Podcast

Episode 411: How To Create An Aligned Marketing Strategy So You Can Actually Show Up Consistently

Your marketing strategy has a BIG impact on your ability to get shit done! And if you’re feeling resistence and out of alignment with your marketing strategy it’s going to be even harder to get shit done.

In the marketing world people are always talking about the power of consistency but there is often a piece in the middle that’s missing… So in today’s podcast episode I’m going to help you create an aligned marketing strategy so that you can actually show up consistently.

I may not call myself a marketing expert but I am somebody who helps you with productivity and getting shit done! Perfectionism leads us to want to do things the “right” way… This belief stems from the idea that by doing things the “correct” way, they will work instantly and effortlessly.

If you run a business you need to be marketing and selling and I want you to feel good about your marketing strategy! Tune into this episode now.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode411.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • How perfectionism affects your marketing strategy and what to do about it
  • Examples of successful entrepreneurs reevaluating their businesses to find alignment
  • Personal experiences with focusing on the wrong tasks and strategies
  • Understanding the difference between good and not-so-good resistance
  • Tips on staying true to your plan and avoiding distractions
  • The power of Power Planning from PGSD

Featured In The Episode:

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business. You can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

Sam Laura Brown

In today’s episode, I’m going to be sharing with you how to create an aligned marketing strategy. So you can actually show up consistently, I know that I’m not a marketing expert or a marketing teacher, I am someone that helps you with productivity and getting shit done. And when it comes to your marketing strategy, it can have a big impact on your ability to get shit done. If you don’t feel in alignment with it, if you feel a lot of resistance around it, if you feel a lot of resentment towards it, it is really going to be hard to show up consistently, and to sell whatever it is that you have to offer, whether that is a product, whether that is a service.

And I think when it comes to the marketing world, the whole conversation around consistency is often not as nuanced as it needs to be. People talk about the power of consistency, because people on the other end your future customer or client, they need to hear from you a lot. They need to be reminded about you, you need to deliver value to them. There’s all of that kind of conversation. But what’s really important to understand when it comes to consistency, is that consistency is just the beginning of understanding what actually your marketing strategy and what doesn’t.

We tend to think that if I can just be consistent, I will be successful. And yes, that will be the case. But there’s a little piece in the middle that has been missing, which is because I’m able to now through this consistency, see what’s working and what isn’t working, I can iterate and tweak so I can get it working. That’s why consistency is able to create success. So we want to have you feeling in alignment with your marketing strategy, so that you’re able to do it consistently. And through that consistent implementation, you’re then able to start actually making it work for you.

This is a big part of being growth minded about your business and your marketing that you aren’t expecting that just because you’re doing something often and frequently, and you’re really giving it a full effort that it should work right away. No, once you are consistent, that is when you are beginning to really practice that is when you are beginning to really understand how to talk to your people and how to sell to them and how to help them and how to provide value to them.

So consistency, yes, it’s important that we get there and we get you doing things consistently. And we also understand that consistency really is just the beginning. Just because you have gotten out of your own way enough to do something consistently doesn’t mean there isn’t more work to be done when it comes to releasing your perfectionism handbrake. But with that said, let’s talk about how to get in alignment with your marketing strategy, we are going to be talking about some very practical things that you can be asking yourself and reflecting on and doing so that you aren’t experiencing resistance towards marketing.

Marketing, obviously, is a very important part of business. It’s not the whole of business, there are other things that go into it like operations, for example. But it is an important part of business, your business needs money, to be able to support all the facets of the business that are going to ultimately have you helping your customer helping your client delivering that product or service, you need to be marketing and selling, creating high quality, consistent content.

And people having a lot of epiphanies and breakthroughs and good fields from that high quality, consistent free content isn’t a business, not unless you have a different business model, where you have, for example, sponsorships and things like that going on. But if you are selling a product or service yourself and you’re not just selling the attention that you have, as a result of your content that you’re creating as a byproduct of that you need to be marketing. And so we want to have you feeling good about the way that you’re marketing.

