Welcome to the six figure business mastery podcast, where every week,

Kirsten and Jeanne dive into the essential topics to fuel your business

growth from copywriting to course creation, mindset to video marketing.

They've got you covered tune in for expert guest interviews on all things,

marketing and business, and learn how to work on your business, not just in it.

So get ready to unlock your business potential and take it to the next level.

Welcome everyone to our newest episode.

We're absolutely thrilled to have you here and we are excited to have Lauren Najjar.

From Lauren Najjar Coaching.

She's a business coach who specializes in lead generation and increasing

visibility in the online space.

She also owns a digital marketing agency offering done for you services

and consulting for entrepreneurs.

So today we're going to talk to her about increasing sales and

visibility through lead generation.

So Lauren, we've already chatted.

I'm so excited that you're here.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to talk about lead generation.

I know I mentioned this when we were chatting previously, but I

can talk about it all of the time.

It's something that people need.

And people don't do.

And so hopefully I can shed some light on how to do it easily in your business.

Yeah, I feel like lead generation and taxes are right

there with most entrepreneurs.

Like, I don't want to think about or talk about lead generation or taxes.

But if you don't have lead generation, you're not going to

have any money to file for taxes.

So they really do go hand in hand.

So when you first start working with a client, do you help them come

with a lead generating strategy?

Is that where you start with your clients?

I typically will start with them to overall assess what

they've been currently doing.

One thing that I notice is that, you know, they're trying to do copy and

paste strategies or, or seeing what the, maybe some other gurus are doing

in the online space and trying to kind of apply that to their business.

But one thing that people don't understand is that a lot of times

with your lead generation strategy, it has to be unique to your business.

And so the biggest thing that I do when we first meet.

Is kind of do that assessment of, okay, so how do you like to connect with people?

What are your overall goals?

What is the overall strategy or what's working and what's

not working first and foremost?

So figuring that out first and getting a really great baseline, that's going

to be key into then building out that strategy that's unique to you.

I love how you talked about gurus because I think a lot of people try,

like you said, to follow what they're doing, but a lot of times they're at a

completely different level than you are.

And so it's a, it's different, you know, talking to people at one level

than it is talking to them at another.

Would you agree?

I completely agree because, you know, if you're making 5, 000 a month or

trying to make 10, 000 a month or whatever that is, those are different

strategies, especially with your expertise and your knowledge of your business.

As it is, or maybe how long you've been in business.

And so somebody that has a million followers or has a giant community

has the ability to spend money on ads.

Those are obviously way different strategies.

And so when you're just, when you're building your business and I guess it

doesn't matter where you are, but you have to really apply things to where.

You are at and it's so hard sometimes I totally get that when you have those

gurus in your face of like you need to be doing this and you should be doing this

and do this you have to really put your head down and you really have to focus on

what is eventually going to work for you and even like your lifestyle to like I'd

like to incorporate that as well, but.

What's really going to work for your business and where that

success is going to lie for you.

I think there's also this big misnomer that, you know, you can start an online

business and be a millionaire tomorrow.

I, you know, that, what is that, that tech that it only took 10 years

to become an overnight success.

And so I think there's just a lot of, you know, high in the sky things, not

that there are those, you know, anomalies where someone does start a business

and it really quickly takes off because timing or whatever they're doing.

But I think for most business owners, whether they're an online

business or a brick and mortar local business, it's building

gradually and growing that business.

So what are some of the strategies you use with your clients?

So one of the things that.

Again, it comes from the assessment first and foremost.

So if they are in a business where they aren't generating any leads at

all, very first and foremost, we need to create some visibility for them.

So whether that is going to be collaborations on social media or

going on podcast episodes, or even creating some sort of email marketing

strategy, we need to develop visibility.

If they're not bringing in any leads whatsoever, we need to really

assess that visibility strategy.

Then the next thing is if someone's in the business of creating.

Maybe something at a scalable level.

So group program or a membership or something like that.

You definitely need to have more leads coming in almost

like in an automated sense.

So we need to really create a strategy for you.

That's going to bring us leads faster.

You can't be everywhere all at once.

You can't have 100 conversations a day.

