Intuition: the anti bro marketing strategy

Hey friends, welcome to episode number 17 of entrepreneurial Outlaws. This week's episode, we are taking intuitive strategy to the next level. I'm going to be sharing with you how to use the four phases we touched on last week. Listen, create, connect, and serve. We're going to be looking at how to use those in your marketing. How do we take all of the strategies and tactics that we already know? Because trust me, we already know enough. How do we take those work our way through them, decide what to hold on to, and then build scale, grow, whatever it is that you are doing right now, how do we grow, build or scale a business from an intuitive place? How do we tap into our intuition? What does that really look like? Because if you're anything like me, the idea of tapping into your intuition may seem a little vague.

(01:03):

And for the longest time I felt like I was always doing it wrong. I felt like I was doing possible development wrong. And in fact, I had coaches who told me that I was, as I spent the last year really tapping into my intuition. I noticed that there were certain elements of marketing that I just couldn't get on with. There were certain techniques or tactics that just were never going to work for me. Moving forward. I also found that certain strategies I had really used, some of them were even really a part of my business. They were part of my brand. They didn't work anymore. They no longer works. And I'm going to share with you why in this week's episode. So today we're going to be looking at marketing, how to create an intuitive marketing strategy for your business. How do you tap into your intuition and really lean into that so that you can continue building growing and scaling.

(02:13):

So last week I shared with you this four phase framework, I guess, I guess we're going to call it a framework and that is listening, creating, connecting, and serving. And so many of you sent me messages on Instagrams. I mean, emails and said that these four, four stages, these four phases of this framework, it felt really wonderful to have something that you could apply a way in which you could look at your business, your content, your marketing, and say, okay, where am I listening? Where am I crazy? Where am I connecting? And where am I solving? And I think it's really important for me to tell you that I create this framework fast. So I didn't create the framework and apply it and see what happens. What happened was in early 20, 20, before COVID was even well before COVID was on my radar. I started to lean into my truth.

(03:22):

Is there any way I can describe it? I started to speak my truth. And then when lockdown happened, when we were faced with a global pandemic and it was both unknown and uncertain and terrifying, there was part of me that felt like I had nothing to lose with my marketing, with my business. And I thought, you know, if not, now, then when, right now that moment felt like the perfect time to start speaking my truth, to really lean into what I stood for and to see what would happen if I did that. And it started with me being open and truthful about a lot of the online business. If you've followed me for a while, you've stalked my feed and you've gone back through my content. You'll know that a lot of my content over the last year has been very focused on pulling some of this BS, marketing, and strategies, and just all of these sales strategies and different things to the light.

(04:31):

I've been kind of put, put, putting light on them and opening up conversations with you around why it's, why it doesn't work. And personally, I feel like we have created this incredible community and we have created a community that is looking to do business differently. It's looking to evolve and really pave a new way for marketing. It's what led to this podcast. It's what led to the Outlaws mentorship. And at the same time I was being kind of selfish because I needed connection. I was fed up feeling like I was the only one who felt this way. And it really did feel like I was the only person who was seeing through a lot of this BS. And I wanted to see if I was alone or if there were other people out there who felt the same way. And it turns out there's a lot of you felt the same way, which is great.

(05:31):

So I didn't start by creating this framework. This was a, this was a outcome of a lot of just content creation of saying what was on my mind of being honest of sharing, marketing strategies and tactics that I was no longer going to buy into. And having those conversations with you, sharing sharing how I felt about online business, my experiences, experiences with coaching and coaches. I wanted to talk about the things that didn't feel good in my business. And by doing that, I started to notice that a lot of you felt the same way. A lot of people were saying, yeah, I agree. This, this really bugs me too. And I'm glad I'm not alone. And so we started to listen to what everyone was saying. I heard when people told me they were tired of certain sales strategies or marketing strategies, I listened to what they were saying about the online space.

(06:36):

I understood what they didn't like about marketing or how people were trying to sell them into programs or courses. I got it because I felt the same way. And as I listened to my head, I continue to hold space and create content that opened up that discussion. I wanted to have those conversations. It happened to be in a public forum on Instagram, but I wanted to allow people to say, yeah, I'm tired of this too, because there is so much power. When we know that we're not alone. There is so much power when we feel heard. And I knew that that was a possibility that I could do that for others. And in process of doing this, I found that I wasn't alone and that I was being heard and that together we could make a new noise. And as I did this, I started to ask people and I engaged with them, right?

