Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Emily Hirsh. Emily is a leading Digital Marketing Strategist and CEO & founder of Hirsh Marketing, one of the largest and fastest growing digital marketing companies in the world. Emily and her team of experts work with top-level influencers and game-changing entrepreneurs and to grow their businesses and generate massive revenue using her revolutionary Hirsh Process. We talk all about the foundations of marketing, how to have a successful launch and that we actually can’t do it all so it’s ok to ask for help!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Always focus on the value you deliver – if you are delivering a really great service, people will talk about it and organically grow your business.
- Make it a priority to give attention to the service you are delivering.
- True marketing comes from refinement, optimising and learning.
- The foundations of marketing – messaging, strategy and overall offer.
- The core of your marketing is messaging – your understanding of your ideal customer in a deep and emotional way. This drives all your marketing.
- Then you need to look at how you communicate your offer and what you sell.
- You can’t build anything on a bad foundation!
- In order to have a successful launch, you need to have a warm audience BEFORE you go into launching.
- You need to grow your email list prior to launching who are interested and trust you.
- If you are just getting started – understand your ideal customer and create value adding content.
- The success of your launch is in what happens before and after your launch.
- People don’t buy on their first contact with you! You have to build their trust.
- It takes 7-10 touchpoints before someone may choose to buy with you so you have to create them.
- Try and do something every single month to grow your warm audience list.
- Be realistic with your goals – we are all at different stages in our businesses.
- You have to build it up slowly – it doesn’t happen overnight.
- Success is created from the foundations.
- We need to make sure our content is entertaining to our target audience.
- It’s not enough to just have an image with some copy for an ad anymore – there needs to be something more interactive, engaging and creative.
- Content is driving everything – it’s how we get attention on everything we do!
- You have to stand out with your content.
- Create a way for people to gain trust and connection from you and your brand.
- Offer a higher level of connection through dms, chat boxes, Q&As, lives.
- You can’t have a perfect balance all the time – but you can create your definition of this.
- You can only do as much as your season of life allows! It won’t be forever.
- People may not actually be “doing it all” – they probably have help!
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
Having a successful launch is down to what happens before and after the actual launch. You can’t just decide to launch in 3 weeks’ time and expect it to be an instant success.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS
- Emily’s journey so far and how she got to where she is now!
- How to have a successful launch
- What if you don’t have a huge audience or team?
- What is working right now when it comes to content
- Work/life balance
CHECK EMILY OUT:
RESOURCES MENTIONED
TRANSCRIPT
Teresa: Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the podcast. Now, before we get going, I need to tell you that my dog is around and is being a royal pain in the backside.
Teresa: He's just not settling today. He's been from a walk. I don't know what's wrong with him. So if I shut my office door, he is going to bang on the door to let him in. So I'm just letting him roam. And I apologize if you hear little tappy dog feet as I am doing this, but this is the reality of working from home. Isn't it?
Teresa: So today we've got an interview. As I said, last week, it was meant to be last week. And then I changed things up because of the new podcast name. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, then please do go and take a listen. Because it's really, really, um, I think it's really important episode had lots of great feedback from it.
Teresa: So I'd really appreciate if you haven't listened to that, you go back and listen to episode 227. Couple of things to mention before I talk about today's interview. The first thing is that I mentioned a few weeks back that the 90 day program that I run the one-to-one program, the only way you can work one-to-one with me, the price is going up.
Teresa: And as you listen to this podcast, as it comes up on the Monday, the price literally goes up on Friday and it goes up by quite a considerable amount. So if you've ever thought about doing the 90 day program with me, Then now it's probably the time that you want to jump in. Also, I think I have one, maybe two places left.
Teresa: I could squeeze another one in, I don't take many people purely because obviously it's one-to-one and it takes a lot of work. So just that I'd mentioned that again, before the price goes up, I'd hate for you not to know that the price is going up. And then the other thing I need to mention, which is quite exciting.
Teresa: Because of everything else that's been going on the brand, the podcast changed, the club change, everything. I haven't mentioned it, which seems really stupid, but basically I've been asked to co-author a book. So I am an author of a book alongside, I think it's 12 other averse altogether. And we've all written a chapter each and it's called creating success.
Teresa: And it's basically how us as entrepreneurs have created our own success. And how that means, and what that looks like. It was, I really loved doing it actually. Really love telling my story. I really loved sort of sharing how I got to where I was and what I think success means and how I look at success. I know the other stories are absolutely brilliant in that as well.
Teresa: And it's currently very cheap because we it's a digital copy only. The pay or the hardback well, the actual physical book the paperback no idea. Is coming out in a few weeks after the book is released, but basically the book was released on Friday as you listened to this on Monday and it's 99 P or 99 cents. And all profits are going to save the children fund. So it's completely for charity. We're not taking any money out of the book at all. And yeah, it's ACE. I'm really proud and excited. There's the dog I told you, it'd be in my dream. I'm really proud and excited about it. And yeah, I would love you to go and take a look and give it a read.
