3 Steps To Simpler Marketing

AMY: Welcome to the Peaceful Entrepreneur podcast. We're together, we're learning how to have peace in the process of everyday business ownership by improving one step at a time, how we think and what we do. I'm your host, Amy Stout.

Y'all get ready for this episode today because if marketing has ever overwhelmed you, okay, everybody's hand needs to be going up, right? This is your time to shine. This is your time to regain a peaceful mindset about marketing because I have brought in truly the expert, Miss, Mrs. Amanda Warfield, who wrote "Chasing Simple Marketing," a book that just came out earlier this year.

She also has the "Chasing Simple Marketing" podcast and some courses and a bunch of other resources, but she is truly the queen of simplified and palatable and doable marketing. So I got a lot of feedback on our lead gen episode that it just helped so many people feel like it was doable and feel like they could tackle it. And I am really hoping that this will make you feel the same way about your marketing.

So Amanda has created a framework of a way to think about your business in three different stages and phases and then a way to kind of tie your specific marketing strategies to the phase that you're in. So you're not trying to do everything all at once and you're not trying to do something that's appropriate in stage three, in stage one. And I really think that following her framework is just going to save you so much time and strife and trial and error. I mean, truly you'll hear me say it in the episode, but the things that she teaches are things that I have learned by trial and error, but wish I knew at the beginning.

So we're going to go ahead and just give you the leg up. We're going to give you a head start in your business journey and talk through simplified marketing. Y'all, I was literally taking notes as I was talking to Amanda today. That is how valuable this episode is. So get ready, get your notebook, and I cannot wait to hear what you think and what you pulled out of it. So let's jump in.

Thanks for joining me today, Amanda. I'm so excited to talk to you.

AMANDA: Of course, I am so thrilled to talk to you. It just feels so natural. It feels like we've been friends for years. Every time we've gotten on any kind of calls together, it just, it's just like one of those instant connections. So I'm really excited to be here today.

AMY: Yes, we were like, I was trying to figure out exactly how we met. It was something through Instagram, maybe a mutual connection, but I remember that I found you months ago and just immediately clicked with your content.

And then I think I just asked if we could get on a little intro call. And like you said, like just about natural from the beginning. Um, we have so much overlap in who we are as people and also what we're passionate about in business. And so I'm really excited for you to share your secrets and strategies and wisdom with everybody today, because, um, marketing is one of the things like marketing, Legion, sales, like we do talk about these things a good bit on this podcast because naturally it's a really big topic for entrepreneurs. But I think that your take on simplifying it is so key to the foundational thinking about marketing. And so I think this is going to be really, really helpful for people.

AMANDA: Yeah, absolutely. And it's marketing so overwhelming. It makes it easy to talk about it all the time, right? there's so much to it. And I was so overwhelmed when I first started my business. I didn't understand it. I was confused. I was overwhelmed and really leaning into the simplicity of it and how to make it as simple, as efficient as possible changed the trajectory of my business for sure.

So I love to get on and talk about it so that others can hear, you know, that they don't have to overcomplicate it and that they can see huge success with really simple marketing.

AMY: Yes. And people, I will go ahead and say now, if you love what you're hearing, this is just the tip of the iceberg because Amanda has a book that she just released. She has a podcast. She has a course in a community. Like you've got a lot going on and there are a lot of ways that people can plug in and get involved if they want more, which I'm sure they will. So let's jump in if you want to just share a little bit of background of how you got to where you're at right now and what you're pursuing in business.

AMANDA: Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I was not a marketing major. I don't have an MBA. I was a teacher before starting my business. And I ended up starting my business back in 2018 and started talking about simplified living, time management, things like that. And as fate would have it, I actually started down the marketing path because a dog peed on all of the carpets in our house.

And I share this story in full in my book, but essentially I just had subfloor. We couldn't put our carpets right back in, but we had to tear them out as soon as we moved in because we have cats and we didn't want them to mark over any of those spots and learn that behavior. And so we ripped all the carpets up immediately, but we couldn't put carpets back in for about six months. And that meant all I had in my office was subfloor, which if you are someone that works with audio in any way, you know that that's not good for audio quality in any way, shape, or form. And I would have to take every blanket that we owned and lay them out on the floor every time I recorded a podcast episode. And at the time I was recording podcast episodes, one each week, and I would record it and edit it and put it up for the next day.

