunct teaching jobs. I was,
you know, I had jobs as an editor. You know, I was the series editor
for the best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin. I was an illustrator
for a long time. So I would do, you know, magazine newspaper illustration, stuff like
that. So all kinds of different jobs
to try to support my author career. And
being an author who is a cartoonist means
so much more physical labor and just time goes into literally creating
the book. Which isn't to say authors who don't make comics aren't working hard,
they're working really hard. I'm not trying to say that, but, you know, I
basically wrote and edited. The entire book and then had 10. Months
of, you know, 10 hour days to actually draw it right.
So I was burnt out. I was just like burnt to a crisp at that
point. I made my own podcast at the end of it, using all these principles,
you know, just kind of like kept it going. And I was kind of staring
down the barrel of like another book. Like, you know, I.
The advances that I earned on that. Book were long gone. And,
you know, most books never earn out and earn royalties.
Little secret of the industry. Like most of them just don't. They don't earn any
more money after the advance. It's normal. And I
just, I was like, how can I do this again? I just don't know how
I can keep going. So that's when I
started learning about business
explicitly. Now obviously I had been in business for 20
years, but I never thought of it that way. And I think that's something I
find with my audience of people in the creative fields.
Very frequently they get into whatever they're doing because they love what they're
doing, they want more time for it. So they try to make it professional and
make it a business. But they have no, like learning, no Training
around that, which, you know. And I've also discovered that no one else does
either. You know, it's not like there's some segment of people who gets out of
school. Like, I know what to do. Like, nobody learns this stuff in school.
So that's where I was at. And I also, as an
artist and sort of, you know, former, like I was
in bands, like all this other stuff business was literally the
enemy, you know, it was like, that is the enemy camp. And
it was so hard for me to figure out how to
translate all of the stuff I was learning into
terms I could make my mouth say without
gagging. You know, it was just like so difficult to do
that. And one of the first people I found, very fortunately, was Tara
McMullen, who is very straightforward and
clear and ethical and honest about all of this
stuff. What she was teaching was way over. My head,
but I loved the way she taught it and I felt like I could really
trust her. She wasn't skeezy and trying to put anything
over on anybody. She was really trying to go deep and
foundational, which if anybody listening knows Tara's work,
that's her mo, Very deep. So
I was learning this stuff as fast as I could. It was really hard.
And still I, you know, so I. Basically, as somebody who'd been a
professor. For, at that point, 15 years
plus the classroom is what
I know. You know, running courses and building curriculum.
I mean, like I said, I'd written two textbooks, so I made a course.
One does, right? And this was 2015,
so I made. The first version of the Creative Focus. Workshop, which is still a
course that I run and love. It's evolved
massively since then, obviously. And that was so
much better than. In terms of financially in time and. Stuff, in terms
of trying to make a living for my family than being an author
was. And yet it still didn't really
like, it didn't close the gap. You know, I got another teaching
job at that point. In fact, it was a department, department head job,
full time professor job. That's the first time I'd been full time
at that point and kept
that until like a year ago because that's what I needed to fill the gap.
So to compress all the sort of business journey part
10 years of learning stuff. It really took me about
six of those years at least, to start to grasp how important
business models are. Like the choice of your business model, what
does your offer look like, how is it priced? You know, how much
time does it take? And then how does that relate
to your marketing, how does that relate to how
you're going out into the world? Because all of those things,
the thing that doesn't work as an author is capacity,
right? Like the amount of time it takes. To put into creating these
works versus. The amount of money you can make from them. You know, with obviously
unicorn exceptions. But for the vast majority of authors,
it's just totally out of whack. You know, like you're selling something and you make
a profit of if it's self published, maybe you're making $6 on it. If it's,
you know, commercially published, maybe. You'Re making a dollar fifty. You know, the number of
books you need to sell and the way you. Would need to do marketing to
sell that number of units of thing. No one
tells you that. Like, no one explains
the, the exponential. Numbers you would need to be in. Front
of to make that work outside of, again, kind of
zeitgeisty, you know, unicorn events.