(07:31):

Not as a way to sell or as a way to pitch a product, but as a way to really understand how have other people been hurt and traumatized by what has happened in the online business space over the last decade, these regurgitated strategies, these clicks that have been formed, where they're making a lot of money and they're creating these bubbles of coaches and mentors who are teaching the same thing in a new bow. I wanted to understand how people had been hung traumatized because I wanted to see how my business may have contributed to that in the past. I know where my, where I have been shortsighted. I know where I have not. I have been out of alignment. I've not been aligned with my values and I have followed strategies or techniques blindly, which never felt good. I've chased people down in DMS.

(08:27):

I've asked people if they wanted to be coached on how to speak to their husband about making money, things that I would never dream of doing now, but things that I had been taught and were the only way I knew how to potentially build and grow a business, things that seemingly worked for these business owners who had six or seven figure businesses. And the idea that if it worked for them, then it had to work for me. But that just wasn't the case. And as I connected with people and understood where had they felt hut, I realized again that I wasn't so alone, we built that connection between what it was that we were seeing in the online space and what the opportunity and potential was to create. And so many of these, th these people, I can now call friends or team members, people who I've worked with and collaborated over the last year. What I have seen is by coming together, we have risen up. We have been able to really build this new normal, and we're not the loudest ones, but we're having the most fun. And we're the ones who are doing things in the right way. We're doing what's right. And know what's

(09:35):

Easy.

(09:38):

And as I did this, as they listened to my head, I was able to start to create my own marketing commitments commitments that I could fall back on. Every time I launch, every time I sell, every time I offer a service or program or product, and this helps me to ensure that I'm not contributing towards the noise and the I'm not harming others through my business, right. It allows me to ensure that when I, when I do a launch, it feels good for me. And it feels good for everyone else. When I sell something or offer a service or program, I'm not doing it for myself. I'm not coming at it from a place of, I need to make money and I have to pitch this and you have to buy it. And we have to do it in the most uncomfortable way necessary. I want it to be comfortable for everyone. And look, I know that sometimes we need to be out of our comfort zones, but I think when it comes to our businesses and it comes to investing or spending money, right. Giving somebody the opportunity to make that decision comfortably, I think it speaks lot.

(10:43):

Yeah.

(10:44):

After I went through this process, I started to notice this kind of cycle, this rinse and repeat cycle that I am constantly in. I am constantly looking at. I'm constantly listening to what people are telling me. Right. I feel like listening and being able to hear what others say is one of my super powers. It is one of my skills that I bring to my mentoring. I bring to my communities and my groups, because the reality is that if we cannot listen, then people are not heard. And so being able to listen and then create content or create offers, or create products or create commitments for our businesses, from that place of listening and understanding, we are able to connect with people on a more expensive level. And when it comes to serving to be of use, we're able to do that in a way that doesn't exhaust ourselves.

(11:44):

It doesn't burn us out because we're not hustling to be of service. We're doing it in a way that allows us to be incredibly useful for other people because we're allowing them to feel heard. So when it comes to marketing my business, now when I create content, I don't look at what other people are saying or doing in my industry and niche. I was actually having this conversation with my team the other day. I don't look at what others are doing. I don't look at someone else's post and like, Oh, I should say that. Or I think that too, I listen to the conversations that I'm having, or I hear the conversations I'm having. I read and understand the messages I receive. I look at trends within my communities. So if I have in a, in a month, five people tell me something similar, they're going through a similar struggle or a similar pain, something that's really hard for them to navigate for me because I've listened.

(12:46):

And I've had, I want to be able to say, okay, I've listened to my Pat. And I've had that conversation with that person individually or in that community. But now how do we take that conversation and take it to a bigger scale? Because here's the thing we all know if someone has that question, if someone feels that way, if someone is experiencing that often, they're not the only one. And I've learned that over the last 12 months, that it's not the way, the only ones that feel this way, it's that we're not the loudest. We're not making the seven, eight figures to be able to fund advertising and to make sure that we are in front of people, 24 seven, we don't have that ability. So as small, modern day entrepreneurs, we need to ensure that we are really listening to the people who are already showing up for us, that we're able to position ourselves in a way that people trust us.