When it comes to perfectionism though we often we really just want to do things right we have it drilled into us we just feel so compelled to do things the right way the correct way and baked into this idea is that if you’re doing something the right way or you have something that is correct, then it will work instantly and effortlessly. So anyway with all this said what happens is that we perfectionist feel so compelled to do things the right way that we often dismiss or overcomplicate what feels good to us.

We believe that we need to work hard to be successful, and we haven’t had someone actually show share with us the reality that things can be simple and easy. And the hardness needs to come from doing courageous things. And that emotional risk of putting ourselves out there, versus the hardness coming from complexity, and overthinking and all of that mental labor and mental drama that can go on when we’re very much focused on doing things right.

So that we are perceived as being smart and intelligent, and us dismissing or overcomplicating what feels good to us is a problem because it means that our business first of all, is less successful than it could be. And it also means that we don’t actually end up liking the business that we’re creating. And when we ignore ourselves like this, it actually means that we are decreasing our self trust. And we eventually get led further and further astray from what’s actually most important to us.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit recently, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Vanessa Lau, who is a coach and a creator, I will link her up in the show notes. And she has quite a few really fantastic debrief videos that she’s done on her business, I will share the one that she did for 2022, sharing her most important lessons. As you probably know, if you listen to this podcast, I love that style of episode, I love recording it, I love consuming it. So I will link that up if you want to find out more from her. But all of this to say that she is someone who I think at the beginning of this year, announced that she was going to be going on an indefinite sabbatical.

And this was after a few years of talking a lot about burnout. And after a big launch that she would do so she was selling an online course about Instagram, that after a big launch, she would be completely burned out to the point where she would need to have a couple of months off at a time to just regather herself. And her business was successful in terms of revenue in the multi millions. And yet she had created a business that ultimately didn’t feel good to her it didn’t feel in alignment with her and true to her.

This is my perception, of course, based on what I’ve heard her share about it. But she does a fantastic job of sharing really honest insights from her own experience. So if you’d like that kind of content, I highly recommend looking at some of her videos that she does have on her YouTube channel. But I think it’s just such a good example of the importance of seeing part of success as doing business in a way that you like, and that you want to continue long term.

It doesn’t mean that just because you’ve decided on a certain marketing strategy, it means you have to do that, in that way forevermore. But it means really trusting ourselves and being in tune with ourselves and understanding that there are so many ways that you can make work when it comes to marketing your business. So why choose one that doesn’t feel good, why choose one that doesn’t actually help us feel connected to ourselves connected to our business have a business that we feel like, brings us alive and is really adding value to the world.

A lot of times it can really be that we see success as just the numbers, the revenue, the size team that you have, whether you have an office, like all of those kind of external things, and how you feel about your business is so so important. Ultimately, regardless of what milestones you’re heading and what goals you’re achieving, you are going to be in the day to day experience. That’s what your life is going to be. And so we want to make sure that it actually feels good, I will talk in a second about why there will be some resistance. And that’s not a problem. And why we need to actually distinguish the good resistance from the not so good resistance.

But we want to make sure that we’re not operating our business with this idea in mind that it needs to feel like it’s like kind of I guess, more so prioritizing professionalism and external success in terms of revenue and things like that, over what we actually want to do, and what we actually want our experience to be. And for example, what channels we actually want to be marketing on not just doing what’s trendy or people saying you, you should be on every platform. And if you aren’t creating X number of pieces of content per day on all the platforms, you’re like missing out on all this opportunity.

It’s just really understanding that with your brain, your beautiful brain, you can figure it out if you ask your brain the right questions if you have the self awareness and if you have tools for self coaching, you can get your brain to figure pretty much anything out And when we’re in this mentality that we need to be doing a certain marketing strategy, because there’s only one marketing strategy that could possibly work, that we just haven’t asked our brain, the right questions, and that we have our perfectionism handbrake on.

