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Jeannie dive into the essential topics to fuel your business growth, from

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It doesn't matter how great your product or your service is, if

people don't understand it.

They're not going to buy it.

Welcome everyone to our latest episode.

We are thrilled to have you here and we are absolutely thrilled

to have Holly Fisher here from Fisher Creative Marketing.

She is the owner of Fisher Creative Marketing and a

story brand certified guide.

She's helped dozens of organizations clarify their marketing message

and develop an effective sales funnel that generates more leads

and boosts their bottom line too.

So today we're going to talk about mastering your marketing

message and growing your business.

I love this topic.

So we're so glad to have you here, Holly.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Happy to be here.

We're excited because we both love the book StoryBrand, although I

think you have really figured out how to implement it and run with it.

You're helping so many other people really get their message out.

What was it that you love most about the StoryBrand concept?

When I first read the book, I was already working in marketing, but I really loved

just the simplicity of the framework.

It's one of those things that you read and go, Oh my gosh, yes.

What?

Duh.

Right.

This makes so much sense.

And how can I now use this with clients that I'm working with?

How can I really put this to work for me?

You're totally right, but it's still the wording and how, you know, what words

are you using to get across, you know,, the feel of, who you are and what you do.

Yes.

It's simple to understand.

It's not always easy to implement.

Right.

So there are plenty of people that will read the book and then

they still are seeking out someone who really understands it to go.

Okay.

I like this now.

Just help me, help me implement it.

And you feel like clear messaging really is key to growing a business.

Do you want to tell us more about that?

Absolutely.

Yes.

If your business is confusing, if people don't really understand exactly

what you do or how you can help them, it doesn't matter how great your

product or your service is, right?

If people don't understand it.

They're not going to buy it.

Right.

We've probably all gone to someone's website, gotten an email, seen an ad

on television, something like that.

And at the end, we're like, what were they selling?

What was that all about?

I don't understand.

And most of us are not going to do the hard work of trying to figure it out.

So that's why it's so important to make sure that your message is really clear

upfront that you're really capturing people, you know, in those first couple

of seconds so that they really understand, Oh yeah, I see exactly what this

business does and how they can help me.

Yeah, always easier said than done.

. And Jeannie and I like to joke because like, we are great business partners.

We have different strengths and weaknesses, different

communications styles.

But when it comes to writing copy, I like to joke and say, we bicker

like six year olds, you know?

So it is hard to, I think it is harder to have a clear message

when there's two people involved who communicate differently.

So how do you work with clients who maybe have partnerships and helping

them get clarity around their messages?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Fortunately, I think just having someone who can come in from the outside is really

helpful because often it is hard when we're in the day to day of our business

to really kind of take that step back.

And so one person seeing one thing, the other person is seeing something else.

So having an outsider who can come in and go, okay, what exactly do you do?

Tell me this, explain how it works, and can then you know, what I do

is sort of take the information, download, and then basically extract

all the good pieces from that and really figure out the core messaging.

So, it's really helpful to have that outside perspective who can maybe, settle

those arguments or also just go, okay, yeah, that doesn't make sense to me.

Right.

What if we set it this way?

Yeah, definitely.

So, what would be the key elements for a good, clear marketing message?

Absolutely.

So certainly if you're interested in following the story brand

marketing framework, right, there are seven pieces of that that will

help you clarify your message.

But , one of the most important ones is really just figuring out what is

that problem that you're solving.

For your clients and your customers, right?

What is the thing that you could help them with?

All of us are looking to a business to solve a problem, right?

And that can be anything from, you know, I need somebody to

help me with my bookkeeping and my accounting, for example.

It could be, I need new shoes for a party that I'm going to this week, right?

It can, it runs the gamut, right?

But it's always a problem that we have.

And we need to figure out what is that problem that we're solving for folks.

And so making sure that that part is really clear.

Also making sure that you're communicating how you're going to make someone's

life or business or family or whatever it is, how can you make that better?