Teresa: If you fancy it, I'd love to know what you think. You know, and I think this is maybe my first little toe in the water as to whether I actually think I could manage to write a whole book. And I writing a chapter is hard enough. I'm not going to lie. So writing an entire book it's a whole another matter, but, but yeah, I'm really excited.
Teresa: So I will make sure it's linked up into the show notes. Keep an eye on my social. We've been posting about it since Friday. So yeah. Go and check that out. Anyway, onto today's interview. I feel like this has been one I've been holding back from you because I've been threatening it for so long. So I apologize about that, but I have got the lovely Emily Hirsh on the podcast today.
Teresa: Now let me read you Emily's bio. So she's a leading Digital Marketing Strategist and the CEO and founder of Hirsh Marketing. One of the largest and fastest growing digital marketing companies in the world. Emily and her team worked with experts with top-level influencers and game changing entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and generate massive revenue in a revolutionary Hirsh process.
Teresa: Now you wait until you hear some of the people that they have, like helped and managed and all of that stuff like to say, it's a namedrop. It's unbelievable. Basically in 2012, Emily and her husband, a master kettlebell trainer, that's a new one to me, but as you know, I'm not a big gym fan. Uh, started an online fitness business together.
Teresa: By default he was the content creator and Emily was everything else. She managed social media, customer services, landing page, graphics, outreach, sales funnel, marketing, Emily soon discovered that digital marketing was her power zone and business group quickly grow into thousands and basically she fell in love with it and loved it.
Teresa: So since then Emily's built a team of 25 top level strategists and ads managers, copywriters, graphic designers, and marketers to generate hundreds of thousands of ROI for her clients every month, they've managed over $26 million ad spend and generated over $107 million in revenue for their clients. Unbelievable.
Teresa: She's also the mum to young children. You'll hear all about that. And it's kind of like, yeah, it's an amazing story. Like how she did it. It's phenomenal. So anyway, I will not carry on talking anymore. I will leave you to it. And here's the lovely Emily.
Teresa: I am really excited to welcome to the podcast today the lovely Emily Hirsh. Emily, how are you doing?
Emily: Yay. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
Teresa: My absolute pleasure. I am very excited about today's chat because I was doing my research she do. And some of the things I discovered, I was a bit like ‘Say what?' about the fact that you've got three children.
Teresa: The fact that you're younger than me. The fact that you got very successful business like, it was a all a bit like, how, how does all this happen? So I'm really excited to share that with my audience. So we always start off at exactly the same way by you explain to them what you do and how you got to do what you do today?
Emily: Yeah. So I'm CEO of Hirsh marketing, which is a marketing company. We helped specifically digital brands with their messaging and their strategy, and then kind of executing that. We've specialized in Facebook and Instagram ads, but I've noticed over the last year, that's kind of expanded to like organic and your foundational marketing components because that's been so important.
Emily: And so I actually started out six years ago. I was 20. And I started as a virtual assistant. And that is what like opened me to this world of online business that I didn't even know it was a thing. I grew up, my dad's an entrepreneur. I've always been an entrepreneur, but he had, you know, local service businesses.
Emily: And that was a lot more like the world that I knew. And so I started as a virtual assistant and then was able to start doing Facebook ads for those clients. That is what kind of kicked it off. It was definitely, okay this is what I'm really good at. This makes a lot of sense to me, but everything that I've built and learned has come from experience.
Emily: I, I've taught, you know, self-taught through material, of course, in podcasts and courses, but also try things. And like, I wonder what happen if we do this and let's get creative with this. And over the last six years, I built the team of 25 people we're at right now. And I have three kids now and have generated $108 million in total revenue.
Emily: Been able to work with some incredible clients that, you know, were people that I used to follow. Like when I started, they were like my heroes and then became our clients. So it's been a journey it's been a fast journey, but I just absolutely love it.
Teresa: I mean, that is just like, I nearly did a sweat silently to myself.
Teresa: And you told us about the fact of like 25 people and three children and like the clients, the revenue that everything else. I mean, it's just. It's crazy impressive. And I know, I know there's some people listening to this that have agencies and are freelance social media people, and like they, they're going to be sitting there screaming at the facts they're going, how.
Teresa: How did she do this? How did she grow so quick? Was it intentional to be, again, what was the thing? What did you do?
Emily: Yeah, it's such a, you know, it's, it's such a good question that I get obviously asked a lot. It really wasn't intentional. Like a lot of what I've done has been, ‘Okay. Let's go to the next thing.' and then like, okay, that experience led to this.