So how do we speed up that process?

So then again, it's, it's about assessing then, okay, well, how

does that look like for your brand?

How does that look like for your overall experience?

You know, you, you are your brand at the end of the day.

And so you have to have the great experience that someone has the moment

they follow you to the moment they buy from you and how do you keep that going?

And how do we speed that up without diluting that experience?

And so that's another reason why I love to.

Again, apply that to every single person because you can't just

again take someone else's strategy and put it in your business.

People are going to feel that people are going to send something different.

They're going to lose that trust in you and they're just not going to

buy from you at the end of the day.

So it is truly about again, the overall brand and how you can still be cohesive in

any experience that somebody has with you.

I love the podcast guesting strategy because Jeanne and I actually host two

podcasts and we had no idea when we started our podcast how much we were

going to love connecting with people and how those relationships, you know,

sometimes a guest might become a client.

Sometimes we actually hire a guest to do something for us because what they're

selling is what we need at that time.

Or we make, you know, referral relationships.

So we had no idea how much we were going to really value and appreciate

the host and hosting a podcast.

And then I started guesting on a podcast.

And what I got out of that was.

When a host asks you questions in different ways, you find

yourself answering those questions in different ways.

And sometimes you're like, Oh, that sounded so good.

I've got to write that down because I would have never thought about using

that by marketing, but that just flew out of my mouth and it works.

Right.

So I feel like there's just so much advantages to being a guest on

other people's podcasts, those same relationships, you know, they, they

may hire you, you may hire them.

You may be able to refer each other.

There's collaborations.

So I love that.

That's one of the strategies you recommend.

I love collaboration.

I think that's the biggest thing when it does come to visibility

and it's in an effortless way.

It's not a lot of work to reach out and just simply collab with somebody.

There are so many different things you can do to collaborate with somebody.

And podcasts of course is one thing, either you have a podcast or you, you

become a guest on a podcast, but people have Facebook groups, people have

Instagram profiles, you can do joint lives on, people have blogs or emails.

You know, email newsletters you can contribute to.

And, you know, of course you want to be strategic and have those

partnerships be a little bit strategic, but collaboration is fun.

And that sounds like what you guys are saying of you're having a lot

of fun connecting with these people.

And in a way it is selling it's, it's bringing more income into your business.

You're building relationships, those increased referrals.

That is a form of lead generation as well.

And I think people overlook that when you start to really get your name

out there, that's all it needs to be.

As long as you also have a cohesive brand and a great experience and a great product

too, but you can collaborate and you can get to know people and that's also

going to increase your leads as well.

Yeah, you'd have fun doing it.

Awesome.

So one of the other things that you really talk a lot about is

how lead generation is the life.

lot of a business.

Yes, it definitely is.

I can't stress that enough because we can sit and we can post all

day on our social media platforms.

We can create amazing content.

We can create, you know, reels that are trying to go viral, or you can

have a Facebook group and we can invite everyone to our Facebook

groups, but if we're not talking to people, why should they care about us?

If we're not building relationships, if we're not actually connecting, we

can have the best content in the world.

And I tell my clients this all of the time.

They feel like they are posting every day.

They feel like they're creating on all of the platforms every single day.

But when it comes to actually Building that community and building

a community feel and I'm not saying creating a Facebook group.

You can have a community on your Instagram profile or your Facebook

business page or TikTok, whatever it is.

You can have a community vibe feel when you actually talk to people.

And when you aren't talking to people, they don't care.

And that's as simple as it, you know, you can, you probably can make some

sales with some good content here and there, and you might have a great funnel

and email marketing strategy, but there is some sort of building relationship

aspect that you need in your business.

No matter how you're connecting with people.

So when somebody is doing, you might have the best product, you might have the best

service, you might have the best content, but that one piece really drives it home.

And that's the lead generation aspect of it, whether that is, you know,

crafting an email marketing strategy and giving resources, having those one on

one conversations or, you know, doing those collaborations where you are

getting visible with other audiences.

That just drives it home at the end of the day, you need those 3 working

parts, the clarity, the marketing and the lead generation to really have

that strong business and to build consistency in your business too.