And so, like, literally no one ever taught me that. And,
and eventually I figured it out through working with different coaches on different
things. And like seeing having this calculator here and that calculator there and going like,
oh, now I see that I would need to have an audience
of like 5 million people in order to be. Able
to sell a hundred thousand books. You know, in
a year. Like, I would need that scale. And to
have that scale means having. A kind of lifestyle. In terms of the. What
you're doing with your marketing, I just don't. I mean, if you're trying to write
books and make comics, you don't have time for that. Even if you wanted to
do it, you don't have time. So all of those things were just. Like, crashing
down around me over time. Where I was like, oh, my God, that, that, that,
that. All these different ways in which these sort of
underlying structures fit together mathematically, you know, there's. It's not hard
math. It's just nobody learns it. And so as
I've gradually gone through my business journey, I've become a business
coach for people who have creative businesses
to try to help them understand how to apply these principles and
actually design something that could work for them, including the marketing. Because
that's the. I think the biggest piece of this is like, not
understanding how to match up the marketing that you're doing with the thing that you're
offering and whether. If the thing is something that
requires. That massive kind of traffic, understanding what that's going to require,
and vice versa, like, how can you fix that by fixing your offer
and fixing your business model first and then
matching up the marketing style, which is going to be a more relationship based marketing
style. That was a long answer. I hope we got where we need to get.
Love it. And I hope everyone listening is like me taking notes. I have a
couple follow up questions because I'm like, okay, I'm really curious
about this, but what I loved what you said is
specifically for my creative folks out there in the world,
we want our pie in the sky dream is
we create the thing and then people just come and find it and they fall
in love with it and suddenly everybody loves it like that. That's our goal going
into it. And then we realize somewhere in there
that we actually spend more time and energy and effort on
marketing the thing and it builds a sort of resentment up. And I
think that's very common. I just love that you kind of pointed this out. Especially
for creative people, it's hard to build a business
off of that model. I love that you put, you brought up authorship as an
example because you do have to live almost like an
influencer, celebrity style life to be able to
fuel that, that passion. And so I think this is something
that people don't talk about enough. And I'm glad that you pointed that out.
Yeah. Because people get so, so first of all, not if anybody's experiencing that.
It's not your fault. This is what we're told is going to work. You know,
you do a thing and it's great enough and people come. You know, no one.
When you're going through school, you're going through art school, you're going through liberal arts
school, you're learning your, your, your craft. It never
comes up that this is a part of that. The
business model picture that you have a business model, that there is one. Like none
of that comes up. And so if it's, you know, confusing and you wish
it were a different way, I get it. I mean, it's not. Didn't come out
of nowhere, but yeah, this thing. And I think that people end up
in a situation where they're like not making enough money. They're working
their asses off. Excuse me, working their butts off. You
can, you can say this is a safe space, okay.
To bring in whatever they're bringing in. They're working too many jobs.
I have this whole idea, this like term that I use is cyclical
burnout, that creatives get into
too many jobs to try to just fund their life and they're baffled
and resentful. Like, why do I Have to show up. You know, why are people
telling me to show up on Instagram? And I show up on Instagram and nobody
does anything, and I'm not selling. The things I need to sell. And I can't.
You know, I've sold a bunch of these. People love them, but I can't get
it beyond X point. You know, like, it tops out here.
It's also baffling if you don't understand that underlying, you
know, literally mathematical relationship between the.
The number. Like, what the numbers are. Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad that
you brought this up, because I do think that this
is part of the. The challenge of social media
is that the people who are successful make it look so easy
because that's part of the appeal. We don't want to see
them. Them ugly crying in the shower that morning because
they have to. They have to put on makeup that day because they have to
film content because. Because that's. That's their job. It's not the creative
side. So I'm glad that you're pointing that out, but the next question that pops
up for me with this conversation is, okay, so
let's say we're creative, we've made our thing, we want to keep making
it, and now we're staring at this, this giant challenge
in front of us of finding 5 million people who want to consume the thing.
What do we do now? Do we. How do we. Like, where do we start
with this idea of offer creation that suits our
lifestyle? I think that's a super good question, and it's
not an answer people love, because what they want is for me to say,
oh, well, there is an answer to this. Living off, you
know, your book sales or living off, you know, doing
like, ceramics workshops for building your creative,
you know, mojo, or, you know, life coaching, same kind of thing. It's like
all these different things you want to do, they're like life giving, but
somehow you can't get them to connect in the way, like
through these kinds of channels. Right. And I think that the.
The answer for me is to
separate the creative work that you want to be doing. Like the
actual, like, literal thing that is the, you know, sort of expression of your
greatest, you know, creative
impulses for making money. Which doesn't mean don't
use your creativity in a business do. But you have
to look at all the threads of things that go into your skill set and
kind of tease those apart and say, all right, I'm going to use these
because these have a service implication that's very
Strong for a client base. Like, I can create a
service out of these things that I do for a client
base who they need it and they will pay for it.