Oh, that got really old, really fast when you're having to also lay out all these blankets and you know, I tried just leaving them out. I tried all kinds of different things and I realized really quickly, this is not going to work for an every week thing. And I ended up trying, okay, what if I just recorded four or five at once? And then that way I can just edit each week as I need to.

And eventually, because it took forever for us to be able to get carpet in, that spiraled into me figuring out the best way to create a month's worth of content in just one week. And from there, I started sharing about that to other people. And that really took off. And from there, my whole business focus became, okay, how do we simplify marketing? How do we make it efficient and easy so that it's not taking up all of our time?

AMY: So good.

Because I mean, a lot of people probably walk into business with not intending to ever be a business owner and not having any training. And there is so much and it can get overwhelming so quickly. And so the work that you have done is such a gift, such a gift. And as I was reading your book, I said this in my review, and I've told you already, but I felt like first of all, you were just a friend sitting down walking me through this in a really simple, kind understanding way, rather than talking down to me. But more than that, I kept hearing things that I'm like, "Yes, these are key things that I've learned." I wish I knew them at the beginning. And then you told me, you were like, that's exactly what I wanted is for this to be what people just like can have at the beginning. Because that's what you felt like you wish you had. So you accomplished your goal.

AMANDA: Thank you. I mean, that is exactly what I was going for with the book, because like I said, I didn't know anything about marketing. I didn't know anything about business. I took, I was a business major for half a semester in college. That was it. And so I didn't know anything and it was all trial and error. I never intended to start a business. Just like so many of us in this creative space. And I really wanted to write a book that was for that same entrepreneur that I was back in 2018. So thank you.

When I saw your review and I think you messaged me that on Instagram or emailed me, I don't remember which, but you know, you said that to me and I was like, wow, like that was, it was so validating because that was exactly what I was going for.

AMY: Absolutely. I'm really glad you felt that way too.

So for those of you guys who are listening, who are just starting out or are even a couple of years in, cause I'm a couple of years in, I'm still figuring it out. It's still a little overwhelming. And, um, for those of you who are in that place, like we're gonna, we're not going to get keep, we're going to talk about it.

And so, Amanda, if you would jump in, because I know that we're going to talk about the three phases of the business journey, and then how marketing can fit into each of those phases, so that we don't have to try to do everything all at once, and we can focus on very specific strategic things based on our stage. So can you start by just walking through those phases?

AMANDA: Yes. So there are three phases of a business journey. You've got your content creators, you've got your foundation builders, and you've got your established entrepreneurs. Now that first phase, not everyone goes through because some people do start their business with a skill and an intention in mind. Like photographers, when you go to start a photography business, you know exactly what your skill is and you may change your offers and you may pivot from weddings to newborn photography or family to weddings, but you know what your skill is.

So the content creator phase is for those of us that start out and we think, I'm going to start a blog or I'm going to start a podcast or I'm going to start a YouTube channel and somehow I'm going to figure out how to turn that into a business, but I haven't really figured out how that's going to happen. And we're essentially just creating a ton of content and building audience. So that's where I started. Not everyone starts there, like I said, but that's kind of that first phase.

The second phase is that foundation builder phase. And these people, once you've made it to this phase, you again know what that skill set is that you're able to use to help serve others. And you're starting to create that one main offer and really flesh it out and really get it just right. Although no offer is ever 100% done, you're really building it up and starting to gain an audience around it and a group of people that are referring others and telling others about it and just getting that foundation for this is my main offer in my business setup.

Once you kind of have that complete and you start looking to expand on those offers and you're working on your full value ladder, you're an established entrepreneur. And once you get that value ladder set up, then you're at the point of, okay, how do I really focus on my marketing? I've got my foundations that are set. I've got my value ladders in place. I now need to work on setting up evergreen marketing so that the marketing efforts I have funnel people into those evergreen marketing channels and so on and so forth. And so those are kind of the three different phases of the business journey.

AMY: Can you break down the, no, I even forgot the ladder.

AMANDA: Value ladder.

AMY: The value ladder. Yes, break down that concept for us.

