Leah Gervais: Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the show. I hope that your new year is off to a good start and that you are chasing after your goals, feeling lots of momentum and just feeling really good about the new year overall today. I wanted to talk to you guys about some of the most common marketing tips and tricks I’ve heard over the years that I don’t agree with that a all or that I just honestly think are bad advice. 

I’ve just kind of been reflecting on this, you know, this episode’s kind of a long time coming because so often, uh, clients join our programs, um, and work, work out to, or reach out to work with us because they have not had success selling the things that they are selling, the way that they doing it. And a lot of times they’ve followed some conventional marketing advice or advice from other gurus, and it doesn’t seem to be moving the needle.

Uh, now I believe that there is a reason for those things and a reason for why, um, some of this advice is out there and why I don’t think it’s that great. So, um, this is kind of like for you, if you are feeling frustrated and also just a, on my journey in online business, this is my gosh fifth year. Um, you know, having my own and I’ve read so much marketing advice over the years, I’ve really become a marketing expert, um, kind of on accident just by having to figure it out on my own and having to navigate through so much advice that really didn’t work and really find what did and test different things. So I really feel like this is something I can talk about because I’m now on sort of the other side of all of this advice. I’ve had a seven figure year last year.

And so I feel like I can honestly say that some of this advice, you know, you don’t need to do it and, and not all of it is terrible advice. Like it’s not all going to fail you every time, but a lot of it’s unnecessary or just misguided and really confusing about marketing, which is really just a very simple concept. It’s getting your product, your service in front of people whose problem it will solve and doing it well. 

You can test different ways to do that. You can get creative, you obviously wanna think outside of the box and, and really be able to, into that problem. Um, but it doesn’t really need to get much more complicated than that. And I think that that’s where a lot of this goes wrong. So this is for you, if you are wanting to improve your marketing, or if you’re frustrated with marketing, or if you just wanna sort of weed out some of the, I guess I would say like trends that online business tends to have.

And I, they really bother me because I feel like they’re, they’re bad marketing tactics. And what I mean by that is you’ll be pressured into a marketing trend like TikTok or like clubhouse, or like webinars more on this later because you get so much thrown your way about how that is the hot thing right now. That’s the only way to find clients right now. That’s where everything is happening. That’s how you’ll make a lot of money. And so not only is it bad marketing that you’re being pressured into this, it also gives you a lot of FOMO and a lot of stress and just dilutes the true meaning of marketing, which is just simply solving a problem. So I wanted to share my 2 cents on a little bit more of this in hopes that it brings you clarity gets you out of shiny object syndrome, and of course helps your sales go up.

And if you’re interested in more of our marketing process, be sure to download our ebook million dollar marketing. It is literally $67. um, my group coaching start at $3,000. So this is a very, very, very, very, very, very well priced item. Considering how much information is in it. I go through our entire first seven figure year and break down all the different marketing strategies. We personally use how we use them, how I think about them, why they work, and you can just see, and inside look at all of this. You can replicate it for yourself. You can understand the mindset behind them, so you can see how you can apply that mindset to your own business. It is truly gold. I honestly have not seen anything in the marketing arena that is this informative for this amount of money, especially that is this actionable.

Um, and that you really can news. It’s not just sort of like generic advice. It’s stuff that you can walk away with and apply to your business right now. So you can head to my website, Leah jve.com and go to the menu. You’ll see where it says marketing ebook right at the top. And you can download that immediately. I highly recommend you do so if you find this, uh, episode useful, cause it’s only going to go deeper into this type of, um, information. Okay. Okay. So let’s go through, I have five, uh, marketing, common marketing tips that I think are total garbage and I’m just gonna go through them and explain why. So the first one is something that really kind of did a number on me early in my, in my journey. Um, and this is back when I was a blogger. So for those of you that know my story, I started it with the, of being a blog.

I started my business, uh, as a blogger and I just thought that that’s kind of what it would turn into. I had no idea it would become something that would allow me to coach people that I would start selling services. I didn’t know it would become my full-time job. I really, it just started a blog. 

One of the things that stressed me out the most during that time, and I wanna elaborate on why I think it’s such garbage advice is, is, um, the advice that I saw from a lot of people that said, if you’re going to be a successful blogger, you need to have fresh new content very frequently. You know, you don’t want people going to your blog and not seeing an update in X amount of time because you haven’t blog frequently enough. So there is some validity you to this, the, the, the good part of this tip is the power of consistency and the importance of showing up so that people feel like they can rely on you.