We really need to make sure that people understand the success that

they'll experience after working with us, maybe that transformation

that they will go through.

And then I think the other thing that's also really important in your

messaging is honestly just letting people know what they need to do

to work with you, to buy from you.

So many businesses neglect that really clear call to action

particularly on their website or maybe in emails that they're sending.

We're just not telling people how they can actually purchase from us or, you know,

schedule a demo or book a call or whatever that thing is that we want people to do.

We need to make sure that we're really clear about that as well.

Yeah, that's funny.

I follow Denise Duffield Thomas.

And she says it's like a, I think it's Christmas time or there's one

time a year where she decides to buy things from her group, her members, you

know, as kind of a gift back to them.

And she said, but I'll only buy it when I get to your website or that page,

if it's clear to me how to get there.

And she said, it's shocking to me how many times it takes me, five

clicks to get where I'm going.

And, you know, you lose people along the way.

Hundred percent, that's probably the easiest thing that people can change

in their marketing is just going to your website and going to, I actually

have a button on here that says buy now or whatever it is, right?

Where is my buy now button?

We talk a lot in our story brand circles about hiding the cash register.

Too many businesses essentially hide their cash register, right?

We don't go to the grocery store and wander around with our shopping cart

going, where do I pay for these things?

Right?

We know exactly where to go and how to make a purchase.

But for a lot of us, particularly service-based businesses, we

kind of bury that call to action.

Just assuming that, well, people will reach out if they want to work with us.

And instead we need to tell people where to go, what to do,

how to actually buy from us.

I love that.

Now, what if somebody has two different target markets?

How do you help them craft copy to address both of those?

Yeah, absolutely.

So typically what we'll do is start with sort of an umbrella message, right?

So what's the overall message for your business.

So we'll start there.

And then if you do have different target audiences or maybe a couple

of different services, for example, then we can actually create messaging

that's specific for those as well.

So lots of times you don't just have, one single message for your business.

You may have multiple messages.

You may even create very specific messaging for a brand new product that

you're launching, for example, or a new service that you're rolling out.

Crafting that message specifically for that product or service

can be really helpful as well.

So once you create the sort of that umbrella message for your business,

you can have lots of sub messages, if you will, underneath that, that

really speak into maybe a more specific problem that you're solving

for a really niche customer base.

So tell us a little bit about the type of businesses that you work with.

You say you mentioned service based businesses.

I do work with a lot of service based businesses, but not exclusively.

I tend to work with smaller businesses even some solopreneurs, non profit

organizations tend to work a lot with the business owner or business leader.

Just great, really enjoy that.

I love getting to know people's businesses and really understand kind

of the inner workings of their business.

How they work, how the business works, all of that, really enjoy that.

So do tend to work with a little bit smaller companies, which again, I

really enjoy in all sorts of industries, which keeps it interesting too.

Yeah, it's so fun to learn about all the different businesses.

And sometimes you think, wow, I would have never thought about making money that way.

And here's this amazing business that does this.

So I, that's one of the things we love most too, is just meeting all

of these interesting people who have very interesting businesses and

ways to, you know, make the world a better place at the same time.

So that's gotta be a lot of fun.

It is.

Yeah.

Some people will specifically niche into a certain industry.

I've kind of avoided that because I do like the variety and I enjoy

getting to learn about different companies and you're right, exactly.

Sometimes you encounter a business and you're like, well, I didn't

even know this was something that people would pay for how fascinating.

Well, we never thought we'd be buying bottled water when we were kids.

Right.

Think about that.

Like all the things that are, or when we have these fancy computers that we

could, you know, talk to each other on and, you know, it's crazy how

things change and that creates so many great opportunities for businesses.

Oh, that's so true.

I love that.

So going back to marketing messaging and I can't remember off the top

of my head, the story brand, but is there ever a reason to kind of go

negative if you're not doing this?

It's hurting you or you're not giving people the opportunity to find you

or use your product or service.

Absolutely.

We do want to just touch on what's at stake if people don't work with us.

Right.