AMANDA: So a value ladder is just how your audience members move through the offers that you have. Typically, we start off with one specific offer, and a lot of the times it ends up being either the final rung of our value ladder or the middle area of the value ladder most of the time. What ends up happening is we get that offer nailed down, and then we have people who come to us and go, "I'm really curious about this, but I don't know if it's right for me because of x, y, z reasons," and you go, Oh yeah, I don't think you're ready for this. And it's probably not worth your money and effort right now. What you actually need is this other thing.

So for example, one of my main core courses is called content batching bootcamp. It's all about how to batch your content, but people would come to me and go, I'm not even putting content out right now. So is this right for me? And I would go, no, what you need is probably just. Here's a bunch of different content prompts. take those and start putting content out. And then once you're putting content out and you've got some kind of rhythm, then we can improve that rhythm and make it more efficient and simple. But if you're not putting anything out, you can't really learn how to batch it because you're not, you're already not doing it. And so there's always this step down that people can take, but then there's also typically a step up unless you've started with your one, like you've got your one big service and you're not going to move up from that.

Um, in which case you would just step down multiple times, but essentially you want to create this ladder where some people are going to hop on the bottom, some are going to jump to the middle, some are going to maybe even start at the top, but you want to have options for people so that when they're ready to take the next step, they have an offer of yours that they can take the next step with.

AMY: That's really, really good.

So obviously the natural next question is how do people figure out where they're at in business? And I'm actually going to be trying to figure out myself why you're saying this.

AMANDA: Well, the easiest thing to do, the easiest thing to do actually is to go to amandawarfield.com/quiz and take the quiz and it'll tell you. And then it'll give you resources that I have. So podcast episodes that you can go listen to that'll help. But realistically, yes, I love a good quiz.

Realistically, it's really simple. Ask yourself, do you have one core offer? that is successful, that is selling. It may not be perfect yet, but do you have that one core offer? If you have that one core offer in place, you're not a content creator, you're not in that phase, you've already moved past it. If you have that one core offer and you also already have other offers in your value letter that also are selling, then you're in the established entrepreneur phase. If you haven't quite figured out the value letter yet, then you are in the foundation builder stage. I think I'm crossing over. I think I'm like halfway in foundation, halfway in established and like working to get the foot out of foundation. And that's the thing with any kind of phase, right?

There's not, you know, I can sit here and say, well, if you haven't gotten those value ladder set up yet, then you're not there. But realistically, as we learn more knowledge, like there's always this transition where we're like, "Ah, I don't quite fit here, but I'm not quite there yet. And I'm just kind of somewhere in the middle." And that's perfectly normal.

AMY: Okay. This is amazing. And I think that what we're already talking about is hitting on the fact of how important a foundation is. And this is something that I one, advise people a lot on if in a consulting or coaching situation, or maybe mentioned in the podcast, but it's also something that I am learning and that is like sinking in in a different way with myself recently. It's just that you really do have to build the foundation before you can hit go on your marketing. And if you're trying to do both simultaneously, it's not going to work or it's not going to be 100% successful.

So share, maybe share your thoughts on that piece before we dive into the rest of it?

AMANDA: I, I would say I'd like to push back on that a bit. Yes, it's not going to be 100% successful in and of the fact that, you know, maybe you're not booking out with that marketing, but. If you wait until you have that foundation built to start marketing. You're not, you're going to realize that you don't actually have that foundation built your marketing. There's a really great tool to help you build those foundations and to play around with your messaging to hear, you know, if you put out some kind of content, people give you pushback. Okay. Well, that gives you wording from them. That gives you objections.

You really want to use your marketing to help build that foundation. And so we have to stop thinking of marketing as, well, as a sales tool, honestly, because it's not a sales tool. There is a difference between marketing tools and sales tools. We have to stop thinking about it as the end all be all sales tool and instead start looking at it as this is how I'm going to lead people to be ready for a sale, but it's also how I'm going to learn what my people need so that I can create offer s that they're going to want to purchase.

AMY: That's good. I think that more the pull out from that would be everybody has to go through an experimental stage. Yes. Like you just got to go through the trial and error and you got to try and fail at some marketing things, at some offers. It's just like part of it. And you have to experience that to learn and to narrow down what exactly is going to be the core offer of your business.