And then these other things, I'm going to do these because I love them and
I'm going to build a business that makes space for them, makes time for
those activities. Doesn't mean I can't be professional
at those things. I can still be like, I can still be a published author,
I can still, you know, sell books and whatever. But if I, as long as
I'm. Not trying to make that, pay my. Mortgage, I can make money
at that. But it doesn't, you know, it's the weight on those things.
And so figuring out how to take the weight off this
creative expression makes the creative expression better, right? It
makes it freer, it makes it something. And this is what everybody kind of dreams
of is like, the money's gonna pour in, you do whatever you want. Right? But
that's not how it works. And so how can you
engineer that in some sense? Like engineer the situation
where you have enough money maybe not pouring in, but at
least coming in to make it possible to
pursue the creative work that you want to be doing. And you know,
a lot of people I work with are not like big C creatives. They're not
painters, they're not, you know, you know, cartoonists or
whatever. They, they just are kind of creatively. Oriented and, and
even building a business itself is a creative act. I mean, anyone
listening to this is like, I'm not creative enough. Like, no, you are. Like, if
you're making something up out of your head, like, it is a very creative act.
But like, you know, even, even for somebody who's just,
who's just quote, unquote, just building a business and using their
creativity in that way, there are going to be offers you have in mind or
ideas for programs or ideas for, you know, books
or content that don't really fit into
what you can sell very well, but you really want to do those things. And
so if you're not somebody who identifies as like a capital A artist,
think about that. That's what I'm talking about, like being able to do those things
because you feel a mission to serve a certain audience or you want to talk
about a certain topic and it needs to be in the world, but it
doesn't necessarily like fit into the
neat, you know, space of what you're doing
professionally. That is like a solid money making
service. And this is the other big thing is that
most, a lot of creative people want to create whatever it is,
essentially what, no matter what form it takes, it's a product, right? It's like
pre created. It's something that exists. And then you try to find an audience for
that and sell the thing, which is inherently challenging.
Just trying to find enough people who already want that thing and who are.
Already in that audience. It's just hard. It's just like, you know, it's a lot
of work to find those people. Not impossible, just a lot of, A lot of
work. But if you are creating something that's a service
of some kind or another, then if
you're doing it with strategy and
forethought, you are creating something that already, there's already a need
for it. People are already looking for it and. They want to buy that thing.
And also, this is also very important. For this whole model thing is
it. Needs to be something that's priced at. A relatively premium level,
depending on what your financial needs are. Maybe very premium, maybe like medium
premium. You know, but it needs to be priced high or
you're gonna be stuck. Trying to sell to many, many, many people because of those
exponential numbers. And that means you're gonna be spending all your time doing
marketing. So if you want to do only a portion of your time doing
marketing, you know, and keep that under control, you have to have an
offer that has a higher price point. That's what the math tells us. Period.
Yes, 100%. I'm co signing everything
that you were saying, because this is a challenge that I bump into a
lot. And I don't know if you experience this as well, but it's a hard
conversation to have because by the time someone comes to me and
they're asking me for support with their marketing, we're trying to force
in a marketing plan that works for an offer, when really
the offer is what needs to be examined. And not just the author,
the person delivering the offer too. Because a lot of my people,
they don't actually, actually like marketing. That's why they come to me. Like, the people
who, who love it, they, they don't really need me that much. Okay. But
it, my people are like, okay, I, I'm, I don't want to post Instagram
stories like what, what else can I do? And,
and honestly, when you create this product as you're
describing it, you create it once and then you try to sell it.
The requirements for marketing, something like that are
astronomical. And unless you don't, if you like marketing, like I like
marketing. So for me, marketing in this way is fun for me.
For a lot of people, it's not okay. And it's okay to be like, I
don't like this. So I love that you mentioned the service side of it as
well. But I can already hear the hesitancy from a lot of people listening
where they're like, okay, I have an offer and now I have to
create something entirely new to be able to sell
something. And there's this objection
that happens a lot, especially in online business space, this
passive income idea that we've been fed, this passive
income idea where we create it and then we relax on the beach and it
just sells in our sleep, right? And when you talk about a service
to me, when I hear that it requires active
input from the person delivering the service, how
do we overcome this objection or this thought of, you know, it
sells in our sleep, we create it once and the people will come and buy
it. I mean, does it sound familiar? Like that's exactly the dream about,
you know, writing a book or creative work or whatever is like, you make a
thing and people will come in the door. The fact is, passive
income doesn't exist. You know, I have
a friend who is, has a business that sells
relatively low priced courses and she
doesn't do what you do with social media, but she
posts on YouTube and she has a lot of backend
automation. You know, she has, she uses ads
significantly, she creates webinars, she has funnels, there's lots
of tagging and things going back and forth, different sequences, all the different stuff. She
loves it, it's a business she loves. And if you love doing that kind of
stuff, fantastic, do it. I'm not trying to say there's anything better
or worse about any of these ideas, but if
you're somebody who is like, oh, I don't really like marketing. Then you do
need to redesign your. Business model and your offer around something that
you can price more, you know, higher. And I get a lot of people too
who are like, oh, well, I have this idea for this course because I really
just want to be hands off and not be doing stuff. And I'm like, okay,
I hear you. And I have a feeling that's because. You'Re
so over capacity right now. Like you're doing so much stuff
to try to make your financial life work that it
feels impossible to do some kind of service that's going to actually
require time of you. It feels like it's too much. Right?