(13:44):

And I'm not talking about pretending that people trust you or trying to be authentic. I'm just talking about being who you are, being a human being, because humanity is what business is about. Business is human business should not be harmful. It should not cause people harm or trauma. And for so long, probably close to a decade, if not longer, that is what has been happening. And so it's our responsibility as small business owners to take those marketing commitments, to tap into our intuition and allow it to say, allow that to help us decide, should we post this? Is this the right time? Should we turn off our ads? Should we launch, how should I launch? What kind of marketing commitments should I be making? Right? We do that by turning to the conversations, we're having the messages you receive, looking at those trends. You are more powerful than you realize, you know, more than you want telling yourself that you do.

(14:47):

I know that so many of you right now are having these conversations. You are seeing these messages and you're seeing these trends, but you're not really seeing them that happening, but with still clinging to some of the old processes and strategies, and that we don't see what's right in front of us. And when we do have a look at what's around us, we can gather data. When we start to become aware of what's going on, we gather data. We look at which pieces of content are deeply resonating with others. Where are we having those expansive conversations and then deciding what's next in terms of that conversation, asking ourselves, where is the conversation going? What do people need from me? And I want to just say that this applies whether you are a graphic designer, an artist, a jewelry designer, a content writer, a social media strategist.

(15:49):

I think the idea that there's only certain businesses that can have these conversations is just not true, because again, business is human and you are the human behind that business. So you get to decide how that conversation looks. You get to decide what you say on your social media feed. It doesn't have to be a case of holding back because that's not the way it's been, or no, I have. I've been told that I should only do this. That will the third you actually get to decide. You actually get to say, or you get to decide what you say on Instagram. You get to decide what goes into your email marketing. It doesn't have to look like everyone else's. And when I feel on inspired and there are times we all have that time, I've got a Google doc open and nothing comes when I feel ill and uninspired, or if something feels misaligned with my marketing launch, whatever it might be, I try not to force the situation.

(16:51):

I used to force a situation. I would either just keep trudging through, or I would completely back down. And I pretend that who launched. I launched, I didn't do that. I didn't, I didn't say anything. That's how I would approach it. Now. I don't force it. I don't back down. I want some become aware of the problem. I walk myself through the misalignment. I ask myself questions because self-inquiry being present with yourself and self-inquiry is such an critical part. Being able to tap into our intuition. It is part of tapping into your intuition. So I'll ask my self questions. Like, is this feeling temporary? Is it because of timing is out of my control is something else impacting my emotions, right? Sometimes we, our emotions bubble up in reaction to our business, but actually has nothing to do with our business. It could be something else is my inner critic, gang really loud.

(17:53):

And if so, why am I uncomfortable? Am I uncomfortable? Because this feels good, easy and joyful, right? I don't know if anyone else can relate to that. Sometimes we are uncomfortable because actually feels good. It actually feels easy. It actually feels joyful. And we're so used to things, feeling hard and difficult and overwhelming that when it doesn't feel that way now, it feels uncomfortable. Now we feel confused and conflicted because that's not what we're used to. And some of you may be listening and thinking, this is all great, Melanie, but I don't get that kind of engagement on my posts. I don't have that many DMS. No one is really saying anything. Or maybe you're not posting reliably or consistently. So what should you listen to? I want to be really honest. If that is you, if you're thinking, well, I don't get that kind of engagement.

(18:49):

No one is commenting on my posts. Then you've answered your own question because sometimes listening, doesn't tell us what we want to hear. Right? Sometimes listening. Doesn't tell us what we want to hear. I have posted things and it's completely missed the Mark. I've like carefully crafted this post and I've chosen this image and I've pressed publish. And it's like tumbleweed. And I used to take that really personally. I used to find that really hard to navigate. And sometimes it still stings a little. But what I try to shift into is really that more masculine energy of looking at it from a place of data, because intuition is very much about feminine energy, right? It's very much about us tapping into that feminine side. And for me, being able to shift between those two is really important. So we look at it as data, if that post or that piece of content is not hitting, it's missing the Mark.