So we do want to touch on a little bit of that failure.

We don't have to go heavy handed.

We don't necessarily have to do a lot of scare tactics necessarily.

We want to really play up the success, but we do want to remind people what

happens if you don't work with us, right?

You continue to have this particular issue or problem, or maybe things

get worse sort of snowballs.

So we can tap into that just a little bit in our messaging to

remind people, Hey, here's what happens if you don't buy from me.

Again, it doesn't have to be really, over the top, but it is great to drip

that into your messaging and into your website and your marketing so that

people do have some sense of what's at stake if they don't hire you.

Yeah, I love that.

So let's talk about now, if you have your messaging and you feel good about

it and you're excited to tell people about it, where should you use it?

Everywhere.

It's a short answer everywhere.

It's really interesting.

When I work with clients, we create the messaging, and I actually create

a brand message guide for them.

And for a lot of them, I print that.

It's a little, maybe 20 to 25 pages long.

And they get this little printed booklet of their messaging.

And I've had a lot of clients that just keep that right on their desk

and they refer to it constantly for anything that they're working on.

So certainly your website is going to be, front and center, where you

really want to have that clear, consistent marketing message.

Any email communications that you're doing in your email marketing, nurture

campaigns, sales campaigns, anything like that, and social media too.

That's a great place to continue to talk about your message on social media.

And then honestly, really any other marketing or advertising that you might

be doing, whether that's maybe some traditional print ads, direct mail social

media, advertising, anything like that.

You can absolutely continue to just really let people know,

this is my message, right?

Sometimes I work with clients and they're worried that they're just sort of saying

the same thing all the time, right?

They're just repeating themselves over and over.

And I'm like, great, that's good, right?

You want to be known for something.

And the only way you can do that is by repeating that message.

So it really starts to stick in people's minds.

I'm going to talk about us for a second because I definitely

want your take on this.

So we work with a lot of real estate agents, and we help them really learn

how to use YouTube and SEO, local SEO, so that when people are searching

they will pop up, you know, help them really showcase their expertise.

And so when we think about like what we offer.

You know, we help them become confident on camera, but we also spend a great deal

of time on their SEO and their strategy, but then more importantly, we pair

them with a marketing virtual assistant who does everything else for them.

So they upload the video, they take care of the SEO best practices.

They create all the social media posts and blog posts out of that video

and send it out to their email list.

So sometimes I feel like we get into the weeds about, you know, do we focus

just on the SEO and YouTube is a way to have people find you through SEO, do we

focus on becoming confident on camera?

Do we focus on the benefits of having, a video editor is kind

of like having a magic wand.

And so sometimes I think we get muddled down and into what is the

biggest benefit because it's really interesting different clients value

different things in our program.

That's really interesting.

I think, it's also looking at what is the ultimate end result that

you're helping people achieve, right?

So they're able to feel confident on camera.

They're able to have good SEO.

All the things are uploaded and taken care of.

But at the end of the day, how is that actually helping their business?

You know, are they able to sell more homes or better connect

with potential clients online?

Like even thinking about what is the ultimate outcome of all those things

can be a great way to message that.

And then it's going, okay, here's the ultimate outcome.

And then here's how we do it.

Right.

We're helping you feel confident on camera.

We're helping you get everything set up with SEO.

And then we're providing this assistant to do all the back end work for you.

Yeah, I think definitely.

Having lead generation is a big part of it and more and

more people are going to video.

We know, you know, Google owns YouTube.

And so Google will often showcase a video when someone searches in Google.

So yeah, I think it really is about the SEO, but the end goal is having

people find you and buy houses from you.

And I think we don't maybe lean into that enough.

Jeannie, do you agree?

Yeah, I do agree because it's hard to say, and I feel like a lot of people say that,

lead generation and making more sales.

At the end of the day, that's what we do, but that's what

lots and lots of people do.

So I guess, you kind of have to say that and then maybe dig into the

how or what else you do for them.

Would you say that's kind of the right avenue?

I think that's true.

Absolutely.