I just can't. How could I possibly fit that in with all of this other
stuff? And the whole point is you need. To redesign from the
foundation, from the base. This is what I do in my coaching. Like this is
we start with the business model, then we go to the offer, then we do
market research and refine the offer, then we do like an MVP pilot
thing. And at the end of this, after. We do sales, then
we do a. Marketing plan, you know, that's at the very end because
you have to have this structure that can potentially
deliver the kind of revenue you need in the amount of time you
have. First you have to have that. If you try to
like force it from the other direction, like you're talking about, they come in and
they're like, I have this thing, how do I sell it? Well, if you're going
to start with the thing, you're going to have to. Follow the rules of the
thing, you know. So if you have a course that. Sells for $500
and you want it. To be this passive, quote unquote, passive thing, you better be
ready to have. A bunch of marketing channels that you're. Feeding
regularly, you know, using ads, spending a bunch of money on ads,
creating funnels, using automations, getting real comfortable with the tech. If you do all
that, it could work, you know, but, but
that's what it requires. And so when I'm talking to people about
working with me, that's what I lay out. I'm like, okay, these are your options.
You can do what you want. But like, if you're trying to get out of
the constant grind of marketing, you have to do marketing period, like
to feed your business. But if you're trying to get out of this sort of
like constant like content grind and whatever, this is
what it looks like, you know, you have. To come up with a business model.
And an offer that makes it possible to escape that grind. And
so that, that mind that it's not even mindset but that that situation people are
in where they're like, how? I don't. One to one, you know, or like, you
know, service for, you know, it's. Just so, it's so demanding. It's
so like, how do I possibly do that? It's like, well, because you wouldn't be
doing all this other stuff, you know, stop doing that
and put that energy into this. And it could feel actually kind of life giving
and great, but you have to be able to
imagine not doing all the other stuff. And everybody wants
to come to and like do cohorts too, like out of the box. They're like,
I have a sort of idea for Coaching. And what I want to do is
it in groups and cohorts and classes. And they're thinking this is going to pay
more money for less time. And so therefore I'll be able to
handle the time issue again. Cool, great.
But you need a large audience for. That and you need a lot of marketing
energy behind that. So it really has to start with business model
and it has to start with then the offer that fits in. That business model
a hundred percent. And I still think to this day, even though I
don't currently offer services done for you, services
are still the most profitable way to have a business. Like, I think it's very
challenging to just start off especially,
you know, in the online business space with a course or a digital product of
some of some sort. It's very challenging. I mean you evolved into this
like you started there and it took 11 years. Yeah.
And I went backwards and then went like, oh, I think I need one to
one coaching. Which is, you know, like I figured it out,
like everything went backwards. Right. And yeah, no,
100% like exactly what you're saying. Like you don't necessarily have to stay
there forever, but that's. If you're trying to
innovate your way out of this crunch that you're in, you have to start.
Well, you don't have to. You're likely to start there. And it could be one
to one services. Services are, you know, done for you. Services are probably the
easiest thing. Second would be one to one coaching. As long as you have a
very clearly defined value proposition like you, what you do is very
clear and the people you do it for are very clear. It's a little
harder because it's people deciding on something like do they want to go
down this road or not, but also the same thing where it's just you only
need to get that. One person to say yes. You don't need to get hundreds
of people to say yes. Yeah, I love this. And this, this
kind of transitions us into the second part of this conversation beautifully,
which is how do you sell this offer? And I love that you talk about
relationships because that's why I love social media. For
me, most of the time I spend on social media is actually relationship
building. It's not content creation. I would much
rather have a direct message conversation with through social
media than create content. That's how I've been able to build my
business. It's the, it's the hidden, I call it the dark social strategy.