(19:55):

It's not getting the kind of response I was hoping for. Then it's telling me something and it may not be what I want to hear, but it is telling me something. So my question is, if you feel that way, I want you to maybe spend some time journaling and ask yourself, where are you holding back? Right? Where am I holding back in my marketing and in my content, what would you say to your audience? If there were no rules, if there was no self doubt, there were no fears. How would you show up? What would you say? What would you do? Okay. I want you to ask yourself that question, because if people aren't engaging with you, it's not about you, but it might be that you're holding back. It might be that you're not, you're not completely shining that light on what you want to say. And I, that, because I did this

(20:48):

For so long, right?

(20:50):

If you have a lot of things to say, if you want those people that is writing all the time, you think about all the different things that you want to talk about, your industry and niche. And you have these things that you want to say, but you hold back because you're not sure. Or because you're uncertain or because you don't know if your audience are ready for it, or if they really want to hear that story, you will never know if you don't post it. You'll never know if you don't share it. And so I encourage you to look at why you're holding back, not necessarily holding yourself back, but where are you holding back from leaning into that truth.

(21:27):

And then,

(21:28):

And you eventually get to that point of sharing that truth.

(21:34):

Keep listening,

(21:35):

Keep listening, listen to the response, look at what people say and see whether there's a difference.

(21:45):

And

(21:45):

I know that planning ahead is so important to us, right? A huge part of my business used to be focused on content planning, content matching. Some of you may even remember that part of my business for a few years ago. It's so important to us. I still see people clinging to that. And look, sometimes I'm like super excited when I can plan ahead. But I do feel like when we start to tap into our intuition and we start to draw those conversations and experiences, it is sometimes harder to be able to plan ahead. So this is when I start to look at my story pillars. This is something that I created with my clients. And we look at this story pillar. So we look at like, you may have had them content buckets or something else, but story pillars, the most prominent pieces of your business.

(22:31):

So the stories behind your brand, why you do what you do and your story pillars can shift and evolve, right? They can always shift and evolve. And how many story pillars you have will depend on the type of business you are. It will depend on your industry and your niche. So I've worked with everyone from artists and jewelry designers, to coaches and and strategists and consultants. And there is a difference in the way those businesses create their story pillars, right? So when I've worked with those clients, I do see a difference. If you are more of a creative and artistic jewelry designer, you will find that your story pillars may also consist of your brand values, but also potentially the materials you use or the type of imagery that you want to evoke with your clients and customers. If you are a coach or a strategies or consultant, you're going to find that you may have specific specific story pillows that you teach on all of your coach on, will you mentor people on these are going to be more about what you do rather than your values.

(23:36):

Your value should still play a part. Your values are still a really strong part of that story, but it may not be, it's not going to be just those values. There's going to be a of the both. And then what it means and looks like is aligning your offers and your launches with these story pillars. That's really the first part of the planning. Even if you're not planning your content months out in advance, you can still plan out your launches and your offers. You can align those with your story pillars, and that allows you to at least begin the planning process. It allows you to look at, okay, when I'm talking about this particular offer this, I don't know, six month coaching program. I know that these are the things that are going to really help me to position this coaching program in the right way.

(24:19):

It's going to help me to build awareness, building engagement. It's going to help me to ensure that people understand what I do and why I do it. And it's going to help you lead into that launch. So over the last year is I tapped into this intuition and I started to see this kind of rinse and repeat cycle across my business. I noticed that it works from your office and your launches right down to your content on Instagram or social media. Every layer of your marketing can really benefit from these four stages. Listening, creating, connecting, and solving. You can use this and rinse and repeat at every level. This is the very foundation of your strategy, and it may not be sexy, right? It may not be the sexiest thing to be talking about connection and surveying and crazing and listening. And I get that because what I still see is a lot of marketing towards bells and whistles.

(25:18):

A lot of marketing towards things like hashtags or how to engage or a fancy website are pretty great. And look, these things can be important and they are. But if you're missing these other ingredients, if you're missing the ability to listen and your business will not listening, if you are missing this connection, you'll missing the creativity. You're missing this like service and focusing on the bells and whistles. It won't have the same level of impact. These things, hashtags or engagement with other accounts, having a really great website and having a really pretty Instagram grid. These things only work when there is substance behind them because of your intuition. They only work because when you show up for your audience, they know your content is going to be reliable and valuable and help them feel heard at the end of the day, who cares if we use the most perfect hashtags and I don't think there are perfect hashtags, but if who cares, if we use them, if when people find us, there is a complete lack of connection, the credible hashtags are only going to really leverage anything.