And so that people feel like they can keep in touch with you basically. Now, why do I kind of bash this advice? Well, a few reasons. One, I think that, well, let me, let me, let me approach this from a different way. Okay. So I, I think that the good part of this advice is consistency. I think that the days of blogging needing to happen every day to be successful are over because of social media right now, that kind of pressures on social media. That’s where people want to see more of you. 

That’s where people expect to see you on a more regular basis, et cetera. Um, and that’s where people expect to see more of that consistency. Now, if you’re purely an Instagramer, I do think there’s something to be said for having to post on Instagram frequently. Like if you wanna apply this advice to a more UpToDate platform in order to keep your audience interested in, in order to keep your income coming, because if Instagram is your income, if you’re working with sponsored brands, then your income is based on how often you post, because each post you can’t partner, usually with more than one brand in a post.

So every post is something closer to monetization. So in that case, I do think that there is some validity to this concept of being consistent above all else, or your marketing won’t work. Because if your content is all that is making you money, then yes, you need to post regularly where I think this advice is bad is into kind of more, just up to date senses, which is first the blogging thing specifically. 

So blogging, I don’t think blogging’s dead by any stretch of the imagination, but I think for most businesses, you’re not all only, and I don’t recommend you only make money from a post on a blog, or even from a post on an Instagram. You wanna be making money from products or services that you own when you are only making money, promoting other brands, you are still contributing to their bottom line more than yours.

And you’re not really promoting something that you get 100% of the profit from. So, you know, even if this kind of post equals money system or income stream is real for you, I don’t recommend that it be the only one in that case, if you’re selling your own products or services, then you probably care more about the visibility to those products and services, then just creating more and more and more or content without putting more of your effort toward more views in that case, which is the case for probably everyone listening to this, like literally, unless you are a specific Instagram influencer that only makes money with brand partnerships. And even then I would rethink that business model and have something that is your own. Then what are blog posts really going to be good for? 

The best value you’re going to get out of them is if they are an easy Google searchable blog post, and to make a blog post very easy to search on Google, you need to have it SEO optimized, and to make it SEO optimized, you’re going to have to have a lot of work and effort put into it. It should be long. It should be meaty. It should have key word. It should have images. It should have links. It should be really optimized for Google to search on it in that case. And again, this is for most of you listening, because if you’re planning on selling anything that is your own product or service, you want to care more about the quality of your posts than the quantity, because you are going to be more concerned with people, new people, finding those posts. 

Then you’re going to be concerned with people, checking your website every day to see if there’s something new there’s other ways you can deliver new content and new information to, uh, your audience like you’re E like sending emails or like posting on social media or still posting a blog post, but doing it like once a week instead of every day, you know, not putting that pressure on yourself.

So if you have a few very good SEO optimized blog posts, you’re going to get traffic to that every day. But if you’re so worried about having a new blog post, every single, you don’t have time to make them long and SEO optimize. And then you’re basically just making content for a very, very small audience, the audience that already knows you, and you’re not actually taking the time to get seen by a new audience. So for you online business owners out there listening to this, which I’m sure most of you are, remember that when it comes to blog posts or content on your website, and honestly, I would say even social media, but that’s kind of a different conversation with content on your website. You wanna have it searchable. So you want to have higher quality, higher ranked SEO content than to just have a ton of blog posts that no one’s going to find anyway, all right, this second tip is probably the most controversial of this list.

This is something that every marketing guru will tell you is important. And honestly, a lot of marketing people, I look up to say, this is important, and that is that your client ideal client avatar is king. Um, you know, any E course you take about creating a course or writing a book or creating a program or starting a blog or whatever is going to have you start with who your ideal client is. Now. It’s not that I don’t think that this work is helpful, but I think way too much pressure is placed on it. And I’ll tell you why so many different businesses have similar ideal clients, right? Maybe you’re a health coach. And even if you’re specific with your health coaching niche, like maybe you are a health coach for brides that are getting in shape for their wedding, or maybe you’re a health coach coach for, uh, new moms that have just given birth.