Right. So it's like everything that's behind the scenes behind the closed doors,
so to speak, the private conversations that have built my business.
Not necessarily what everyone else sees publicly. So I want to talk
about this idea of relationship based marketing. How do you define it? Like, what is,
what is the structure of this in your experience? First of all,
credit where credit's due. I learned what, I've learned about this from Michelle
Warner. Even the term relationship marketing comes from her. And so if
anybody wants to go deep in this, she's the person to go
to. But I have been paying attention to
her and help and teaching this to my clients for a number of years. And
essentially, as Michelle puts it, all marketing is on a spectrum between
traffic and relationships. And the
extreme end of relationship marketing is a one to one
referral. It's somebody saying, you should work with this person, you know, and it comes
out of the blue and it's the best. Right? Those are amazing, but
they're not very controllable. You don't know when that's going to happen.
And you know, it's sort of hard to build a business on that. On the
other end of the extreme end of traffic marketing is like the three
times a day Banana Republic emails you get, you know, where it's like, it doesn't,
like, doesn't hurt you to get them. You're not offended by them, you sort
of expect it. But also it's like, you know, I don't need those
things. I just like skim over them unless I need a new shirt.
And then I'm like, is there a sale? You know, that's kind of how it
functions, right? It's very, it's very transactional, right? Yeah.
So on, you know, looking at that spectrum, there's a,
there's every. And again, I'm, I'm basically quoting
Michelle here. Everything fits on that spectrum somewhere. And
so it's not that you have. To be all the way at one end of
it either. So the closer you get to that end,
the deeper the connection you have with a person
with the prospect at the outset, essentially, like when you
first meet them. So, for example, this format of having a
podcast with you, if people are listening to this and they're like, wow.
Jessica, sounds super interesting. I definitely need to work on my business model and my
offer. I want to change my foundations. I'm going to go
call her, you know, I'm going to go to her site and get, you know,
get on a call. This is a relationship marketing
tactic because we're talking for however many minutes, you know,
like pushing an hour probably at some point. And people can get a very
deep. Sense of who I am and how. I think and, and my influences
and all that other stuff. In that amount of time, I'm not talking to them
directly, so it's not at the end of that spectrum.
But you have invited me on your podcast, therefore there's a trust transfer
between you and me where you say, jessica's great, you should listen to her,
you know, which you literally said at the beginning of the, of this thing.
And, and then your people are like, wow, you know, Andrea says I should. Listen
to Jessica, so therefore I'm going to listen. And then here they are listening and.
So they're learning who I am. Right. So that's somewhere towards
the relationship end of the spectrum. There are things like doing
talks and presentations live online.
You know, especially the more
exclusive the invitation to speak, the more there's
a trust transfer for the people in the room and the
more open they're going to be to listening to you all the way through and
hearing who you are. So if somebody says, hey, I have a mastermind group,
would you come in and present on your. Whatever your idea is?
That's an amazing opportunity to have those kinds of connections.
So when we say relationship marketing, it. Doesn'T necessarily mean one to one networking, although
that is certainly included. And a lot of the networking working you're doing is not
with the people who are going to be your clients, but the people who are
going to be your hosts. So it's reaching out to people, finding people who are
going to be the ideal collaborative partners. So when you came
to the autonomous creative conference and you spoke there, you know, that's
me introducing you to my. Audience, you introducing me to your audience.
And saying, like, look, these, these are. People worth listening to.
And that's the purpose of a conference like that. Beyond the actual
content, the learning that people get out of it. It's that sense of like, look,
we, we endorse this. You know, this is, you know, if you.
Because there's so much garbage out there. Trying to find trusted voices
is, is tricky. So if you find somebody you really trust and you like,
you're going to look at who they point you to because you don't want to
just go out. Like, it's scary to just go onto Instagram and like, click on
influencers, you know, that's gonna get you in for some very dark places very
quickly. Yeah, I don't, I don't necessarily recommend
that, but I do love this idea of the
trust transfer, specifically because it is a high
level of trust to have someone in this space.
Your example of this podcast is a great one. I get an email at least
a day, someone asking to be on the podcast. And a lot of it
is copy and paste random pitches from people who
don't even know who I am or have listened to the show. And
so it's an instant no for me. Right. But when you say, hey, can I
be on the podcast? Like, absolutely. I can't believe I actually haven't talked to you
yet on the podcast because I know you and there's inherent trust there.