Emily: And so I'll move to that next thing. And I can look back when I started and remember thinking that a million dollar business seemed like the craziest thing ever. $1 million was insane. And I thought, you know, if I could just get there, like that would be the dream and that would be it. And I think I essentially was able to get myself to about 15 to $20,000 a month on my own, like with clients pretty much by myself at a little bit of contract help, but that was me hustling.
Emily: Like I had a little baby, we couldn't afford a nanny yet. I was working in the night and I was able to get there. And I remember looking at like that $20,000 a month going ‘I can build a million dollar company, like I'm a quarter of the way there.' And I saw people who want to keep working with me. And so it was very like, okay, I did Facebook ads for them.
Emily: And so that led to this experience. And then, you know, the first big client that contacted us was Marie Forleo. And that was like, oh my God. And then, you know, that lit big client and, and, and so it was just building, you know, and kind of going in the direction of like what I'm really good at, what I love.
Emily: Um, always focused on the value that I deliver has been like a, a key to success is I think it's hard because a lot of people have to focus on their marketing, which is obviously very important. But also, especially in the beginning and you're going to grow your business so much through referral. And if you are delivering a really great service, people are going to talk about it and then that's naturally going to snowball and grow your business.
Emily: And that's what started happening for me in the beginning is I didn't really market, you know, I did a lot of networking. I did a lot of one-on-one conversations. You know, Facebook groups are really big. Six years ago a lot of people would engage even, even bigger names, but engage in them. So I did a lot of networking, but I was always instilled to this day.
Emily: I put a lot of effort into our delivery and making sure that it's 10 out of 10, because that leads to referrals, which leads to growth.
Teresa: Yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, if you've had a service from someone and it's good, you are going to tell other people, like no one wants to, I've done it in the past where you've recommended something that hasn't played out and it's like, oh God, why did I do that?
Teresa: Cause that's my name and my brand and my reputation on, on whole, like, you know, on the line for that. Whereas if you're doing a brilliant job and of course, so you name Marie Forleo, that is just insane, but I was, I'd looked on Emily's site and she's got like Mel Robbins. She's got Amy Porterfield's on there.
Teresa: Like these people. It's funny. We, I talk about the fact of how I got to know Amy and how I like got into that world. And, and a lot of it is through going to Amy's coach. I was coached by Amy's coach. Cause I was like, I want what she's got. And if she's got that and she's coached by this person, that's going to help me.
Teresa: So it's the same for, I guess you like, I would look at Marie, Mel, Amy and think, oh no, I want you to do this for me. Like, how did you do that? But then do this to me. So that referral marketing is, is just so strong and powerful. Isn't it?
Emily: Yeah, it really is. And, and like you said, I think the other thing is there's so many, unfortunately, people out there who don't deliver a good service.
Emily: And so when you do you stand out until like you have that going for you right away, if you make that such a big priority. And I think that people don't intentionally do that, but I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't put the attention into their delivery and their process and the backend, cause they're spending it all on, you know, their marketing and the front end and that shiny object of like grows really fast. And if you're willing to do that, you instantly have an edge on other companies in, in your niche.
Teresa: So like, how can you, well let's just take like launching, for example. So I know when some of your testimonials talk about the fact that you helped with launches. Like sometimes through the best will in the world, things just don't work or things just aren't as good as you hoped.
Teresa: So like, how did you make sure that you were delivering the results? Like is it just trial and error? Was it. Like, what was it?
Emily: Yeah. So I believe marketing comes down to a core process of foundational things and that whenever you follow that process, you will always be successful. And I think a lot of people see marketing as I just need to find that magic strategy or that targeting like secret hack or something that I don't know that somebody else does.
Emily: And once I find that, like, I'll be successful. But true marketing comes from the refinement, comes from the optimizing, comes from expecting that something isn't going to work. And then it's how you respond there. So absolutely, are there launches and things that we've been a part of where like out the gate, it was like, shoot, we're paying, you know, 30% more than we want cost per lead.
Emily: What do we do? Okay. We look at the messaging, we refresh the ad creative, we get some new videos. We, we drive that and you'll get the costs down. Because it's, you know, and in a nutshell, marketing is, is your messaging. Number one, nothing can happen without that. And so it's that, it's your strategy. And then it's the overall offer that you're driving to.
Emily: Like, those are the three pillars that you could simplify it down to. And you're going to find the answer to solving something that's not working in one of those, every single time.
Teresa: So when you said foundations, is that what you were talking about or were you talking about, is the other thing that's interesting is you, you were working with very big names, big audiences with big, you know, and I guess I would be interested to see whether you work with people who didn't, that you've managed to grow.
Teresa: That would be really interesting. Because some people might go, well Mel fricking Robbins, I think, you know, that's going to work, but not, you know, we all know that that isn't necessarily the case just because the audience doesn't mean they're all going to suddenly buy from her. But yeah like those foundations.