And they are trying to get back in shape postpartum, or maybe you’re a health coach for people that subscribe to the keto diet, which I know nothing about. So I don’t even know if it’s called a diet, but my point is, even if you’re specific within your health coaching niche, you still are probably not the only health coach that does this. You can take my business. For example, we know who we help we up entrepreneurs that are in service-based online businesses that wanna grow their income through their mindset and through marketing that’s relatively specific. And yet I know that there are literally tens of thousands of other people on the internet that have a similar di uh, a similar, um, uh, you know, ideal client avatar that have a similar demographic, what actually sets me apart. And what do I think is stronger than my ideal client avatar.

It’s me. It’s my story. It’s my journey. It’s my why. It’s what I do with my business. It’s how I do it. And that is where I put a lot more of my marketing focus and a lot more of my energy than obsessing over who I think is watching my Instagram stories or reading my emails, because there’s only so much I can do to narrow that down and kind of fight the competition. That’s a little more aggressive than I like it to be, but fight the competition against my niche. 

The only kind of way I can stand out against other people that have a, the same demographic as I do is by doubling down on myself and my story and my unique brand and why I created it. And who resonates with my story. So focus a bit less paradoxically on your customer and focus more on you and your why and your journey and your brand story and all of that, because that is really how your clients are going to be able to raise their hand and say, I resonate with that person.

It is a lot more powerful. Let’s take the health coaching example. Let’s say someone says I’m a health coach for new moms. And even if they’re more specific than that, if they say they’re a health coach for moms that wanna feel, uh, sexy and healthy again, after pregnancy and in their postpartum bodies. And I do this through a mix of cardio training and, um, uh, uh, a key keto diet. Again, I’m just making that up. That’s pretty specific. That’s pretty specific. And maybe a new mom would be like, okay, I love cardio. And I’m open to the keto diet and you know, I’m a new mom’s. So this person sounds like the right health coach for me, but more powerfully is the health coach. That’s going to come out and say, I’m a health coach that works with new moms and does so through cardio and the keto diet, because I am a mom of four, and I know what it feels like to not feel like your self postpartum.

And I know how once I started feeling healthy and sexy and confident, again, it made my marriage stronger and it made me a better mom. And it made me more excited about going back to work. And it actually made me feel more outgoing and made me make more mom, friends. And I fell in love with the keto diet because it specifically helped my hormones. I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I’m just wing this. 

The cardio was just the release I needed from the, um, kind of experience that I had being with my family, where I felt like I was kind of indoors all day, especially after the postpartum recovery phase where you’re sitting down a lot, recovery really just helped me feel that kind of ignite that I needed. Now, if a new mom is listening to that story and that why, and the personal touch that the person has, that is what’s going to make them sign up, pull out their credit card and be, oh my gosh, I see her with those four kids.

So enthused, so happy, you know, feeling really energetic, feeling, really confident her body looks great. She feels happy. She feels healthy. That’s what matters. And that’s what I want. I want that, that is what’s really going to make all the difference. So I encourage you to let go. I mean, I’ve seen, so when people get so obsessive with this ideal client avatar that they’re like, you need to have the name of the person, the partner of the person, the age, the town, they live in, what makes them excited, you know, at all points of their life. And again, these things can be helpful, but they are not going to make or break or move the needle as much as your particular brand and why. So I think that that is much better advice. I personally never do. Ideal client avatar work. That’s just my personal experience.

I found it to be a waste of time. You have to do what works for you, but I hope that this perspective resonates with you. If you’re feeling like it’s just not your favorite thing to do. Okay. Somewhat similar to that. My third marketing tip that I’m not a fan of is that your business isn’t about you. So I think that a lot of old school, um, marketing talks about how your marketing needs to be about your ideal client and your, your messaging needs to be about how you can help them, how this will change their life, um, how this is unique to them. 

You’re really just talking about them, them, them, them, them, and because of social media. I do not think that’s the case anymore. I don’t think that people wanna just buy from a brand, a faceless image, no matter how much they talk about it, being beneficial for them, they wanna buy from a name they wanna buy from a story they wanna relate to that person wanna relate to the brand story.

And I don’t think that this is any secret anymore. You know, even brands like Nike are talking about how important it is to use storytelling. And you’ll start to be able to see this. If you don’t notice it already. Now, when you see commercials, storytelling is a much bigger part of most commercials nowadays, even in big corporations than it ever has been before. And I believe that that’s because of the rise of social media and the transparency behind brands, no one cares about your logo anymore. 