AMANDA: Absolutely, and that is a large part of the content creator phase. If you, again, if you go in and you don't have a skillset that you are able to easily pin down, 'cause a lot of us come in and we go, I have a ton of skills, I don't know how to make it into one thing. If that's where you are, you have to throw spaghetti at the wall. That is the whole purpose of the content creator phase, is throw spaghetti at the wall, build relationships, trial and error, and see what sticks and use that information that you learn from all of that experimenting to then build that core offer. And listen, it's not an overnight process. This takes so much time. I have a client right now who's been going through this where she's really been trying to figure out, what is my main offer gonna be? Who exactly am I helping? How exactly am I helping them?

And I've had to remind her week after week, Glisten, you're making progress. I know it feels not right right now because you haven't figured it out, but you are making progress and every week she'd come back to me and go, "I just feel really overwhelmed "and I feel like I shouldn't be in business "and I feel a little depressed about it honestly." And that is just a normal part of it. It took me three years to figure out what my main offer was gonna be. And a lot of that, it probably didn't need to take that long, but I fought that experimental phase so hard because I wanted to have it. I wanted to make it. I wanted to have it all set up. And so I really fought myself on it and it took me three. I mean, I started my business March 2018, officially launched it May 1st, 2018, and didn't have a really successful offer until July 2020.

AMY: Yeah.

AMANDA: So, you know, it's not an overnight thing. And if you can just let go and experiment, it's gonna happen a lot quicker than if you are fighting it like I did. Yeah, I think I've thought it too. I think it's the idealist of like, yeah, we'll find the best possible thing. It's like, no, like figure out what people need, like fill a gap and do it really well. And niche down. There's so much freedom in giving yourself permission to not get it right, right away too.

AMY: Yeah. Yeah. And to say, this is what my offer looks like right this second, but I'm going to improve it. So it doesn't need to be perfect for this launch.

AMANDA: Exactly. Because I'm going to reiterate it, no matter, it could be the best it could possibly be right now, but I'm going to learn things along the way and I'm going to reiterate it in a few months anyways. That permission slip really takes a lot of that pressure off, or at least it has for me of, "Oh, I don't have to have this all figured out. I don't have to launch this perfectly 100%. I can just let it evolve naturally."

Yeah. And you don't have to relaunch every single time you make a change.

AMY: I need to hear that one. Although I think launching is fun, but it is. It is. But yeah. Anyways. Okay. Before we dive into what specific marketing strategies you should use based on your phase, I do want to ask you about how this applies to the different types of businesses. Because there are going to be people out there with products, people out there with services in terms of project and like ongoing retainers and there's going to be like educators. I feel like that's a little bit different even like what you do as far as a course in a book and a podcast. So how does your framework apply within each of those?

AMANDA: The beauty of this framework that we're going to talk about in the three phases is that It's, I mean, it's just a framework. It's not this in-depth do X, do Y, do Z. It's more of, here's the type of thing that you should focus on, what makes sense through a type of business. And we can kind of, as we talk about different strategies, go, okay, this might work best for this kind, this might work best for this kind. But I think that's the beauty of it is that everything that I teach when it comes to marketing is really intentionally created to be flexible. for different types of businesses. It's not, here's exactly how I do it, this is what you should do too. Here's the concept behind it. What is gonna work best for you within that concept?

AMY: That's good. Okay, let's dive into it. Let's, I mean, whatever is gonna be the best way for you to present it, but let's talk about the different marketing strategies, specifically within content marketing, 'cause there, I mean, there's a lot of marketing type things we could do. So we're not really talking about billboards necessarily, like commercials on TV, but content marketing wise, what are the strategies and when are they best used based on our stages?

AMANDA: So I actually wanted to take us a step back first and talk about the fact that when you're creating a marketing strategy, there are two parts that you wanna make sure your marketing strategy has at all times. You wanna make sure that you have a growth strategy in place and a nurture strategy in place. The growth strategies are how you're going to get in front of new people and get those new people into your current audience.

The nurture strategies are for how you're going to continue to build relationships with the audience that you already have. So content marketing specifically falls under nurture strategy because what you're doing is yes, We all love to see our download numbers rise and our Instagram engagement grow and our followers grow. We all love to see that. But content marketing, it's not a growth strategy because you're mostly not getting in front of new people with it.