(26:24):

If we're able to listen and create content that connects with our audience and actually have a real conversation, open up that's engagement, open up that conversation and connect with people on a deeper level, right? Engaging with other people. Other people on Instagram is great. But if your only approach to doing this is to pitch them, well, we smell it a mile off, right? We, we, we learn and become very savvy to the DMS and the approaches from sun businesses, whether they're just trying to pitch something, they don't really care about your grid. And they don't really care about how well you'd finish their seven figure program, the fancy website, the pretty grid. It touches the surface. But when your people read it, when they visit you, visit your content, when they want or need something from you, is it clear what, why and how they can get that?

(27:26):

Is it clear? What, why and how they can achieve that with you? We have to tell people what we stand for. And then we have to show them because actions speak louder than words, but silence is complicit is harmful. And it's actually loud as. We have to tell people and then show up, right, open up those conversations, and then continue having the conversation as human beings. We so frequently, right? This is like a human it's part of humanity is that when we find something that works, we then go cool. That worked. And we look for the next best. Next best thing. We do it in so many situations and businesses, no different, right? Marketing is no different. We put a post out, we share a post on Instagram and it does really well. Right. We have 86 comments and it gets like 15 shares and people are saving it and people are DM-ing us. And then it's like, we freeze. And we're like, cool. And we just, we go back to creating something different or we stick with the content plan we had. But that post that on. Maybe your terms went viral for your account. Well, it's telling you a law and we have to listen so that we can continue having those conversations.

(28:59):

So when it comes to marketing our businesses, tapping into your intuition, doesn't mean throwing kind of good vibes. Only at it. That's. That's, it's just like love and light nonsense. It doesn't mean ignoring what is going on in the world. It doesn't mean plowing through and continuing with something that feels uncomfortable tapping into your intuition, just means listening to yourself or asking better questions, becoming really aware of what is, and isn't working in your business. Isn't, isn't working your marketing and listening to what people say. And if people aren't saying anything, then listen to that. And as I said, I gave you some ideas of some questions that you could ask yourself to really try and see where are you holding it?

(29:58):

Because when we tap into our intuition, it guides us. She knows what's right and wrong. And by creating an intuitive strategy across your business, you tap into her whenever you need to. It's not always easy. This past week, I had a little outlawed moment. Honestly, it was probably seven or eight days where I just could not get out of a funk. I was feeling energetically, drained. I didn't know what to say. I felt like everything I wanted to say was crap. Like I was just like, Oh, nothing made sense. And I couldn't get to my intuition. It was like, there was all this stuff I had to like pull out the way first.

(30:42):

But when I got there,

(30:44):

When I got back to that place, when I leaned into compassion and joy, when I slowed down, cause that's so often what we need to do when I kept away from the do more and hustle and grind, I was able to really decide what was the next best move for me? What was the right move for me? What did I need to say? What was I hearing where I really wasn't listening, right? Where were people telling me what they needed? And I just couldn't hear it because I was so energetically drained.

(31:22):

And the thing is

(31:24):

I would guarantee you that most of your people are not saying, teach me how to do more. Teach me how to hustle, teach me how to grind, right? Teach me how to keep going and just keep piling more on top of myself, post your people and asking you to, I feel here listening to this podcast, your people are not asking you to do that. Persistence will help the assistance, like just being persistent and knowing that it will work out eventually. Even if you don't know how, yes, it can be really helpful, but it can not be the driving force behind all of our work. It can not be the driving force behind our strategies because we need to be able to tap into our intuition on a regular basis. And sometimes you will just be in this kind of state of flow and you'll just be making decisions and everything's working out and everything feels easy. And then bam, something can house and something can knock us over. And all of a sudden we'll have

(32:31):

What the hell

(32:33):

It's really important is that we understand that that flow, that joy, that ease, that was when we were making intuitive decisions. And sometimes more often than not, it will be something external or it will be some very subtle or very, very blatant situation that happens or cause where all of a sudden are in a critic is loud. The self-doubt suddenly breaks through. It's not, it's not a one size fits all solution and it's not going to suddenly eliminate any of those struggles. It's not going to eliminate nothing. Eliminates the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a roller coaster on a weekly basis. We could, you know, we've seen that. We've all seen that little meme where it's like every day, we're like, I've got this. And then we're like, Oh my God, I suck. And it's, Oh, I got this again. And it's like that.