No one cares about how cool your brand name is. Have your brand name, be your name, have your logo, be your face. They wanna know you, they wanna connect with you. They wanna know what is behind the brand, because that’s what they’re giving their money to. And most importantly, that’s who they’re trusting to solve their problems. So you, your business is about you. Um, you know, you wanna help your customers and you wanna have an impact in their life. And that’s really important, but you have to be able to articulate why they should trust you to do so. And you have to articulate that frequently and confidently. And honestly, so don’t forget to factor yourself into that and it really will help you stand out. So, so, so much,

Okay. Third, I’m sorry. Fourth marketing tip is that your Instagram feed grid should look a certain way. Honestly, I could do a whole episode about bad Instagram advice in general, but at the end of the day, I mean, this is I guess, a good time to pause, sort of like the first tip where it, it, it’s not inherently bad advice. It’s just not that good of advice because it doesn’t make any consideration your income goal. 

I think a lot of business owners are trying to use Instagram to get visible, to try to find new clients, to try to make sales, to try to honestly just like grow their business and run their business. And they don’t necessarily need to do all these Instagram tips and tricks in order to do that because that’s not really the bottom line of what they’re using Instagram for.

So when would a perfect Instagram grid matter? It might, it might matter if you are a content creator influencer that only makes money from your Instagram feed. And that relies on the vanity metrics of Instagram, like your followers and impressions in order to survive. Like if that is your business model and your income stream, even then, I’m not completely sold that your grid matters at all, because there’s so many Instagram influencers out there that are as profitable and popular and, you know, have as good a businesses as they do because their Instagram feed is so organic and so natural. And you can tell that they are still using Instagram in the way that it was designed to be used, which was instantaneously. They’re taking pictures of their day to day life and uploading them. One that comes to mind is yoga girl. Um, I don’t think that she plans her grit at all.

Uh, and I think she has really always just used Instagram in that authentic way. And it shows, and she has such a huge following and a devoted following because they feel connected to her. A colored grid. Doesn’t do that for anyone. So a colored grid matters if people are specifically looking at your feed for a certain aesthetic, and that becomes why they follow you. And so, unless that is your business plan and model, you don’t need to do it. So even if you are a specifically an influencer and you only make money from your post, I still don’t think you need to have the grid because most people aren’t looking at your profile, they’re looking at your individual post in their newsfeed. They’re also nowadays more looking at your stories and they’re looking at the content within it, not so much how it looks as a whole.

So I think that this, and a lot of other Instagram advice like how you should have this many followers, or you should have this, um, filter, or you should use this preset, or, um, you know, all this kind of just superficial advice leads to a lot of stress and time consuming, um, work on Instagram. When for most of us, most of us that sell things that are our own products and, or serve. 

We don’t even need to care that much about Instagram for its presets, its Photoshop, its filters. And honestly, even our followers like, yes, of course it’s helpful to have a bigger audience to broadcast to, but it isn’t really a good indicator of how many people will buy from you because we need to have those people actually wanting your product or service. So it could be really small demographic. Um, if you’re making your income just based off your follower number, again, that’s slightly different, but for most of us followers are about quality, not about quantity.

So the design of your grid and how many people follow from a specific photo does not matter. You really just wanna focus more on the content that you create being, um, a good representation of your brand and business. And of course like we’ve talked about through this whole thing that you’re using Instagram to get in front of your ideal client and show them how you can solve their problem. That’s what business is about. Okay. The final, uh, thing I wanna touch on that, I think that this really made me mad. A client asked me about this

Recently the marketing advice that webinars are dead and I’m really not attached here to webinars. I have heard this about so many different marketing strategies, so many different times, whether it’s that webinars are dead or Snapchat’s dead or Facebook said, or Instagram’s dead or email or, um, blogging is dead or whatever, right? We all hear this. We all see things come in and out of popularity, we all see people get more excited about a new platform and we all see people hype up and even sell strategies for how to use specific platforms or how to use specific strategies. Like we saw everyone sell, sell about how to use clubhouse or sell how to use TikTok. And it’s not that I don’t think that these things have their time in place. I do think that there are opportunities that come when something new blows up, like there was definitely an opportunity with TikTok.