You can, but that's usually a byproduct versus what actually is going to truly happen. So if we can look at our content marketing as a nurture strategy and realize the content I'm putting out, I'm going to do what I can to try to grow with it and to get it in front of new people. But really what I'm doing is I'm building relationships with the people that are already in my audience. The problem that a lot of us tend to find is that we're either focusing all on growth strategies or all on nurture strategies. And if you're only focusing on growth strategies, you're growing your audience, but they're not buying from you because they don't know I can trust you yet. But if you're only nurturing your audience, well, eventually your sales are going to decline because you're not bringing in new people to sell to. So you've got to have both pieces, which a lot of times can get lost because we think, well, I'm going to just do content marketing and that's how I'm going to grow my business. But if you're only putting out content to market your business, you're not going to see growth because how are people going to find you?

So I wanted to kind of start there with this.

AMY: That's good.

AMANDA: When we look at the three different phases, for all three phases when it comes to content marketing specifically, you want to put out enough content that you're consistent, but not constant. So what I mean by that is that you're showing up when you've said you will, but you're not showing up all the time. And a lot of us are solopreneurs or we have very, very small teams. And what we think we need to do is follow best practices for all the different platforms. Well, this Instagram expert says I need to show up every single day on stories. And this podcast expert said, I need to put out two podcast episodes a week, a week, just like the Amy Porter fields of the world and the Jenna Kutchers of the world, which yes, the more content you put out, the more interactions you're going to get, the higher your download numbers are going to be, they're not wrong.

The problem is though, is that if you don't have a team who can help you create all of that content, that's going to suck up all of your time.

AMY: Exactly.

AMANDA: You're not going to be able to put out quality content, which is going to again, harm that foundation that you're building with your audience that know like and trust factor. If you're putting out content that's not good, they're not going to keep coming back. They're not going to trust that your content's worth their time, right?

And so you want to make sure that you're putting out content on a consistent basis, not a constant basis. And you do not need to show up to best practices in order to see results. So if you can only put out one podcast episode a month, once a month is fine, as long as your people know, "Oh, first Monday of every month, I'm going to get a new episode." Versus just, "Oh, sometime in the month, there's going to be an episode at some point."

AMY: The expectation piece.

AMANDA: Yes. You want to allow them to build a routine around your content. You want them to go, "Oh, it's the first Monday of the month. I'm going to wipe down my toilets while I listen to this podcast episode every month." It's so silly, but truly, if someone can build a relationship around your content because they expect it to come out at a certain time, they're much more likely to actually take in that content and build that relationship with you. So that's my soapbox there. It's so true.

AMY: This is so good. Was this in the book?

AMANDA: I mean, I don't know because this is, I don't know.

AMY: This is good. I'm taking notes. So if you see me typing. But yeah, okay, go for it. Continue. just carry on. (laughs)

AMANDA: Well, that's my soapbox about content marketing. And again, the premise of everything that I do is just, you don't have to show up to best practices. You just need quality content that's consistent and that your people can expect. And that quality is so much more than those best practices. Sure, if you had a team and you were like, I want to go all out of my podcast right now, bumping up how many episodes you're putting out, very smart plan. but you cannot show up to all of these platforms best practices at the same time, especially not by yourself. It's not possible. It's just not possible. All you would be doing was be putting out content. And like I said, that's only one part of a marketing strategy.

So for every phase, it really comes down to you want to have content going out on a consistent basis. That's quality and your capacity is going to determine how often that is. And that is not necessarily face related. But what you're able to do with your content, growth strategy wise is face related. So when you are in the content creator phase, the best thing that you can be doing for growing your business is to build relationships with other people. And those relationships are going to be the relationships that you can leverage down the road as your business grows.

But for now, your main growth strategy should really be focusing on relationship building. And so that can take the form of a lot of different ways. If you're a local business, honestly, the best thing to do is in-person events, go to networking events, go to things like that, try to connect with other businesses that are local that maybe they need someone to write a guest blog post for them. And you could do that.

You could take content you've already created and turn it into a guest blog post. You can, if you're not local based, same kind of thing. Try to get on a podcast episode and guest with someone else. Write a blog post, create content that isn't going to eat up a ton of your time, but builds relationships and helps make connections for you in your industry.