Teresa: So I've asked about 10 questions in one there. Right. But start with the foundations one. What's that, is that what you just said?
Emily: Yeah. So your marketing foundation starts with your messaging. And I can tell you, I've seen behind the scenes of hundreds of businesses and most are lacking in their messaging.
Emily: And when I say messaging, it means your understanding of your ideal customer. Like your deep emotional understanding. Do you understand them better than they know themselves? And can you connect with them? Because that is going to drive every single piece of copy you write, your content that you create, your emails, your ads, like everything is driven by that connection.
Emily: And whoever has that best connection is going to stand out. So that's the most important piece of your foundation is that understanding of your ideal customer and then your communication of your offer and what you sell. Because a lot of people focus on features and what they think their audience needs versus wants.
Emily: They make a lot of, you know, mistakes there. And I think, I really think a lot of people don't take the time that it takes to go really deep here. And then they end up having to come back to it in 6-12 months because their marketing isn't working. So the core of your foundation is that is your messaging, because that is going to drive your strategy that you create.
Emily: That's going to drive your ads, your organic, any platform you decide to go market on is only going to be as successful as that core messaging foundation that you have.
Teresa: So do you go out and do that? Do you, so you know, if we started working together, would you say right, I'm going to go and check your messaging or, and do some research?
Emily: Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of times it, it, it it's pulling it out of the entrepreneur because they know it, but they haven't communicated it, right to copywriters or people who are going to help them with this. I think like there's like an intuition there and they, they know it, but they can't actually explain it.
Emily: And so then there's a disconnect when it comes time to like creating their marketing strategy. So the first thing we do is pull that out through a series of questions, you know, related to your audience's biggest struggles and making sure that's tied emotionally to their struggles and is actually language they would use.
Emily: And you know, all that's going to drive your marketing. So the first thing that we do, no matter who's working with us is that, and anytime you have a lunch or you have something new, you're putting out, you kind of have to like redo this. Cause that's a new offer. Even if it's free, it's an offer to get someone to come to a webinar or sign up for a video series that is an offer that you have to convince people to do.
Emily: And with that comes, why should I do it? Like, what's the benefit? What am I going to get out of doing that? And our, if you're not clear on that, going into the launch, a hundred percent, you won't be as successful.
Teresa: Hmm. Yeah. Such a good point. So let's get back to my other question then about if someone comes to you and they don't have the audience. Like. What, cause obviously I'm assuming your strategy is different. Like, it depends, I guess if they're coming in for a launch or if they're just coming for build them. But like if they don't have the audience, what sort of things are you doing at this point to try and increase it?
Emily: Yeah. So, and then we do work with a lot of people who do come at that, you know, obviously there's a lot more of those people and it's almost like I love working with the big clients, but it's almost more of a challenge like you were saying of the people without the audience.
Emily: And so that shows like true marketing skills. I'd feel like if you could take something brand new and bring success to that. But the process is still the same. And that's like something that I talk about a lot is it doesn't matter if you're a multimillion dollar business owner or you're brand new. The process of those foundational components and your messaging and your strategy is still relevant.
Emily: So somebody who comes to us with no audience, the first thing we're still going to do is get clear on their ideal customer, on their offer positioning, on their content strategy. Like how are you going to attract people to your brand? How are you going to stand out? What is your unique positioning? What's your, what's different about your business from the hundreds of others?
Emily: Like yours, we're still going to go through that. Now the people with an audience are just a little bit more clear. They're a little bit ahead where they're all already like. ‘Yeah, I know. And here's all the things and the mistakes we've made and what we've learned from those mistakes and our better understanding of our audience.'
Emily: But so there are farther ahead on the path and they probably have to do less messaging work. Because to be honest, they've already made the mistakes that you're probably about to, you know, to make as a brand new business owner, to learn those things, but they still, you still have to do it, you know, no matter what.
Emily: And if you're, if you're a beginner that becomes even more important, because that truly is like the foundation of everything and you can't build anything on a, on a cracky leaky foundation.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about launching them and you're kind of, an interesting enough that you, obviously, your strategies have changed because I guess success with ads has changed as well. And therefore it can't just be relied on that. So like what sort of strategies are you using now when someone has, ‘I want to launch.' like what kind of what's working, what's good at the moment?
Emily: Yeah. So one of the biggest shifts and most important things has been kind of what happens before a launch now and that warm audience building.
Emily: And so that you go into a launch. Do you have leads on your email list. Do you have an audience that you've started to build? You really can't anymore. Just say, okay, I'm going to launch this new thing in three weeks. And, you know, brand new people are going to come in and just buy my new offer. Maybe if it was like a really good new offer that didn't exist out there.