So when it comes to me and my examples, I mean, there are many of times where I feel like I haven’t been in alignment with my marketing strategy. And I’ve really been prioritizing what is right, and what I should be doing. But it really is about long term versus short term content, or sorry, Long Term versus short term, long form versus short form, that for me, recording podcast episode is something I love doing.

And that hasn’t always been the case, I started this business as a blog, I was so scared to put myself out there, I definitely never thought that I could have a podcast, let alone one that has millions of downloads, where I’m able to just show up and chat and not have it be edited and all of that kind of thing, like I have developed a skill set, and a set of beliefs that have allowed me to be able to love creating long form content like this and to enjoy it in to have that feel so flowy.

So it’s not like I came out of the womb. And this was what I always felt called to do. But for me that long form content really feels so connected to what I love consuming and what I love creating. And when I’ve tried to focus on short form content, like Instagram, for example, I can do it. And there’s a way that I can make it feel good. And I’ll talk about that a bit more in a minute. But ultimately, what I love is long form content. And for me being able to figure out a business model where I get to create long form stuff, and just feel like I’m chatting, whether that’s I’m coaching a PGSDer, or I’m talking here on the podcast that feels so in alignment with me.

So I spend a lot of think, yeah, basically, I would say 2014 is when I started the Instagram account for my blog. And until last year, I was so focused on Instagram content, and you wouldn’t know it looking at my Instagram at certain periods, because I wasn’t posting but there was always mental drama going on about Instagram and how I should be being consistent. And getting the images just right and the graphics and doing the stories and I had to always be on stories. I had to be sharing stuff. And then in my personal life, and I’m having my clean rest, I’m thinking like, would this be a good story? Would that be good?

There was so much mental drama, I think we all know this experience as perfectionist, where you have so much mental drama, that it basically like, completely removes any bandwidth you have to actually implement. But all of your energy is going towards dealing with that mental drama and that indecision fatigue, that you don’t actually have anything left to be able to give. And when it comes to showing up and doing the marketing, so you again, you wouldn’t know looking at my Instagram, how much mental drama I had about it consistently.

But last year, I was like, Okay, I really could just focus on what feels good, and double down on that. So actually, this whole episode was inspired by a recent coaching call that I did inside PGSD. So just for context, PGSD perfectionist getting shit done. It is my group coaching program for perfectionist entrepreneurs. And we started our most recent enrollments. Look, our most recent cohort began in July, we enrolled in June, our next one’s going to be starting in October with a September enrollment.

And to kick that off, we did a 30 day get out of your own way challenge. And as part of that challenge, I decided to do a bonus one on one calls that PGSDers were able to sign up for I think I did 20 something at one on one coaching calls as part of the challenge and one of the calls was around this topic of how to be in alignment with your marketing strategy. Like how to actually let it be okay. That the marketing strategy you want to do isn’t actually the one that you feel like you should be doing.

So in the case of this PGSDer, with her business, she have learned through a marketing program about doing DMS and like having this very like when you’re DMing someone having this very structured like here’s what you say and ultimately it’s a sales conversation over DM. And even though she enjoyed DMing people she really didn’t like doing it when it felt just so forced and structured and like she was following this formula and it just made her feel like it and she didn’t want to do it and she just found herself resisting doing it.

So when it was in her power planning, she just would push it off, or she would try it for a few days and be consistent with it, and then just ultimately would fall off the wagon with it again and again. And even though she knew that it didn’t feel in alignment with what she wants to do, because she had learned it from someone who had been successful in their business, and because it didn’t feel like the other things she was trying was working, she kept finding herself getting pulled back to doing that. So I really wanted to have this episode to share some of the coaching and insights that I gave that PGSDer to really have you having some practical steps to help you get in alignment with your marketing.