Yeah, it's interesting too, because we talk a lot about if

you're not talking to people, it's really hard to create content.

That you know that they want, right?

Because our content should be solving our clients problems and

our content should be speaking to what they desire, what they want.

And if you're not talking to them, and you don't know them

intimately, it's really hard.

You're just guessing based on your own scenario.

What's important to me may not be important to Jeanne or to you.

You know, we may all have the same outcome, but we may want

it for very different reasons.

So I think it's so important to have great conversations with people.

So, when you're talking to someone, how many conversations do you recommend

they try to have in a week in a week?

I would say about 10 to 20 at the very minimum.

I think that either carrying on a conversation, checking in

or starting new conversations.

I feel like the 10 to 20.

Aspect is starting new conversations and that is on the very low end again

That is probably as if you feel like you have no time If you feel like you

are bombarded with so many things 10 to 20 a week You need to be at least doing

you need to find the time to do that.

There is nothing else That's more important other than building your

business, especially if you're in a growth stage, there's client work I get, there's

things in your life that you need to do and you need to do those things, but you

can find five to 10 minutes and send 10 messages or even five messages a day.

It doesn't take that long to do to get your name out there.

It's almost, I always compare it to like, um, like a snowball, you know,

the snowball method of you start really small and you start building those

conversations and the conversations too.

I think I wanted to mention a lot of times I get pushed back on this

from clients that they don't feel, you don't feel authentic when they

want to do these conversations or they feel weird with popping into

someone's direct message inbox.

My, my pushback to them is.

You don't know where that conversation is going to lead you, and you need to

release the outcome because not everyone you're going to message is going to

be a client, and that's fact, but it could be a collaboration, it could be

somebody that eventually buys from you, it could be somebody that's going to refer

people to you, so you need to have those conversations, but let the conversation

go wherever it's going to go, because your name is out there, you are top of

mind, As to what it is that you're doing.

I can't say how many times I've been referred to by people who I've

never worked with, but I've just built a relationship with, right.

Or people that, you know, just will mention your name

in a room that you're not in.

So that's so key here where, yes, that is still a form of lead generation.

Just have those conversations.

We live or, you know, we, we live on social media platforms that

have billions of people on them.

We are little tiny profiles in a corner of the internet, right?

So we need to get out there and do some manual work too.

We can't automate everything.

I think automations go, they often go into spam more often now, or people see it.

They know it's automated.

So it just doesn't feel like a real connection, but it's interesting.

Jeanne and I were talking about this earlier today.

If you block out your lead generation time, and that's what you're stick to.

And it's really funny because everyone will say, well, things

come up or things happen.

But the reality is you're going to show up.

For your doctor's appointment, you're going to show up

for that podcast interview.

You agreed to be on.

You're going to show up for that new client meeting.

So you'll show up for everything else, but yourself and lead generation.

So that is something that I think, you know, it's just a harsh reality.

And sometimes it's not easy to pick up the phone and call someone.

Although, since nobody wants to call anymore, you'd be surprised.

How awesome that could go because like, what a real

person I get to talk to a human.

So I think that's pretty cool.

But one of the things that Jeanne and I've talked a lot about too,

is that there's a million dollars in your own backyard, right?

I think when people think about going online and building a business, you

know, sometimes they forget that they can just get out and have conversations

locally, join your chamber, join a BNI group, join a women's networking

group, whatever that looks like for you, because there's a very good chance

that what you sell, there's lots of people in your own backyard that could.

Use that product or service.

Do you ever have that conversation with your clients?

Yes.

And I think what comes up for me when you mentioned that is people

always want more and we are always stuck on the idea of, you know, Oh, I

don't have any leads in my audience.

I need more leads.

I don't know where my leads are, but you don't have a system in place.

to identify who's already in your audience.

And so many times, so many times, I think this is probably the number one

thing if you are in this place and you're struggling with, you know, the

things that I just mentioned is you need to see who is looking at how many.

And how many people are liking your post or how many people are joining your group?

It's who is already in front of you.

And that's something that I talk about a lot in my business is I

don't have a large online presence.

I have, I think, 3, 700 followers on Instagram.

I have a thousand people in a Facebook group and I don't have a large.