Emily: And it had that really unique positioning, but it's like one in a million that that is possible. And so with launching today, it comes down to that audience building that happens before that big launch. Which means growing your email list, usually, which means putting out really valuable content that is going to attract an audience of people so that when you go to launch, you've got people very interested in what you're doing and they trust you.
Emily: And they have that start. I think. For somebody starting out. One of the best things that you can do is get clear on your ideal customer. Get clear on that emotional connection, and then go start creating the best content out there. Like just all in, on value and give, give more than everybody else. Because at the end of the day, people you could honestly, the answer that our audience wants is already out there and information, podcasts, videos it's already there. They're not buying that from you ever. They're buying like the done for you. The, the, you know, just solve all my problems and tell me exactly what to do custom for me. That's what they're buying.
Emily: So you can go tell them how to do it in all your content to build that trust all day long, and then you're going to stand out from everybody else. And so. If you're starting out, like that is the best thing you can do. And then just another thing I'll add is I teach how to add a little bit of ad spend to that content, because what happens is entrepreneurs start to do this and then they don't get anybody to actually view their content and consume it.
Emily: So they're like ‘This isn't working, I'm going to give up.' But you can put just a little bit of ad spent. Like I'm talking $10 a day or something, target your ideal audience. And then you'll start to get more people seeing that content. And those are really inexpensive ads that you can just start with, like in those first few months to grow that warm audience and then you can start to see, okay, what are they responding to?
Emily: What type of content do they like? Am I getting, you know, messages about how people are impacted by it. And that means you're moving in that right direction. And that's how you prepare for a launch.
Teresa: So is there a particular type of ad that would work really well? Like, so I'm going to use me as an example because this is one of the advantages of having a podcast and having experts on that.
Teresa: I get to pick their brains. So a podcast, for instance, how would you sort of what advertise what adverts would you do on that to build that audience?
Emily: Yeah. And I also have a podcast, so we do this, like I follow my own rule and we do this. So what we do is every one to two months, I'll pick like four or five of my top episodes.
Emily: I'll look at like top downloaded. Or if I know it's a really hot topic, like for me, the meta name change is obviously a hot topic. So I'll pick those episodes and I will run a landing page view add to the page on my website that has the podcast on it and it's embedded. I don't know how you set up your podcast.
Emily: If you have that, like a blog post almost, and it's embedded and that counts as a download. So if you have it like embedded on there and someone listens to it on your page, but they also can click, you know, to the actual podcast. But the reason why you do that is that page is pixeled. And so now I'm sending the traffic there, it's my website.
Emily: I can capture that information and that data. Whereas if you were to send it to like iTunes, you might get the downloads, but you're going to lose, lose that data. So I do specific episodes and I have, you know, an ad, that's got some texts, not a lot of texts. And then what we have done that's worked best is I record like a 30 second video that's like ‘Hey recorded this podcast, go listen right now and jives to that.' And then you're also getting them, seeing you on video. So it's kind of like a double, a double take because you can create an audience from that too. So that's what I have found is the most successful. You could also do like clips we've sometimes done pulled from the podcast and pulled like a, a teasing clip from it, but that definitely works the best.
Emily: And then you've got audiences that you get to target other ads too.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's something that maybe people don't think a lot about in my experience of helping people with launches and creating online businesses. They don't, they only think about advertising when it comes to the launch.
Teresa: And do you find that sometimes, and I think lots of people are guilty of this, that there are experts out there who obviously, when they talk about the success of their program, Like a friend of mine was watching a webinar with someone and they messaged me going, ‘Oh my God, did you just see that person launched? And they got 30,000 sales and their list was only 150 people.' As if to say I've got like 500 on my list. Why aren't I doing like three times the amount? And it's like, cause they didn't tell you anything else that they say, that's all you saw. That was that one, a little bit of information of their business, they didn't say.
Teresa: Oh, they might've had a Facebook group with hundreds of people in there, or I've had a podcast or their blog got 50,000 reads a day. Like they didn't say all of those things. I think often people when they're going into launches especially if they're newer to it, and I'm assuming your budget would kind of rule those people out of you, but, you know, they might come to go right in two weeks’ time, I want to sell this product. Can we do it? And it's just don't work. Isn't it?
Emily: No, it's not. And it's so true. And that's something I got just love exposing, because I have seen mine, the scenes of all these big launches and they're planning for it all year. Like they are not even an exception to it with email list sizes in the hundreds of thousands and, you know, huge audiences, they still are doing massive pre-launches and things leading up to what they're about to do.
Emily: And I've always said like, the success of your launch is in what happens before and after your launch. Like that is, that is the success in it. So it's critical that you do that and you, you know, at the least it's saying, okay, if you want to sell x amount of your offer. How big is your email list need to be? If 2% of your list is going to buy it and kind of plan, like you almost need to be there before the live launch even kicks off. Because in most cases, and this has become even more the case, I think in the last few years, is people don't buy on their first contact with you.