So the first thing I really want to talk about is that when it comes to alignment, that doesn’t mean that there’s no resistance whatsoever. And I think this is really important to know, especially because we perfectionist can be very all or nothing. And when it comes to topics like resistance and alignment, we think that if there’s any resistance whatsoever, we’re not in alignment at all. And so I just want to take a minute here to distinguish the good kind of resistance, I’m gonna call it with the not so good kind of resistance.

And to really have you understanding that what we’re aiming for here isn’t zero resistance. What we’re aiming for is, I guess it’s kind of like a feeling of expansiveness around what you’re doing, and that you’re intrigued and curious. But at the same time, you could be scared shitless, and that that isn’t a problem. So the good kind of resistance, I would say, is when you’re doing something that feels in alignment with you, but you do have fears around doing it because it feels risky, or it feels like so you like you feel like it’s so true to you to do this thing in this way that you feel emotionally exposed.

And like if anyone was to not like it, or anyone was to criticize you that they would be like criticizing the core of your being, or you’re doing something that’s new to you, or you’re doing something that really just brings up a lot of fear of judgment, because you’re doing things maybe in a way that your peers in your industry aren’t doing or you haven’t seen something done this way before. So you have this feeling like I just really want to do this thing this way, and actually is part of the get out of your own way challenge.

In part one, it was all about getting in alignment with your vision, your values, and your business, like having all those three things really be supporting each other. And one of the questions in that was really just having you think about what is one of the breakthroughs that you repetitively has, when it comes to your business. So I want you to just be thinking about it now. And when it comes to your marketing, what are the breakthroughs that you repetitively have that time and time again, you find yourself thinking like, Ah, I just for example, for me, I just love doing podcast episodes, so much more than any other kind of content.

And yet, I would find myself going and doing all the other kinds of content and completely deprioritizing the podcast and doing at the last minute, but I just kept having that breakthrough. So I want you to think about like, what is that thing that you keep getting pulled back to, no matter what else you try. And obviously I talked before about that PGSDer how she kept getting pulled back to something that didn’t feel true to her because of this story that she heard about it being the right way.

But I wanted you to be thinking about what’s something you keep feeling called to do. That doesn’t really make sense or that others in your industry aren’t doing like what’s that thing that you really want to do even though you don’t think it’s the right thing that is something worth paying attention to. The not so good kind of resistance is when you are doing something that feels completely contrary to what you believe so your values, your vision, like what’s important to you.

And a good sign that you might be doing this like having that not so a good kind of resistance around something is that you are only doing it that way because others are or because it is a professional way to do it or you’re trying to be for me this is how it comes up at least being really strategic and trying to cover everything like when I’m thinking like I need to be strategic that’s me like my code for I’m trying to do things perfectly. But it sounds better to say I’m being strategic.

So have a think about for you with your marketing strategy. Do you have the good kind of resistance where it’s like this feels so me and I’m scared to put that out into the world versus the not so good kind where you’re thinking like, I really like this doesn’t actually vibe with me, but I should try it because it’s working for everyone else. Because obviously nuance within that as well and there might be thoughts that you were having that are creating they’re not so good at kind of resistance when actually you could just clean up that those thoughts and do yourself coaching and have you having a different feeling about it.

For example, you might have money mindset things going on, were selling, I’m taking money for whatever it is you’re providing feels out of alignment with your values, we’re actually there’s just a misunderstanding that your brain has about what it means to exchange money with someone else and you’re not seeing the value in what you duty so it feels out of alignment to be selling it. So that is again nuance in this but just basically I want you to be thinking about do I have the good kind of resistance or the not so good kind of resistance when I am doing my marketing.

And I just wanted to mention as a side note, I’m sure I will talk about this on future podcast episodes. But I have recently hired Aditi, I will link her up in the show notes. So her Instagram is @mycoachaditi. She is actually one of our PGSD coaches, but she also in her own coaching business, coaches people on their human design, and I won’t try and summarize of the incredible thing she does with astrology and all of that realm.