Because it is hard.

I mean, all of us have competition, right?

We all have other businesses that are doing something

similar to what we're doing.

Right.

So it is kind of thinking about, okay, how can we do it a little bit

differently and how can we, again, communicate it really clearly.

That's a great way for you to stand out from your competition.

If they are not super clear and you are, that's going to make it a lot

more easier, but that's going to make it a lot easier to attract the

clients and customers , that you want.

So do you want to tell us about a client that you've worked

with that maybe came to you?

Because I'll bet when they leave you, they're so excited.

Look at, I have all of this, proven, well, yet to be proven, but I have

somebody, a third party who's given me everything I need to go out there.

I'll bet it gets them excited.

So if you have a story that you'd want to share,

Yeah, I actually had a really fun client that I've worked with

earlier this year, a few months ago.

It was kind of interesting and that we had actually met in

person at a networking event.

I work with people all over.

But it's fun when I can work with folks that are local right.

That I can meet face to face.

And so she and I had actually met at a networking event

and she was on my email list.

And so she had probably been on my email list for maybe 18 months or so before

she circled back and was asking for some help potentially with some social media.

She just had some questions about marketing.

So we jumped on a call and ended up starting with her messaging

and going back and helping her get the messaging really nailed down.

And she was super happy with that.

And then she started looking at her website going, well, now

none of this is on my website.

So now how can we redo the website?

So we redid the website, created a lead generator and some emails for her.

And she was just really thrilled with the outcome.

And she's one of the folks that hangs on to that little brand message guide that I

was talking about earlier and has that on her desk and refers back to that all of

the time, which I love because that's a big time saver for businesses too, right?

When they're creating marketing content or they have to do new

emails or make some tweaks to their website, a lot of folks just feel like

they're always starting from scratch.

And so this way you already have something that you can just pull from and use.

And so for her, she just really went from like, yeah, my website

is fine to oh my gosh, I'm just thrilled with how all of this looks.

It really elevated the professionalism really made the message really clear to

the people that she's trying to work with.

So that's really fun.

It's fun.

Yeah, you get to see where it starts and then you get to see where it ends and

then when that clarity is so important.

It's almost like a big relief, you know, as a business owner,

it's like, huh, somebody finally figured out how to say what I do.

And so we'd had a podcast interview not long ago with a guy

who was in health and wellness.

And he was chatting with his son, his grown son and his son's friend.

He'd known forever, and he was telling them what he did.

And he said, Oh, you're into gritty wellness.

And so he, he's like, I've never had anyone be able to put that into two words.

But yes, it is about gritty wellness.

It's about getting up at five when you don't want to.

It's about passing up the fries and having the broccoli.

It's digging into making your wellness so important.

So it is funny how you can spend months or years trying to think about how

to say something simply and it just flies out of someone else's mouth.

I have heard that from a lot of clients.

The same one I was just talking about said the same thing.

She's like, this is exactly what I've been trying to put into words for many years.

Right.

And I just haven't quite been able to communicate it in this way.

And so that has been really helpful for so many people is not only

getting the clarity for their marketing message, but also just a

little bit of that mental clarity as well, and feeling like, okay, great.

I finally know how to talk about my business.

Wow, Holly, has been so great.

And I can imagine a lot of people who are listening are now going, Oh

shoot, I need to go back to my website.

And what does it say about me?

So if they want to reach out to you and find out how you might be able to help

them with their messaging, what would be the best way for them to reach you?

Sure, the best way really is just to go to my website, which is

fisher-creative.com and you can schedule a free 30-minute discovery call right

there and would love to chat with folks about their marketing and then of

course you can find me on social media channels at Fisher Creative Marketing.

That's fantastic.

Well, again, thank you so much for joining us today.

This has been so informative, and getting us all excited about our messaging and

that there is hope for us to to get the right words out there, to attract

the right people and ultimately to help the people who need your help.

So thank you.

Yes.

Thanks so much for having me.

This was a fun conversation.

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 the marketing VA advantage.

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