And now I can bring that to my community because that's really important to me
as a creator of the podcast. So I love that you have brought that
up. But for the people who are listening, who want to know how to start
these relationships, what are some of the. The guidelines that you
give your clients as they, you know, they have their offer create,
and they're starting to put out to the world. How do they find their people?
I mean, it absolutely depends on what the offer is. You know, I
have a client who creates custom pieces of
artwork that are lighted boxes. So it's like she creates artwork for
the face of it and then it's lit. And so she does this for commercial
spaces and also sort of for families for their, you
know, for the homes and stuff like that. So the people she's looking to connect
with are designers. You know, they're interior designers. They are
developers for buildings and things like that.
They're various kinds of professionals in the design world. So she
joined Women in design, whatever, and she goes to these different
things. She's, you know, has handouts and cards and stuff and
has coffee dates with people who are in that world and presents her work in
that kind of way that's kind of obvious, right? Like, it's,
that's just plain straight up networking. Another thing I've talked to her about. Though,
specifically is like, well, what if. You hosted an event where you have
your work up on the wall and then you're inviting these people to it?
So there's another way to like, create some excitement about what you're doing and.
Maybe you're collaborating with other people who. Do work
that's aimed at these kinds of designers who design big commercial spaces and things like
that. It's somebody who does furniture and somebody who does whatever. And like, you're all
helping share those audiences. So then those other service providers
are your collaboration partners. I have another client who
is a poetry coach. She's a poet and a Poetry coach. And so she, when
she is looking for access, like she does book
tour stuff and when she's going to poetry. Centers around the country to do readings.
And things, she'll do sometimes a workshop. Cause her specialty is
publishing, like how to create a publishable manuscript as a poet.
And so she's working, she's looking for people who are like, in that
MFA post MFA range, you know, who are
very serious and experienced. Not people who are like, I think I want to write
some poetry, but like people who are like in that other category. She can get
those through that, those connections. Right. And so when she
does a lecture or talk, when she does a workshop, she's then
gathering people to do, to come to like, you know, she does low
paid workshops on these topics. And that can then lead to poetry clients.
So in both cases what they're doing is they're looking for, and I gave those
examples because they're super different in terms of the way you think about it.
But you're looking for other people who work with
the same population that you work with, but they're doing it
differently. They serve different needs.
So a poetry center serves the needs of
poets doing workshops to write poetry, which she's not doing,
and bringing like poetry to an
audience. Like people who are appreciation appreciators of poetry. She doesn't do
that either. So they're aggregators of
attention. Where she comes in is like, let's talk about publication.
Let's talk about the thing that you don't learn in your MFA and how to
actually put this together in something that you can put in front of an editor.
That's a vast need for this audience. And she
fits right in. And they're like, yes, please, let's have that. You know, I
have another client who is a web designer and he specializes
in churches and religiously aligned
nonprofits in a certain kind of segment. Right.
So he's looking for other service providers
in that area. He's going to conferences for like pastors,
he's doing, you know, other kinds of stuff where like those people are going to
be together. So there's strategic thinking that goes into this
and thinking like, who are the people who
aggregate attention of your ideal clients
but are not competitive because you're not going to go in. I'm not going to
go into a space with another creative coach. And
we'll talk to people about our. Creative coach, you know, doing business coaching. For
creatives because it's dividing attention. Although I actually have talked about
doing that just for fun and talk about the, the distinction between our approaches.
But, you know, in general, you're not going to do that, right? You're not. It's
going to be a hard pitch, especially if you haven't met the person before they
don't know you, and you're like, hey, can I come to your community? They're like,
no, you're poaching people. But if I go to your community,
Andrea, like, I do something you don't do, and you do something I
don't do. And so there's a really great matchup there
in terms of who we serve and how we
serve them. So thinking about that, and then basically,
people feel like they're, you know, it. Comes down to being a little bold.
And, like, going out and meeting those people. And that's where
the social media stuff comes in. And relationship building, especially
the relationship building via social media, because you can be, you know, building
connections with people based on your admiration for
their work and, like, you know, how your interests over, you know,
overlap. It's not going to happen by putting a heart on something or
like, you know, a clap emoji. It's going to happen by
thoughtfully writing people what you think about their
work and, you know, how it's affected you and how you're using it with your
clients and those kinds of things. You know, that's how you're going to make those
connections. I love this so much. This is
basically before anyone works with me, go work with Jessica first, then
come to me, because this is the. Once you work with me, go work with
Andrea. Well, this is it, right? This is the
foundational concepts needed in order to build a
sustainable business model. Not, you know, not the, the
0.01% example that we're, you
know, sometimes trying to aim for, but like the actual practical way
to build a business that supports your life and supports your creative hob. Love this.