But I have hired Aditi to coach me to be my coach to help me with human design. And I’m a 2-4 emotional projector, in case you didn’t know, but to help me really like use my human design and also my power planning. And because Aditi is a PGSD Coach, she knows all the things power planning. So using those two things, to really have me being as aligned as possible with how I’m creating on the podcast, because there are ways to do things that feel amazing and an alignment, and then we can just make a few changes, and it doesn’t feel that way.

So it’s really making sure we’re not thinking about our marketing strategy or marketing platform in this really black or white way of like, I just hate Instagram, or I just love podcasting, for example, because I don’t hate Instagram, and I do experience loving podcasting. But there’s also a way that I could do a podcast that would feel completely out of alignment. So for example, for myself, if I needed to do a five minute episode, and it was just like three dot points, and I couldn’t actually share any stories, or nuance around things like for me, that doesn’t feel enjoyable, that doesn’t feel valuable. I don’t enjoy consuming that stuff.

Personally, a lot of people do. There are a lot of successful podcasts out there like that. But that’s not what I personally want to create. So I have hired Aditi, I will be reporting back on that you will be experiencing the benefits of that through the podcasts episodes that will be going out. But just knowing that like when I’m working with Aditi, for example, we’re not going to be talking about how can we get it so that I have zero resistance, it’s really tapping into how can I make sure that I am setting things up in a way and creating the container for myself with this podcast, so that I am experiencing the good kind of resistance because I’m really sharing in a way that maybe feels more vulnerable to me than what I have done before in the past.

Or I’m sharing concepts that I haven’t talked about. Because usually I talk about things, I have a deeper understanding of it. I’m not saying I’m going to be talking about things I don’t know about. But that my own brain like I have perceptions about what things I am good enough to be talking about, and maybe some of those ideas that I have a false so all of that to say that it is really powerful to just be thinking about what kind of resistance am I experiencing. And knowing that zero resistance isn’t what we’re trying to aim at.

The next thing is to just know that there are ways to make almost any marketing strategy feel in alignment with you and have that good resistance there. So not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, that saying the baby not thrown out with the bathwater just means to not just rule things out completely and just be very all or nothing about it. So before switching your marketing strategy, it’s so helpful to think Is there a different way that I could be doing this, that would feel really good to me.

And I know that in this whole conversation, there’s this underlying question of like, but I want to make sure it actually works. And this is where that self trust comes in that you will be able to figure out how to make it work, how to actually be able to meet your goals, within the framework of the marketing strategy, or the kind of marketing that you want to do this isn’t to say that like, just choose whatever feels good and keep doing it and it will work. It’s again, a nuance of like, do whatever feels good, do it consistently. And through doing it consistently, you will have enough data over an extended period of time more than a second to tell you what is working about it and what isn’t working about it.

Because with everything that we try, there’s something that is working in design that isn’t well, multiple things that are multiple things that aren’t working. And then you can adjust that and iterate that and then get it to something that is working that does feel good to you. So we just don’t want to be in this mindset of like, okay, well, I’m doing the thing that feels good, and it’s not working. So now I should go back to the thing doesn’t feel good. Like no, just keep at it, and tweak and adjust and iterate.

So I want to make mention to this is something that I talked about in that coaching call. It’s so powerful to just know that we can say things like it just doesn’t work for me. Like there’s PGSDer was saying, direct DMS are like doing DMS in this way where I just have this script that I’m sharing it just doesn’t work for me. And what I told this PGSDer was what is actually happening is you are deciding Not to figure out how to make it work. And that is a beautiful thing.

When we are in this mentality of like, some things just don’t work for me, we’re really just saying, I just actually haven’t been committed enough to figure out how to make it work. And when we can say I’ve decided to not figure out how to make this work for me, we have all our ownership back over the results that we create, instead of being this mindset of like, well, I just have to try things. And some things might work. And some things might not work. And I have no control to be like, well, I can make anything work. This is a whole self image thing. Like, I have the identity, this is what we want to create, I have the identity that I can make anything work that I choose to make work.