So again, I'm not gonna say one of those is better than the other, But think about your growth strategies as a way to build relationships. And if you can work on relationship building at this point, that's going to be the best thing you can do to grow your business. And maybe it's even as simple as I'm going to make sure that I connect with people on Instagram and leave reviews for their podcasts and support their content and start building relationships that way. Just make sure that when that is your goal, you're building relationships with intention. You're not going, I need to meet five new people on Instagram today. And instead you're going, here are five people I really wanna build a relationship with. Once a week, I'm gonna go in and make sure that I'm interacting with them in some way.

AMY: That's good.

AMANDA: So that first phase, all about relationship building. The second phase, the foundation builder phase, you're gonna take things to the next level and you want to take it a little bit farther when it comes to getting in front of new people. So maybe you started doing things like podcast episodes previously, maybe you didn't, now might be a good time to start that. Other things like getting onto Pinterest, working on your search engine optimization, really focusing on, okay, how do I get in front of new audiences now that I'm putting content out on a consistent basis or on some kind of basis.

It's a really great way to work on growing. You're still working on building your value ladder. So you don't necessarily probably want to spend a ton of time trying to do things like speaking engagements. Maybe you do, but a bundle might be a good option for right now. Things that aren't going to, again, take up a ton of your time, but are going to help you build those relationships and start getting your content in front of more people. So how can you share your content with new people?

And again, things like, I don't know if anyone has seen those Roundup blog posts, you could do things like that, whether you're doing a Roundup podcast episode, a Roundup blog post, and just really starting to bring people into your sphere, having people write guest blog posts for you, reaching out and asking them to do that, having them come be guests on your show. Those are all really great ways to, okay, yes, it's still your content, but they're gonna share about the episode.

And also later down the road, you might be able to get onto their content some way, shape or form, because you're building that relationship. So this is a good time to bring people into your sphere. And then finally, you have the established entrepreneur phase, and this is where you've got that established value ladder.

You have your offers in place, and your job is to get people to the top of your funnel. So this is where maybe if you want to start doing ads, it's a good time for that. This is definitely a great time if you're planning to do any kind of speaking engagements of some sort, this is the time to do that. This is where you're going to go really big. And this is where you have more time and energy for your marketing, for your growth marketing because you have those things in place.

And so this is where you would say, okay, well, I want to run my own summit, or now I want to try to guest on 100 podcasts this year, or I'm gonna do JV webinars. And so a lot of it is still relationship-based, but you're able to put more time and energy and strategy into the growth marketing itself versus Pinterest. You're just driving people straight to a podcast episode, right? And so you're really just taking things to the next step, strategy-wise and able to pull people back in.

AMY: It's good. So that was like growth strategies for each phase.

AMANDA: Yes.

AMY: So now we're gonna talk about nurture strategies for each phase, yes?

AMANDA: So the nurture strategy, again, nurturing is just putting that content out consistently and that's the same for each phase.

Throughout the whole thing, it's an undertone.

AMY: Yep, it is the consistent, not constant, the consistent efforts to put out that content.

AMANDA: And over time, you'll improve your content as you can and as you feel like you have weak spots, but that is consistently throughout every phase, you are putting that content out and nurturing your people through that content.

AMY: And let's talk about like what we should be thinking about when we think nurture, what is the type of content that is going to effectively nurture people?

AMANDA: You really wanna have a variety. So anything where you can say, here's something about me and listen, that doesn't mean be super vulnerable and tell people everything about you, but choose one thing that you feel like people can connect with and start there and just share things like that.

For example, my cats, everyone is obsessed with my cats, particularly Padme. And I, if I post something on my Instagram stories, where she's, I'm like, she's being so obnoxious right now or something like that. I get people who are like, "You better be nice to that baby." Like they come for me in my own comments about my cat. But people that I have nurtured into these relationships, a lot of them are also cat people. And so they also have latched onto that thing we have in common. So what's one thing about yourself that a lot of people are gonna have in common, right? Authenticity and vulnerability that way and it doesn't have to be vulnerability again like, oh, this terrible thing happened to me and whatever. It's just, this is a part of me that I'm sharing on the internet and that's vulnerable even if it's just that I love my cats, right?

So content like that is always great particularly for things like stories and Instagram. You also want to put out sales content. You want to talk about your offers. If you don't talk about your offers, no one knows they exist. Talk about them about 10 times more than you think you need to, honestly. Because if they don't know it exists, they don't know that they can work with you. And there are probably plenty of people in your audience that would like to work with you and just don't know how.