One of the things that you mentioned, though, is that it kind of requires
you to be bold to put yourself out there. And I am
an introvert. It's part of the reason why I like social media
and why I work at home alone, by myself,
besides talking occasionally to people on the podcast,
because I am a very shy person, especially in person
scenarios, I can fake it for a while,
but only for a short while. And so what do you. What do you experience
or what do you recommend to your clients who are on the
shire or introverted side of things? You mean all of them? Okay,
good. I'm not alone. I just, I get like, Honestly, Jessica, I
start sweating so bad that when I go to conferences, I
intentionally schedule my day so that I can take a shower halfway through the day
because I, like, I get so nervous that it's.
It's not great, it's not cute at all. So. Yeah, help. Yeah.
Well, I mean, honestly, I feel like for the vast majority of people who are
listening, I'm sure their businesses are online. The other people they're
talking to, their businesses are also online. The idea that you're going to meet these
people in person anytime soon is very. It's a
very slim chance. Right. So the idea of having to, like, face people
in person and do a live thing. Yes. If there is an
opportunity like any. You'Re open to it in your town. To go
to, well, targeted networking events that, you know,
are your target audience. You know, gin yourself up and go
like, you should go. But a lot of this stuff happens
asynchronously, you know, and it, and it is really
like the first steps. And, and I'm
gonna point to Michelle again, you know, because she has this whole thing of thank
you notes, you know, writing people thank you notes and. Just do it
all the time. Right. People think you notice all the time. But make sure that
they have content to them that they're not just like, hey, I needed to hear
that today. What did you need to hear? What did you do with it? How
did it affect you? What are you doing? You know, how is it moving forward
in your life? Those kinds of things. If you, if you're willing to put a
little effort into that, people will notice. If you've ever gotten a note
like that, you remember it, you know, like, I know people who
have thoughtfully responded to stuff through email,
you know, on social media, they've said, wow, this really was so
great. And I did this and I learned that. And, you know, I may not
work with them in the future, but I certainly have. I'm very well disposed
toward them. You know, I will answer them. And so
thinking about it in terms of everything that you're, like when you're connecting
with an ideal collaboration person, the whole
point is it's ideal both ways. You will help them and they will help
you. And so if you need to make a list of all the ways that
you will help them and help their. Audience and don't tell them all these. Ways,
but just know it, you know, like, don't just go like, and I. Could do
this for you and this. And this and this. That's a overwhelming. But like, if
you can see how what you do
helps Their audience that's. Going to give you the
confidence to. Reach out to them or give you. More of the confidence you need
to. Reach out to them. Yeah. I don't claim this is
easy. It's hard, you know, but what you're going for is
friends. You know, you're going for people who you're going to have long term
relationships with, who you're going to, you know, once you sort of build this up
and they can introduce you to other. People who you should know. And you know,
having these kinds of. I think even for introverts, I mean. Everybody wants friends, right?
Everybody wants to have a sense that they belong somewhere, that there's like a network.
A lot of people who come to me feeling very, very alone,
you know, like, this is a very lonely thing to do sometimes. And they don't
know. They don't have anybody to talk to and they don't know who to ask.
If you go into this thinking, like. I need to make some biz besties. Like,
I need to make some friends who I can talk to about this. That's all
I want right now. You will still get good results from. That eventually
in terms of your business. You know, if you are
thinking like this person, their approach just like
works for me. Like, I love how they talk. I want,
I want to be friends with that person. Like, think about it that way and
maybe that helps. Yeah. Oh, this is so
beautiful. I do think there is something about thinking about
it as an actual relationship versus transactional
that can be very empowering when you're going into these conversations. Because if
you go into it thinking, you know,
what can they give me, you know, what can I get out of it? It
makes it very challenging to even start the conversation versus what you
said, which is, I know the ways I can support this person, but I
think first and foremost it's like, okay, we're human, so like, let's just
act like a human. This is why I will, every.
Anytime I do this, I always say I'm going to be
live in person at these events. But if you hug me and I'm
sweaty, I will kindly ask you not to point it out. Because I know,
I know, okay? And that's my human
moment. And now we can move past it. And I think that that's. There's just
something there too, to just being a human being,
which I love. But I'll also say this too, in my personal experience
is why I also like social media. Because it's a signal
that I'm available for this type of relationship.
And I find it challenging to do that outside of the
predefined spaces. And that's why I like social media, that's why I like
conferences and events. Because it's, it. My brain just
goes, aha, this is what we're here for. And I made my friends
the same way. Y', all, like, every single one of my friends, they claimed me.