And there are going to be some things that I decide I don’t want to figure out how to make them work. I don’t want to do that. And that’s okay. It’s the same way. Like when it comes to following through with your plans. Instead of saying like, I didn’t follow through, I don’t know why I just fell off the wagon, like something came up, I forgot about looking at my calendar, like, I decided not to follow through. That’s the reality that you decided, whether consciously or that was so unconscious, or it sounded, you know, like, oh, well, it doesn’t really matter. If I don’t do it today, like there’s so many ways that decision to not follow through can sound.

But ultimately, at some point, you decided, either for a reason you liked or for a reason that you don’t like you decided not to follow through. And when we say I decided not to follow through, we get our power back, because the next time we’re in a similar situation, we know we can make a different decision. Or we can make the same decision. But at least we have so much more awareness now that is a decision versus the world is happening to us. And we just don’t know why. Because we’re trying our hardest. It’s like, I decided not to follow through, I decided not to figure out how to make it work for me. And that’s okay.

So also, we want to be paying attention to what has worked before for us, and really, really paying attention to this and not dismissing it. And it is so worthwhile to spend some time journaling about what has really worked for you, especially if you’ve already made money in your business, and you know some things at work. And it’s not necessarily Okay, well, three years ago, I was posting on Instagram in that way. So I’m just going to post again in that way, like things change the business world, the social media world, the marketing world is always evolving, the markets always getting more advanced, we need to talk to people in a different way, like all of that’s happening.

That’s the reality of business, and running the business. But the essence of what worked can probably be replicated and adapted to the current climate that we’re in today when it comes to social media and everything else. And I know that for myself, because I haven’t had the best habit around celebrating my accomplishments, it’s meant that I haven’t also been able to pinpoint what’s worked. And so when something’s worked, I’ve often just be like, That’s so exciting. And now I’m gonna do something completely different. Instead of like, cool, that’s so exciting. I’m just gonna keep doubling down on that. And getting even more intimate with figuring out what’s working about that and why it’s working, and how I can make it work even better.

We feel like that’s too easy. And like we wouldn’t have a real business, if we just found something that worked and kept doing it. And we have to be up with the trends and doing all this different stuff. So this was a big part of the get out of it. And we tallied it was looking at what has actually worked for you. And prioritizing, doubling down on that or doing that again, versus trying to do the new thing.

We love, the excitement and the optimism that comes with finding the new thing, that shiny object, it just gives us so much hope that this time can be different. Or maybe if I find the perfect marketing strategy, then I will actually be able to show up consistently. That’s why this whole episode is about how to get in alignment with your marketing strategy with any marketing strategy. So that you can show up consistently, when we have the belief that there’s this perfect marketing strategy out then we just have to hope, wish and pray that we can find it and actually do it and it will just magically turn us into someone who can get shit done.

It’s fruitless, they never actually works. So what we want to do is recognize we have the ability to learn how to follow through with our plans and how to do the things we know we need to do to build the business. A huge part of that is actually planning in a way that gets your perfectionist mindset on your side. So you’re not getting in your own way. But you have the power to make things work. You don’t have to hope that you will stumble upon the magic bullet that’s going to fix you.

So all of that to say again, just to summarize that there are ways to make almost any marketing strategy feel in alignment with you So don’t just throw everything out and start over from scratch. We perfectionist we love that we love the clean slate, we love the new beginnings, a fresh start, what we want to do just look at like what you have, and other tweaks that you can make, to have it feel more in alignment with you.

And really reflecting on what has worked for you in the past what has felt good for you in the past, what are those breakthroughs that you keep having about your business, and about your marketing that you can perhaps also embody in all of this. And to finish up, I just want to talk about giving an extended period of time to getting your a wind marketing strategy to work.

So we want things to work really quickly. And all of this comes from like when we have this perfectionist mindset and set of beliefs, we are believing that our talents, our intelligence, our skills are fixed and can’t be changed. And we therefore feel like everything we do is evidence of whether or not we’re good enough, you might be hearing that and thinking like but I love learning, I know that I can learn new things that ultimately you’re probably approaching if you do a lot of procrasti-learning.