Emily: There's a lot of options out there and there's trust issues. And this industry has some issues with you know products and services. And so it's going to take those 7 to 10 touch points and tell someone may decide to buy from you. And so you have to create those touch points in your marketing.
Teresa: Yeah. And I think this is, this is the thing about this industry.
Teresa: Like we do like to play the, ‘Oh well this worked.' or ‘This person did this.' and I've got examples of it. And funnily I was talking to someone about it recently, but I never talk about those examples. Because that wasn't typical. And if you live grafted on a webinar, it will say this is a typical of the results, but like, you know, I don't want to give people that kind of not false hope because there is hope and you can be super successful at this stuff, but it doesn't take two minutes.
Teresa: Like you're not going to whip up a product with no list and suddenly, Whew! We've just had loads of money. And I think funny I've been very, I've done it very gently and very slowly and part of me is okay with that and part of me is like, I need to speed this up. So like, for me, I think the next thing I need to do is build that audience.
Teresa: Like, so I'm not launching anything for a little while, obviously by the time this episode comes out, I don't know when it will be, so I might've done, but at this point we've got a good three months stretch with nothing really. And it's like, you know, I think that's sensible. I don't know about you.
Emily: Yeah, no, I absolutely do. I mean, ideally, and I'm sure you have strategies of how yours, you can still sell without launching, you know, and grow your business is the other thing that I think people think, but I think that growing your warm audience should be something that you do every single month. And I think I, I've always said, you know, marketing, however you're doing it should be a non-negotiable expense in your business if you want to grow.
Emily: And so that could mean I'm going to invest time in organic, you know, marketing. It could mean I'm going to start doing paid ads, or I'm going to launch in YouTube channel. Whatever that means for you, there just should be something happening every month where you are growing that warm audience, because the reality is you're fighting against, you're going to mid losing, right?
Emily: Like if you grow an email list and you know, this, like people are going to unsubscribe and people are going to become inactive. And so you have to not only outweigh that, but then hopefully be adding to those numbers every month. And so you can't do that if you don't have actions in place to do that.
Teresa: I think, yeah, that's something people and we don't think about.
Teresa: And I think it makes me nervous that like, this is a machine, this is a big, big machine that we are driving here. And do you think, and when you look like, so let's take Amy's launches. Like they are freakin unbelievable, like they're huge, they're massive, the detail. And I can see it, like, you know, just purely what I see online.
Teresa: I can see the running up to it. I can see what's coming. I can see how long that come way is like. And that kind of makes think well, is that it? Can you only get success if you put that much time, attention, effort, because that is, you know, I dunno what size Amy's teams at now, but it's big. Like it's a lot of work.
Teresa: Do you think there's still the early stages where you haven't got the big team where you can do those things?
Emily: Yeah, absolutely. And you have to think like where was Amy six years ago or, you know, where was she before? And that could be where you're at. All that they're doing is they just build, right. They have the mindset of like, we're going to be better than we were the year before that we launched.
Emily: And so we're going to do these things this year to add to that or to improve, and we're looking at our numbers. And so they're just building. And so it's the same thing for you. And I think this is such a great point because so many people think I need to do it to that level. And I'm going to go from like A to Z overnight, and that's just not realistic.
Emily: And so you have to take core marketing things that are true, which is building your list and having that, you know, lead up and having good strategy and good messaging. But you also have to meet your business where it's at and understand you don't have a tens of thousands of dollars ad spend, probably. So you don't need the huge team and you don't have hundreds of thousands of people on your email list.
Emily: And so you still have to meet you where you're at, which means your goals have to be realistic. You can't say like, okay, I'm going to have a $10 million launch. With one team member in a little bit of ad spend, obviously, but if your goals are kind of align and you're like, here's where I'm at, and this is my launch goal and it's, you know, 6 figures or $20,000 or whatever it is.
Emily: What do I have to do to get to there? And it doesn't have to be to their level. And then you have to just look back, what were they doing six years ago? They were at, they just build every year, a little bit more.
Teresa: And I think that's the problem that people don't see that, they don't see the buildup.
Emily: Right?
Teresa: Because at the point that they find the Murray's, the males of this world, they are the size they are already. Like you said, I think the problem is they are looking at too many people saying well, they do that. I need to do this. Or like literally when Amy launch my web guy who does all my landing pages stuff for me, sent me a message.
Teresa: ‘Oh, have you seen this on her page? Like, she's got this like chat to us now thing. If you've got a question. You should have that.' And I'm thinking, are you actually having a laugh? Like I didn't have the team for that. Like, I don't feel confident to have the budget for whatever that is. Like yeah. And it's like, that is cool, but I am definitely not there yet.