I was just there in the space that we just, you know, I just showed
up to book club and they were like, you are friend now. And I'm like,
okay, yes, this is what I came here for. And so if you're shy like
me and you have the same thing, sometimes just showing up in this
space is a really good first step. And a, And a friendly
extrovert may just claim you.
Yes. And being willing to be claimed, you know, like when somebody says something to
you, you don't just go, oh yeah, you know, like actually answer and
engage in this conversation. You don't necessarily have to be the one to
initiate it. But yeah, I mean, again, it's not,
it's not easy, but it's a totally different kind of hard from
trying to show up on Instagram five days a week,
you know, or figure out something to say to all of the
random people who follow you. You don't really know. Like you're trying to present something
for everybody all at the same time. You know, it's
all, it feels like. It'S all visible all the time. You know, we get
all kinds of stories in our head about all of that stuff and it's just
a lot of work. Right? It's just like so much time.
So once you get going with this, then you have
relationships and they can snowball to a certain extent. You
know, you can meet other people through them and so on. So that's fantastic.
But it's never not work, you know, it's. It is something. And
knowing that when I say be friends with people, like, sure, you can make your
like actual best friend this way for sure. But that's not really the
goal you're going for. You're going for people who you're going to be able to
share various parts of your business journey with,
maybe have. Questions for them, get their advice, maybe. You know, like
somebody I've met a couple years ago who we now meet
every two weeks for like a two person mastermind, you know, like,
that was pretty random. She reached out to me to see whether I wanted to
host her in my community and I said, sure, it's a good match. And
now we do this, you know, and she's great, but it's still within that container
of business related stuff. We were, you know, we meet during business
hours, we talk about our, what's going on in our businesses.
So it also doesn't have to be like all consuming, you know, because people can
be like, oh, I have enough friends. Ah, who says that? I don't know. But
anyway, you know, you know, I feel socially
like tapped out. Does not have to be that. That's not what we're talking about.
It really is about finding common interests and having people to talk to about very
specific kinds of things. And again, like, choose your
work. What kind of work are you into? You know, just, you're gonna have to
do something. So what do you want it to look like? Yeah, I love that.
Okay, last question is one of my nosier ones, but I'm
curious, what's your favorite type of relationship
marketing? I,
I love doing this. I love doing podcast interviews.
It's such an opportunity to, you know, go deep with somebody
who is there to be interested. So that's awesome. You know,
and I also really like, I actually
like speaking in person. I don't do it very often,
but I'm not an extrovert, but I'm an ambivert. And so I enjoy
being like I. And I'm also a bit of a ham. So I like being
up on stage and like getting people to laugh and you know, doing that kind
of stuff. I am not a professional speaker in the sense of
like going or, you know, trying to set all that stuff up. I've actually not
been doing very much in the last few years, but I do enjoy it. It's
really fun. And then, then people have this opportunity to come and talk to you
afterwards and they've had this cool experience of you and,
you know, have questions and stuff. So that's kind of fun too. Oh, I
love that. Okay, good to know. Good to know. So for the people who are
listening, who are like, I need more desk in my life, you have a monthly
free coaching call that you do. Can you tell us about that and any, anything
else that the people need to hear that you're working on? Sure, yeah.
So, yes, I host a monthly call. Called Simplify to
Amplify Roundtable, AKA Star. Which
is just an open coaching call where I can answer questions about
things like business models and offers and how do I do this and where am
I going to find these mythical people who will pay me money and so, you
know, all that kind of stuff and you can find
that@jessicaable.com Starr S T A R
and that's just, you know, it's just a, like you can pre submit a question.
I usually get through a good chunk of them. If you're there live,
I invite you, if you want to, to speak to me live
when I'm answering the question. So that's really fun. The other thing is I'm working
on, I've actually, I've done this but I haven't quite recorded it and set everything
up. But I hope by the time this. Goes live I will have this available
which is a training on using your capacity as
we talked about before, to align your
pricing and your and your offer and like what that means about
what kind of offer you're going to design. How do you think that through?
Like literally talking about the math I was talking about. I will show that.
And so that's something I hope to. Have recorded and ready and it will. Be
at the top of my homepage. If it is there by when
we. Go live then fantastic. If not, it'll be there soon. Awesome.
Yes. Well you can check those links out in the show notes onlinedrea.com
3 Jessica, thanks again for
being on the show. This is great. Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful Marketing
Podcast. If you liked this episode, come on into the Mindful
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