I still think there’s an opportunity with TikTok. You can get a lot of organic reach on TikTok, um, which is a lot harder to get out on platforms like Instagram, where they are still, it’s just hard to grow and get new followers on Instagram. Um, you know, clubhouse kind of had that moment, but at the end of the day, my issue with this advice and, and really what you know, let’s take this webinar example because that’s what really made me wanna, um, to mention this is that it’s, again, people missing the point of marketing marketing is done through getting in front of your audience and telling them how you can solve their problem. That’s it. So whether you do that via a live event in a room, whether you do that knocking door to door as a salesperson, whether you do that on a TV commercial, you know, these sort of previously done strategies, or whether you do that during a webinar, I, I don’t know of any better way than getting in front of your ideal audience and showing them that you can solve their problem.

So don’t ask yourself what platform is the most popular. Don’t ask yourself, what’s the flavor of the week. Don’t ask yourself. What people are saying is in right now, ask yourself, where is my audience? Where and how can I effectively show them that I can solve their problem? And where am I going to be able to do it consistently? That’s what matters. That’s what’s going to sell, you know, don’t bury your head in the sand about what people are or aren’t doing, but so long as whatever strategy you’re using can answer those questions and, and check in. You’re going to make money. You’re going to make sales. And if you’re not making sales, then you’re probably just not getting your, you know, something along those very simple parameters isn’t adding up. You might not be in front of the right audience. You might not be expressing how clearly you can solve the problem.

Your problem might not be urgent enough for them to wanna pay, to have solved, or you might not be doing it can consistently, but I highly doubt that it’s because your, your audience is no longer on TikTok or email is dead or webinars are dead. I don’t believe any of that. I think that it’s just because they might not be the right vehicle to get you to where you need to go. So all of these really can be summed up with getting back to the clarity around marketing. And we really cover this in depth, both in my ebook million dollar marketing and really even more so in service based sales, which is our sales training program. 

It is a self-study program, but you also have a sales strategy call with us once, once you’re in the program. So it’s an incredible program. I honestly think it’s some of the best stuff I’ve ever created and why I’m obsessed with it is because when you understand sales from this simple standpoint, and when you know how to troubleshoot things, you become so much more powerful and so much less vulnerable because you’re not relying on the flavor of the week marketing, and you’re not relying on specific platforms and you can make sales anywhere.

I have made very big sales from people that I’ve met at bars on airplanes, um, that I, I knew in high school. And hadn’t talked to since, um, you know, through random friends of friends, through mess through DM’s, through Instagram, through lives, um, through YouTube videos, through podcasts, through guests, podcasting through guest blogging, it has not ever been about me having the single best strategy. 

It’s been about me, very deeply understanding the core principles of marketing, understanding how to solve problems, understanding what I’m good at and getting in front of the audience that needs to see it. And when you understand this, you transcend platforms, you transcend strategies, your business becomes so much more limitless. And I want that for you. I don’t want you to feel like you need to get caught up in the noise of what’s the most popular something being out of style.

You are not feeling ahead of the times. One of my clients, she came to me and said that this marketing agency told her webinars were out eight months ago. Now you need to do this specific funnel. You know, why didn’t she know that? And it’s like, oh my God, what bubble are you living in? Where everyone needs to be buzzing to this same strategy, or they’re doing it wrong because everyone else is in that same strategy. That’s like, that’s where these bubbles form. And they pop that’s where we get into dangerous pyramid situations, because everyone is so focused on where they think they should be because they think everyone else is there. And they forget the core of what they’re doing, which is solving problems and getting in front of the people whose problems they can solve and selling to them. And that should not be reliant on what people are telling you is, or isn’t popular right now.

So I hope that you guys found this helpful. I hope it allowed you to release maybe some pressure that you have around specific platforms or strategies or feeling like you have to have certain things figured out, um, and really helps you get back to the core of what it is that you do and how you can market that way. And if you want more support around here, if you wanna be coached by us, if you really wanna understand the fundamentals of your business so that you can stop stressing about so many, uh, you know, just extra layers of stress that come with this advice, then I highly recommend you either download our ebook million dollar marketing available on our website for six to $7 and or join service based sales. 

If you join service based sales, I’d be happy to send you this ebook for free. So go ahead and give yourself the gift of looking in to see which one would be more for you and your business so that you don’t have to be, excuse me, listening to this advice and getting stressed out about what you are or implementing. And you can really get back to what you wanna be doing, which is running your business and get to the fun part of it, which is making money. All right, visionaries. I hope this was helpful. I’ll talk to you soon.

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