Learning as a way of testing your natural intelligence. And so you tend to want to only learn things that you know you can be good at, or that you’re going to get really quick results with. And because of that you often don’t implement because you’re scared to find out that you aren’t actually very good at doing the things. So you love to just focus on the knowledge accumulation versus the knowledge implementation. And business isn’t like school in school, you get points for knowing stuff.

In business, you don’t get points for knowing stuff, you get points for actually implementing what you know, it’s why PGSD is really focused around having you actually showing up and being growth minded so that you can implement all the knowledge that you have about your business. But we have this idea that things should happen quickly. And that if we’re good enough, that means we should experience instant success with no resistance, no problems, no obstacles to overcome.

And so for example, in the Get out of your own way challenge. So the PGSDers we’re feeling disheartened, because they had done something for a week and a half, and it didn’t work. And even like the ones who told me that when they said it out loud, they were like, Okay, I can, I can see the error in my thinking. But really, our experience is like I tried it four times, and it didn’t work. So I’m stopping.

And we want to really change the timeframe, and give ourselves a period to be in experimentation and really just create a container for ourselves, to be able to try things that might not work. It’s why for example, with power planning, we do the three month commitment, instead of having this expectation that as soon as you start power planning, you should be able to do it perfectly. And whatever. It’s really about, like, hey, it’s a new skill, it’s going to take a minute, give yourself the grace and give yourself the space to do that.

Because when we’re expecting instant results, it doesn’t help us get instant results, you might have noticed that all that pressure makes us procrastinate and makes us overthink it makes us get in our own way. So we don’t want to do that and what we want to do with your marketing strategy. So for example for myself, my align marketing strategy is podcasting. And really just sharing myself coaching and the coaching that I give inside PGSD, sharing that in long form podcast episodes, it can really be as simple as that and telling you about PGSD inviting you inside, we do a quarterly enrollment for PGSD, it’s a 12 month program. That’s how it like that.

That’s the business model. So having an extended period of time, ideally, six to 12 months, if that timeframe is scary to you, I recommend at least three months. But when getting away from I’m going to try it for four days. And if I haven’t got a client yet, or I haven’t gotten x number of likes or X number of followers, or X number of revenue that I’m going to quit like we want to get away from that and be like, Okay, I’m actually doing this for a significant period of time. I’m giving myself the space to figure this out.

And so when it came to 2022 one way that I did this was saying that instead of not knowing exactly when PGSD is going to open and all of that kind of thing it was I decided at the beginning of the this are all the dates that PGSD is going to open. We are going to sell PGSD through a series on the podcast, a Planning series I’m going to be talking about planning properly. I’m going to be talking about PGSD and inviting our podcast listeners to join us inside PGSD. Our most successful PGSDer come from the podcast. They love the podcast, and then they come inside and they get crazy results.

So we’re gonna keep doing that that has worked for us before. Instead of okay, I need to, I’ve tried this as well, like I’ve gone down this like a hey, why should do a webinar and it should be this format. And there should be this email opt in and all of that to be like, Hey, I already have people listening to the podcast, they’re already loving it, our podcast, this is a great clients, they get such good results. And I love recording podcast episodes. And I already know how to do that. And we already it’s so easy for me to just post an episode.

So I’m actually just going to figure out how to sell PGSD through the podcast, and how to podcast in a way that I love. And that feels good to me. And so I love the experience of selling PGSD, I love the experience of coaching inside PGSD, like I love start to finish, like helping our clients before they’re technically a client, and then helping them when they’re inside. And really just giving myself a container of 2022. And we’ll be doing that again, in the following year as well, this year has been a little bit different with me having some time off at the beginning of the year to give birth to the twins and all of that.