Teresa: That's where it gets hard. And that's where I try and be super honest about my journey. Like one, I have an online business it's fairly, fairly easy to see the size of my business, but I wouldn't lie about to anyway, because it's like, no, so you are seeing me at this point and watch it, watch what I'm doing, watch how I change, watch how things, you know, because like you said, I think that's so important.
Teresa: So it was, it's just that buildup. ‘It's like, I did this, I'm going to do this. I did this. Let's get better and do that.' You know, I think that's crucial.
Emily: And I'll also add. A lot of those things like that chat on sales page or the things that they do are all like icing on the cake. And so, yes, they're making a difference on their results, but they're not the difference between not being successful and being successful.
Emily: They created success from the foundation that you can also create success from. And now they've built on that and that's going to add, you know, increase their sales conversion by half a percent or something but you know, but that is not ‘Okay, I have to have all that to be successful.' And I think that's also the confusion people have is they think like if I don't have all those bells and whistles and all that fancy stuff, my launch isn't good enough and I won't be successful.
Emily: But success really comes from that foundation. Your messaging, your offer being the best, your unique selling, you know, I'll say it all day long. Is it like, that is the key to success, and anyone can achieve that.
Teresa: So obviously you've got your agents. Do you have any online products?
Emily: I do. I have a, I have a digital program that is heavy coaching, so it's not really a course.
Emily: It has training materials in it, but it's for people who can't yet afford the full agency. And it's like a Done With You capacity where we'll audit your ads. You're running your ads, but we'll audit them. We review ad copy. We review landing pages, my teams, you get access to my team in that way. And I launched that a couple of years ago.
Emily: First I got the agency to the place where it was running without me in the day to day. And we could deliver clients and still that and then I launched this because I just had so many people who were like, I can't, you know, do the full data for you, but I want your team support. And it started out as a course, but over the last, especially year, I've moved it away from that.
Emily: As I think a lot of the industry doesn't want in, especially like marketing a course, they've already bought the courses they want, there's else they want, tell me what to do, hold my hand to give me everything you can at the price I can afford to make it as easy as possible for me, because I'm so overwhelmed.
Teresa: Yeah, and I think you're right. I find, so, like I said, I'm really honest about stuff. I have a membership, I find it really hard to sell the membership, which is really frustrating because it's excellent. That's a really good, and my members, when they're in that they are like, oh my goodness. But I do find that quite hard to sell in terms of like getting them to understand the benefit of it.
Teresa: The thing that I found super easy to sell was a course that I had done called Build My List. And they'd follow me along course.
Emily: Yeah.
Teresa: Basically. And I've done it as a self-study once, which it didn't sell as well as the actual follow me along. But that was because I literally show up with them every few days I checked their lead magnets.
Teresa: I looked at their thing, I helped them with the system. I do all that stuff and I think you're right. I think people want. We have done a million courses, a million of them. We've paid for all these things that promised us that we couldn't be successful without them. But the truth is it meant us having to do the work.
Teresa: There was no golden thing in there that would do it. We still have to do the work. We needed that help to do the work.
Emily: Right.
Teresa: So I really liked that you've done. You've gone down that route. Cause I, I feel like. That is now becoming much more. Is that something you're finding that people are loving or something.
Emily: Yeah. Especially in this space, right. Where they've, they've taken the course. And I think in, I think there is an audience of the very beginners who are still willing to go through a course because they have the time. But if they have made some money in entrepreneur, they feel like they've kind of earned the right to not have to whether or not I agree with it or not.
Emily: Right. But they have earned that right to not have to do that. And so they just want it done for that. Like they just want to delegate it and it's like, they can afford it. But only to an extent. So we, what we did is we, I think it was like four months ago we interviewed our audience, like 50 people just asking them, like, where are you stuck?
Emily: And what do you want? That's what came out of it. It was all of the, like, I want it done for me. I want to pass it off. And I want you to tell me what to do. I'm overwhelmed. So I definitely think there's been a shift away from people wanting like the digital material, because the other reality is there's so much content, podcasts and YouTube and videos out there.
Emily: It's like, I don't need more. So I get that piece of it. No matter what level you're at, it's like, I don't need more information. I just need it to be customed to me and tell me like the actions to actually take so I can get to that end result.
Teresa: And that's the thing, isn't it. I think that's why the membership is such a good model because of the fact that, and I'm, I've done a lot of work on it and I've got this amazing pathway.
Teresa: And then I, which is very clear, right? You're here, you do this next thing. You're here. You do this next thing, cause, cause the overwhelm is a hundred percent true in real. They'll come in and go, right. I need to do social media before they're even consistent on social media. They'll get waylaid with reels oh, should I do reels?