You also want to put out content that is value and education based. Even if you have a product, a physical product, education based content is going to go so far towards building loyal people, loyal audience members that trust you. For example, have you heard of Olive in June? It's a nail polish company.

Like two years ago, I decided, okay, I'm going to start going to the nail salon once a month and getting my nails done because I feel better when my nails are done. I feel more put together. I just, I feel more on top of things. I don't know why that is, but I just do. And every time I paint my own nails, they'll like trash. So I started going about once a month, once every six weeks, And really quickly realized I don't like going to get my nails done. I am bored.

It's really time consuming. The little UV light hurt my fingers. I didn't like it. And so I was like, all right, I have to figure out how to paint my own nails and make them look good, but I don't know how. They always look terrible, even if I don't get it all over the skin for some reason, they look terrible. And I kept getting ads for Olive and June on my Facebook. So I finally went to their website and they have an entire section on their website on how to paint your nails So they look professional how to shape them what the different kinds of shapes were. This is all stuff I didn't know I had no idea that you had to file your nails like I don't know how I didn't know that but I didn't and That just goes to show some of those things that we think are so basic that everyone should know Your people don't because it's not their thing.

They wouldn't be coming to you to learn it if it was their thing But the fact that they had all of that education on their website and that valuable content I have not bought nail polish anywhere else since and I don't see myself doing so because I I'm loyal to that brand because they taught me what I needed to know and so even if you have physical products Create educational value-based content around that product because again if your people knew what they were doing with those things They probably wouldn't come to you. They would create their own or do it themselves, right?

AMY: Right.

AMANDA: So education based content, storytelling, building relationships through commonalities, those are all really great types of content to put out there alongside that sales content.

AMY: Love that. And you're putting out that kind of content on social, on email and...

AMANDA: Long form content, so blog, podcast, YouTube, whichever one you have.

AMY: Right. So good. I love it. That's awesome. Have we been over all of it? Is there more? Or have we kind of touched your bases?

AMANDA: I think the last thing I would want to make sure we touched on is the fact that I threw out a lot of different ideas for growth strategies. Choose one. Because what we end up doing is we go, "Okay, I'm going to be on Pinterest and I'm also going to try to figure out how to do search engine optimization and I'm also going to guest on podcasts and I'm also going to try to be in as many bundles as possible.

And I'm also going to do these networking events and what we end up doing is overwhelming ourselves and not putting any effort into any of the above and thus we don't see any results from those efforts. What you really want to do is you want to choose just one type of growth strategy, implement it for like three to six months. This is not a short term thing, three to six months so that you have enough time to learn the basics, learn how other people do it, and then figure out how to make it your own and make it work for your own business.

And at the end of the six months, if you've truly given it your best shot, it's still not giving you the results that you're looking for. It may not be good for your business and that's okay, you find another one. But I really want to encourage everyone to just pick one.

One growth strategy and really focus on that one and don't let shiny object syndrome tell you that you need to have 10 hundred different growth strategies because you're going to see so much more growth with just one that you're really focusing on versus five or six or 10. I think that that is why I got stuck in foundation builder phase for way longer than I needed to just like you like it didn't have to take as long as it did it and I'm fine that it did like I needed to go on that journey personally but I do think that that was the issue for me was I got stuck trying to experiment with too many different types of growth strategies and it was taking time away from me nailing down my value ladder and my offer suite.

And that's really what I needed to actually be focusing more of my attention on than the mega growth. Because like you said earlier, you got to have the growth strategies from the start present, but like you can take it to a whole another level once you're an established entrepreneur.

And that's, that's the phase that's designed for you to really kind of explore and go crazy with that stuff.

AMY: Yeah, exactly. Your marketing is a tool. You want to continue to try to get in front of new people from the start, but you can't go all in on growth marketing if you don't have anything to lead people back to.

AMANDA: Yeah.

AMY: That's like such a simple concept, but I did not grasp it.

AMANDA: Oh, me neither. Again, it took me forever.

AMY: Yeah, it's wild. But you know what's cool is I've gone through the experimentation with the Abide side of things and I actually just kind of realized while we were talking like the Peaceful Entrepreneur brand is actually a little bit more in the content creator phase right now.