Online presence, but I've been able to maintain a business for the last six

years and, and constantly have clients and constantly book, you know, business and

projects and things like that, because of the relationship building that I do and

who I'm focused on in my audience already.

Sure, I'm doing outbound lead generation all of the time and I'm

collaborating and I'm on podcast episodes, but it's, I'm focused on

who is coming in and nurturing those people who are already in my audience.

Because here's the thing too, when, when you think of, again, the experience and

the experience someone has with your brand, regardless if they're working

with you or not, it's a lot cheaper and a lot less work to nurture those people

who are already here, giving them a really good experience than focusing day

in and day out, making work harder for yourself to get more people to come in.

I love that you brought that point up because that's something that I think

a lot of people forget is, you know, we're focused on, Oh, I only have five

people coming into this, or I only have five people joining my email list.

Okay.

Great.

That's five people.

You should be able to convert at least one of them, if not two of them.

And so if you have a really great experience, if you have a really

great brand and it's very clear what it is that you help someone with, why

aren't you converting those people?

Why do you need hundreds of people to come in?

You don't, you know, as long as you have that good system in place.

Yeah, we call those vanity metrics, you know, oh, I have to have a thousand

people or 10, 000 people following me.

And it's like, well, it doesn't matter how many people are following you.

How many people are buying from you?

How many people are interested in what you're offering?

How many people can you help that are in front of you?

Yeah, that's the problem with going viral, right?

Like when we talk a lot about YouTube, you know, the algorithm is

designed to put your content in front of the right people with your SEO.

So if something kind of goes viral, then it's putting it in front

of all these different people who are not your ideal client.

And so sometimes that can even mess up the algorithm.

So it's not about how many people, you know, view it.

It's a matter of how many people are viewing it at the right time.

And I know we spoke with you before the call about real estate agents.

And I feel like for real estate agents, that's so powerful because,

you know, if somebody's looking to buy a house or they're looking to

relocate, they've got a need right now.

And if they start watching your content and they don't let know, like, and trust

with you, they have no problems booking a call with you or picking up the phone and

calling you because they have a need and you've already provided value for them.

So I think it's important to realize you don't need, you know, a thousand

people to see that one video.

You need one person who needs to buy right now, right?

That's what you need.

Yes, and I think you bring up a good point too about the virality of content.

And I, you know, time and time again, when a reel goes viral, it's almost like you

don't want things to go viral anymore.

I know, you know, as someone who manages social media accounts and does consulting

for people on their content and strategy.

It's not a great thing to go viral.

And when you focus on so many aspects of the content that you're posting,

you dilute your message as well.

And so you need to have that value.

You need to focus on the value that you're providing and focusing on what

your client actually wants versus.

the trending audio, the pretty picture, the entertaining video, because it's

not going to convert as you want it.

You may get a ton of likes and the vanity metrics are going to kick

in, but it's not going to convert.

And so those things are just not something that you should be focusing on, focusing

on the people that actually want to hear from you and need you in that moment.

Yeah, it's crazy to me, even to this day, when people book off of, they found us

on YouTube or they found our podcast or whatever, when they book a call with me,

They're quoting things I've said, they're quoting things Jeanne said, they're

mentioned in an interview that they really liked it with someone we interviewed.

So they are paying attention.

And like you said that let's set the right timing.

Right?

So there you're getting in front of them at the right time with the right

content rather than just showy stuff.

And I think, you know, if you have a heart to serve people and you're putting

out content that truly helps them, and like you said, really identifies what

you do and how you can serve them.

That's the https: otter.

ai

The forefront I think of a lot of our businesses and I think a lot of us have

started a business to provide impact or help people and be of service to people.

And so that's what you lead with.

And so anything that you create, you know, focus on that and you won't ever

have a bad piece of content or you won't have a bad piece of, you know, a video

or a reel or something along those lines.

So focusing on what your client needs and what they need, you need to hear you.

Say that's all you need to do.

Well, on top of talking about lead generation being the lifeblood of

a business, you talk a lot about aligning your lead generation with

your goals and your business's goals.

I'd love to hear more about that.

Sure.