(33:37):

We know it's like that tapping into your intuition. Doesn't eliminate that. But it does allow you to operate your business from a place of alignment, a place where it's easier to make decisions and you make decisions faster, right? You're able to make a decisions about content faster. You're able to pivot and evolve faster. This is why saw during the pandemic. When we went into our first lockdown, I started to notice which businesses have realized that they needed to pivot. They listened to what people were telling them. They now needed. And they pivoted the very active listening helps us during this kind of, well, hopefully we're never going to be here again, but it helps us and it will continue to help us. And if we continue praying from this place, using our intuition, intuition, creating intuitive strategies and our business, when we're on the other side of this, and at some point we will be, we can still continue operating and running businesses in this way and it will feel good and it will bring joy to our lives and it will be helpful and of use to other people and it won't do harm and it won't be traumatizing.

(35:08):

So when, as we start to mock it from a place of intuition, it allows us to come back to a vision, to come back to what's most important to us as business owners, our values right, are grounded beliefs and we can become leaders. We all lead us, but we can leverage and lead into that leadership. And I want to remind you again, cause we're going to keep talking about this. The four phases, listen, create connect and stuff. I'm going to have Instagram post going up over the next few days and it's going to show you. That's like what I'm going to be kind of going in depth into that cycle. Go and have a look at a post, save the image, keep coming back to it. And if you have any questions about tapping into your intuition or this cycle that I've been sharing with you, if you just have any questions about something that's frustrating you in business right now, feel free to come and DM me, feel free to connect with me on Instagram because you're not alone.

(36:35):

I know that for some, and there are other people who feel overwhelmed by their ideas or how to show up on social media or on, on that platform, how to relate into their intuition and allow it to be that driving force in their business. And I was one of them for the longest time I would have rolled my eyes because I wanted the framework. I wanted the 10 steps. I wanted you to tell me how to go from a, to B to C. I wanted to know what I needed to do because I believed that just by doing the work, by being the hottest working entrepreneur in the planet, that that would make me money. Right? I learned very quickly that when it came to entrepreneurship, working harder didn't necessarily mean that people were going to buy it. For me, it didn't matter how hard I worked people weren't going to buy from me just because I was the hardest working entrepreneur.

(37:34):

And that was a really, really tough lesson to learn. And it took me a really long time to learn that because I had been brought up that you've worked hard to get what you wanted. Most of us have been told that and using your intuition feels like the complete opposite, right? Deciding not to work because you're overwhelmed because you need to rest. That's like the complete opposite, but it's so powerful. And it's, in my opinion, the way leadership needs to move, we need to not be business as usual when something is really, really hard when people are struggling, it shouldn't be expected that we just go back to work. It should be the individual's choice. And it should be a case of opportunity and listening and understanding that's we didn't have to feed into this business as usual, get back to it, work hard, keep busy. We don't have to buy into that.

(38:52):

So in next week's episode of entrepreneur Outlaws, we are going to continue with this theme. We're going to continue with this full phase strategy list and create connections of we're going to be talking about Instagram specifically, because I feel like Instagram is that platform that everyone loves to hate. It's like our front of me. And I still see so many business owners struggling with how to co show up on that platform. How do we arrive on that platform? Create content, share content, engage without completely burning out overwhelming ourselves. I feel like Instagram and the way people have taught us to market that I feel as though it has become this, like this individual thing that can burn people out. And it feels like this place where we either love it or we hate it. And look, I think we all go through those moments when there's good and there's bad, right?

(40:00):

And sometimes some of the things that impact our ability to be visible are out of our control. But for the most part, how do we use our intuition? Use these four phases create content and how do we continue to show up? How do we do this? How do we learn how to use the platform for ourselves? Because what I see a love is we're told that we have to be a certain way, act a certain way, and that if you don't use your belong there so we're going to talk about that. We're going to have that conversation. So we're going to have a conversation about Instagram and intuition, and I'll see you next week.