But it's absolutely, it's cool because I've already gone through the stages once. And so I am a lot more clear and can do it better and quicker the second time through.

So it's really kind of nice that I'm getting like a second chance. Yeah, I felt like that so much with my second business with the travel agency where it was like, Oh, I actually know what I'm doing this time. That startup phase was a snap. It was like, "Oh, I have clients right away. This is incredible."

Well, this is a lot to chew on, but again, totally doable. And I think thinking back to your book is, and a couple things that we've touched on here is what you really give people is permission to go slow and take it a step at a time. And if I could go back and tell myself anything, it would be like, please stop trying to do everything at once.

Just figure out the next right thing to do and do it really well. And so for those of you listening, permission to not do all the things. Do a little bit. And if you need more support, the book is there, the bootcamp is there, the podcast is there. You have so much content. share where everybody can find you.

AMANDA: Yeah, so you can head to just my website, amandawarfield.com and find everything that I do in one place. If you specifically want to look at the book, which again is this conversation on a deeper level, it is Chasing Simple Marketing and you can find that on Amazon.

Yes, and if you buy the physical copy, you can get the audiobook for free. And I love that she read your own audio book. That's my favorite things is hearing the author read their own book.

And, uh, but it's really nice to have the physical because then you can highlight and annotate and stuff as you're going through it, because it is definitely a book that you want to refer back to after you read it. It is very actionable. I will say that it is, it's not a book that's going to be a fluffy, feel good kind of book. It's a, all right, do this thing now. Okay. Do this thing now. So it's going to give you homework, but in a very nice, gentle way.

AMY: That's awesome. Well, my last question, and I'm excited to hear what your answer is, but what is bringing you peace right now? This can be life or business.

AMANDA: Well, this is a big one actually. Um, we have decided to move back to Washington state. No way. Yeah. And that is something that we have wrestled with for four years now as to where we wanted to live almost as soon as we left, we kind of were like, hmm, I don't know if that was the right move and it ultimately was like in hindsight, we needed to be here in South Carolina for the last almost five years, we needed to. Um, but we've kind of gone back and forth.

Do we want to be in Washington? Do we want to be in South Carolina? And for four years we have wrestled with that question and we have finally made a decision. And yeah, it just feels, it feels really peaceful to have made that decision and feel right about it. So I love that.

AMY: Do you guys have family there?

AMANDA: No, no. You just, all of our family's here in South Carolina.

AMY: All of our family are there, wow.

AMANDA: It is, I mean, that's two very different landscapes.

AMY: It really is.

AMANDA: And yeah, but there's just something about the Pacific Northwest that just is calling us. So yeah, personality wise. And yeah, there's a lot about like a place being in a certain place, bringing you peace. Yeah. Well, and for me, just having the decision made and feeling like the right decision that because it was just that wrestling with it, but nothing for four years, neither felt right.

We would say, okay, let's move back. then we'd go, no, it doesn't feel right. Okay, let's stay here. No, that doesn't feel right either. Um, and finally it feels right. It feels like the right timing, but yeah, that, that personality, I feel like my, I told my friends when we were out there this summer, I was like, yeah, I've got a Southern body in a Pacific Northwest soul because I can't stand the cold out there.

But, but I feel like I belong there. I can even feel it. Oh my goodness.

AMY: Wow. That, That's awesome. And I mean, that even brings it back to what we were talking about at the beginning. That's like, there is going to be a wrestling stage. And you just got to go through it.

But the revelation and the light at the end of the tunnel will come. I feel like that's like, like I was telling you about like feeling one foot in each phase. Like I feel like the light is I see how I can get here and that feels really good. And, um, and you're at that stage with your decision-making.

So with you, I wish I could learn that lesson like once in for all, cause I hate the wrestling. I know, but yeah, I don't think we're ever going to get away from it.

AMANDA: That's life.

AMY: Yeah, that's life. Well, thank you for joining me today. This has been awesome. And I'm so excited to share this with everybody in the world who listens to it.

But everybody, thank you guys for listening and we will see you all next week. Bye.

Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode. Don't forget to connect with us on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. And we would love it if you would leave a review wherever you're listening. We'll see you next week for more tips for how to become a peaceful entrepreneur.