So I think another reason why people struggle with this is, you know,

again, it goes back to content as well.

And if you are in a place where you are struggling with content and creating

content and you don't know what content you need, or you don't know what may be

an opt in for your email marketing or what videos about or what topics it's

because you aren't talking to people and also having the goal in mind of

where you want your business to go or, or any growth goals that you have that

also dictates the marketing and the lead generation strategies of your business.

And so if you don't have a goal in mind, I think a lot of times people want to

create from the ground https: otter.

ai

So we need to really think about our goals first.

You know, what's the revenue goal you want next year?

What's the revenue goal you wanna hit in 2025 of Q1?

Or, you know, whatever that is, or however you plan in your business.

You need to start by reverse engineering.

It becomes so much easy for you when you understand.

what goals are attainable first and foremost, what goals you want to achieve,

how you need to go there, and what you need to sell, because then your content

should be effortless at that point, because then everything that you post,

everything that you do, any strategy that you implement is in line with your goal.

So think of your goal first.

Are you going to sell something in January?

You're going to launch something new in February.

All of that needs to be reverse engineered, and then you create

in that plan, and then you implement, and that should focus.

More so on the goal versus then, you know, the opposite of creating and then being

reactive to what you, what you want to do.

It's the implementing part that I think a lot of people have trouble

with, you know, they want to sit in the strategy and you know, I could do

this, I could do that, I could do that.

But at the end of the day, you got to do something.

I definitely feel, you know, I always joke around and I say I'm a type A minus

person, where I like to say that I love a good plan, but I am definitely the type

of person that can divert from the plan.

And I, I like being intuitive in that way.

I don't like being really stringent in a plan and doing things from A to

Z. I like to go up and down sideways.

You know, if I think of something, I will act on that in my gut.

So I, when I, when I talk to my clients and they kind of get a feel for what they,

How they learn or how they like to work.

And sometimes people need that plan.

They need the checklist.

They need that other times people are more so flowy and they get

really overwhelmed when it comes to being very strict in a plan.

So I think that inviting yourself to have a plan, whether that is.

A to B, C to D, like you have the plan really outlined or if it is somewhat

flowy, you need at least an overview.

You need an outline.

You need to follow the plan, but then give yourself some room to be that flowy,

you know, mindset or have that intuitive pool if you need to change things up.

But don't change it up so much.

Regardless, You need to have some sort of plan, like, and it's as simple as that.

If you want to meet goals and you have really powerful goals and you want to make

sales in your business, there needs to be some sort of plan and a system in place

for you then to achieve those things.

Yeah, I think what else the other thing is they don't track the data.

Right?

So we can all try new things or have an intuitive hit and say, let's try this.

But at the end of the day, you have to use things long enough

for them to have time to work.

Right?

That's the other thing.

I think people abandon a marketing strategy too quickly, rather than

like, trying to tweak it and improve it and see if the numbers get better.

They just kind of like, throw their hands up and say, it didn't work.

So I think that accountability and tracking is so important.

And it's not something I think a lot of us like doing, but it's just

something that needs to happen.

to be done.

I love that you brought up numbers.

I am a numbers nerd and data nerd, and I think that's a huge part of

why I like lead generation so much.

But I think that just like marketing, just like lead generation, you

have to have that time in your business to look at the numbers.

You absolutely do.

You know, just like how you were saying earlier, you show up to

your doctor's appointment, you go to the gym, you eat dinner, or

you pick up your kid from school.

Like you need to have that time to look at your numbers if it's

not on a weekly basis to do it.

You know, at least by monthly, do it monthly.

You have to look at those numbers because you're going to make life

so much harder for yourself where you're in constant creation mode.

You're not repurposing.

You have no idea what's working, what's not working.

You definitely need to look at those numbers.

You have to set time aside.

Yeah.

I think sometimes we go with the feel.

Does it feel like that was a good idea or profitable or did it work?

And you've got to get out of the feel and get into the real, to

talk about the real numbers, to see what, what actually happened.

Was it good?

Was it, could it be better?

So yeah, I like looking at the numbers.

I love that you said that too, because I think a lot of times people, you

know, Kirsten said it too, people abandon the marketing strategy too soon.