So anyway, that is getting a bit sidetracked here, but having a container for yourself. So 2022, we’re doing a quarterly launch, it’s a podcast series, and a bunch of emails, we’re going to email a lot, we want everyone to know about it on our email list. And that’s what we’re going to figure out how to make work. And we were able to do so much through that experience in terms of figuring out what to talk about and what’s working.

And it was just when I was chopping and changing every time, I couldn’t figure out what worked. And even in 2022, I changed the topic of the podcast series, it was a Planning series and the procrastination series and the clean rest series than the Planning series. And so in reflection, it’s like the hate the Planning series that worked super well, it makes sense. So why not just do a Planning series every time so that’s what we’re going to be doing. I talked about this actually, as well, in the debrief episode for the most recent launch, how Renae who is our incredible marketing manager, and myself who like, Okay, well, now we have a marketing manager.

Well, this was how I was thinking about it, I shot in that episode, Renae having some different thoughts as well. But my main thought was like, Okay, now we have a marketing manager, and we can do the marketing properly. And the way I was doing, it wasn’t actually proper, serious marketing. So now we need to just kind of scratch everything and start over and what’s actually happening for the upcoming launch is that we are going back to doing it the way that was working and iterating from there.

And so every time I deviate from just doubling down on what’s working, and continuing down that path with self trust, I end up it often takes like a year of doing things in a less effective way to come back to like, okay, let’s just actually keep going with what was working. So I hope that this episode has really inspired you to just have a look at your marketing strategy to do what you feel called to do and to give yourself an extended time period, to be committed to figuring out how to make that work.

And you do that through consistently implementing and executing if you don’t know how to show up consistently and you are feeling like you are in alignment with your marketing strategy, or at least in alignment enough with it but you’re not following through learning how to plan properly as perfectionist is going to make such a difference. We’re going to teach you that in PGSD. Also, the Planning series will tell you all about that. But just know that you can actually make it work. And you can really have a business that you enjoy that you love. And that feels good to you.

And it just might take more than four days of doing it to figure out what that looks like. But keep at it. And know that every time your brain is like, oh, let’s do this new marketing program, or what about this new platform or doing this new thing in this new way. It’s not to say not to be up to date with what’s going on and to just, like, be Pollyanna about how to have on these rose colored glasses and not be paying attention to the fact that the world does change.

But to know like, my brain can be resourceful and creative enough to have me figure out what I enjoy doing, and where that overlaps with what works and to stay there versus just trying to be doing all have things and pulled in a million directions and nothing works. So it gets so frustrating and then you just like, well, now I’m so desperate, I should just do anything and doesn’t even really matter if I actually like doing it. And why not just be in a job. Like if you started your business to actually enjoy what you’re doing and have control and freedom around it. And then you just end up doing a marketing strategy that you resent.

How is that any different to being in a job and working for someone else, or for a business that you don’t actually feel passionate about? There’s so much that goes into business, besides passion and just being able to know that like, you don’t have to feel passionate 24/7 you know, every minute of the day for it to be like a real business or a worthy business or whatever. But to just know like, if you actually do want to have control of your business and a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment, and yet you are doing all of these marketing things because you should like how is that any different to going down a career path just because your parents think you should or just because society thinks you should, or going into a certain job or saying that just because you think you should and you’re too scared to leave like, you’re in business. You’ve started your business. That’s so amazing.

And now let’s actually have you have a business that you enjoy building. So getting in alignment with your marketing strategy, and doing the things that I recommend in this podcast episode is going to be super helpful. So I hope you’ve enjoyed it. If you have take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram, I’m @perfectionismproject. And I want to mention too if you do want to find out more about PGSD, you can go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd to find out more about it.

Outro
If you enjoy this podcast, I invite you to sign up to receive a short daily perfectionist power up from me. These are little notes and reminders sent to you via email that’ll help you plan properly as a perfectionist and get you out of your own way. So you can go to Samlaurabrown.com/power to sign up today and you’ll start receiving motivating perfectionist power-ups this week.


Author: Sam Brown