And that's about when people feel bad.

Right?

Like people just, Oh, no one signed up to work with me or I

didn't make any sales this month.

So I'm a failure and I, this didn't work for me.

But when you actually take your feels out of it, maybe feel it for a day.

I tell everyone just feel it for a day, but then you can recoup it, recoup,

you know, recuperate yourself and then you can focus on the numbers.

And then take your feelings out of the numbers, the numbers don't lie,

the numbers are your friend, and they are going to tell you what's good,

what's working, what's not working.

And it's all data, data has no feeling whatsoever.

So just take the data and then proceed how you're going to proceed.

But that's how you can continue to be consistent as well as like when you kind

of separate the data from how you feel.

We're all human, we're all going to feel bad at some point

or something didn't work out.

And that's normal and natural.

So we're not telling you to be robots.

But you have to look at the numbers.

You just absolutely have to, you can't make decisions based on feelings.

We have a client, she'd had her YouTube channel for about two years

before we started working with her.

And she, she's like most people.

She didn't love being on camera.

She went madly in love with creating videos, but she really loved educating

people and she was very knowledgeable.

So she enjoyed getting that information out.

It just wasn't getting pushed out enough.

And so once she learned an SEO strategy and had a virtual assistant start

taking care of the back end stuff, within six weeks, She had 3 people

reach out to her 2 ended up meeting with her and 1 went under contract.

I'm so like, I'm so grateful.

We've talked about this with her that she didn't give up on YouTube, right?

You know, after 2 years of consistently creating content and not getting anywhere,

she was looking at the numbers and she was she asking herself, what am I not doing?

What can I do better?

And then she started learning about SEO and that's when she kind of found us.

But yeah, I think it's.

The strategy often isn't bad.

It just needs little tweaks, little tiny things.

So she's still recording the same types of videos.

She's still creating the same type of content.

It's just what we've tweaked on the back end that made the big difference.

And so I think that's something that we don't always see the result of is there's

little tweaks that make a big difference.

I love that you brought that up because that's something that.

I've talked about it a lot in my content as well, is where I feel like people,

again, want to perfect their content.

And maybe your client was feeling some type of way of maybe I'm not good enough.

Maybe what I'm putting out there isn't good enough or the

production value needs to be better.

I need to have better music or be more, more polarizing.

And a lot of times I will say, it's not your content.

Your content could be amazing.

And I think that's my point here of lead generation is if you aren't

doing engagement, you're, you're not doing yourself any favors.

If you're not doing those little tweaks to your strategy and like YouTube, of

course you can't really do engagement like you would on social media.

But again, it just comes from those tweaks in your strategy of what if you did take

five minutes a day to engage with somebody on Instagram whatever platform you're on?

Or what if you took 10 minutes?

to send 10 messages and just connect with people in an authentic

way, not cold messaging and not copying and paste messaging.

But if we want to just pop our name in someone's inbox, your content at the

end of the day is probably not bad.

It's not, you know, it's probably really great actually.

And you're probably really clear on what it is that you're

doing, but no one is seeing it.

And that's the only issue.

And the issue is you have to do yourself some favors and getting more

visible by making those connections.

Love this.

This is a great conversation.

I know, right?

I could talk to you all day, Lauren, but I'm afraid we can't.

So if people wanted to reach out to you and talk about lead generation, how

is the best way for them to reach you?

The best way to reach me would be through my website, laurenajar.

com.

I also am very active on Instagram and Facebook.

You can look up my first and last name on Facebook, of course, but then, um,

Instagram is at laurenajar as well.

So just my first and last name.

Those would be the three ways.

Fantastic.

Well, we'll put all that in the show notes so people have

a nice easy way to find you.

But Lauren, this has been amazing and fun.

And yeah, we'll have to have you back to talk more lead generation.

Thank you so much.

This was such a great conversation.

And again, my favorite topic to talk about again, talking, talking about it all day.

I can do that.

So Thanks for listening to the six figure business mastery podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode and you are ready to leverage video

marketing on all online platforms, or maybe even start your own video

podcast, then you need to check out the done for you and done with you

program at themarketingvaadvantage.

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