Teresa: Oh, should I have done this? Where's this, hang on, hang on. Let's just pull back a little bit. Let's pick one platform and let's show up consistently just for a little while then when you're happy and you're good at doing that. Then we can add some other things to the mix, but you know, you can't jump straight into it.
Teresa: Can you? So, but the reason I love the membership is because then in every video I've done for that pathway, it's like, and if you are not sure you come on a coaching call and you ask me. You message in the Facebook group and you ask. Because I've worked in this, I've worked in marketing for like 16, 17 years. I feel very old talking to you, but like, you know, I have marketed more types of businesses than I can remember.
Teresa: There's very little that I don't think I could get an angle on.
Emily: Yeah.
Teresa: And, and it's not the same for everyone. Of course. It's not. Like, liked that whole, oh, they launched, they did this and they only had an email list of 150. Well they, The advice to that would be different. So if you had something else, like, so it's that, it's that personalization, it's the, it's the kind of like, okay. For you and your business. Let's go down.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. And that has just become more and more true in the last, like one to two years, because now that you can't template things, it's just too obvious to your audience. And so everything you do has to be there's foundational things that work, you know, for example, webinars are always, presentations are always going to be something that work, but you have to customize it to your audience, to the offer you're selling.
Emily: And then also to your brand, like I see people who are like, I'm going to do this challenge or something. And then it's like, it's not them. And it's not like the way that they can deliver content. And so if you're going against that, because you're trying to be somebody else, that is also never going to work.
Teresa: Absolutely. So is there, like, and I think at the moment that you're like, this is really good in this space. Or like, cause like you said, you know, I don't know if everyone else does this, but I watch launches like a Hawk. You know, when I know someone's about to get into launching, it's like, what are the emails?
Teresa: What are they saying? Where's the lead magnet? I will go and look on ads manager and look at what ads they're running. You know, I do all of that stuff. So is there anything that you're looking up that you're like, yeah, this is like people who are doing this are killing it right now.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah.
Emily: I definitely think that the shift and it's simple, but it really has been around the content like that entertaining, like the reels, the short videos.
Emily: And I have a stain of always trying to align your goals with the platform's goals too. And we know that Instagram and Facebook are really. You know, moving towards their entertainment now, right? Like that's the core purpose that I think people go on social media these days is entertainment for these short videos.
Emily: And so as a marketer, you have to figure out how do you create that in your, in your brand? And so. When I look at ads and strategies that are doing really well, and we've added so much resources in terms of our delivery and then my internal team around copywriting, creative, creative ideas. Because now, you know, it's not enough to just have an image and some, okay copy on an ad, never work.
Emily: It has to stand out. It has to be different. And our society is like constantly wanting new and new and like short and engaging and entertaining content. And it's, it's tiring, but that is what you have to do to get attention. And so thinking in the past, people thought of content is like just your social media posts, but what I've been seeing and you'll see this probably in launches is that content is driving everything.
Emily: It's driving, how you get attention on everything you do, your webinar, your offer, your application is all kind of being driven from valuable content. And that's how you're getting people to pay attention. And so we've definitely increased, like using reels for ads or really short videos, or really creative angles that we can do.
Emily: That's also how you combat higher ad costs is you've just got to kind of be better with your ads now and stand out. So that, and then I think the level of connection, so using DMs, using chat, using ways that you can have those conversations in a launch is working really well, too. I think that because of kind of what we were talking about of like the trust issues and this industry has kind of like shot itself in the foot in some ways, because of the way they've marketed.
Emily: Because of that, people are more hesitant, but if, if you can create a way for them to build that trust and connection with you and your brand, they'll be way more likely to become a sale. So we've definitely seen that working is like incorporating DMs into your strategy somehow or chat, or, you know, just that more level of connection.
Emily: And you'll see, like in the big launches too, they're doing like more Q and A's and more ability and access to them throughout the launches to create that connection and trust.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And I've seen that I've seen, you know, I think one of the lessons Amy didn't have, so watch her stuff, but you know, she did like a four hour live where she's going to meet people, like again, which is when people look, and think ‘I can't launch unless I'm doing all these stuff.' but it's like no, we don't have to do those stuff, but the premise of what the purpose of that was like, you know, the purpose was to be really like I'm here available.
Teresa: These are examples. So use those testimonials, use maybe add videos if you've got just written testimonials and all that sort of thing. So this has been such a great conversation. I'm super conscious of your time, but you, one thing that you kind of said that led me onto this, that I wanted to ask was you have three children. How old are your children?
Emily: They're one, four and six.
Teresa: Like, whoa.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah.
Teresa: I only, I had one, I learned very quickly that was sufficient because they are really hard work, but then I've got my husband's children. I have two stepchildren who are much older, so they're like, I got them at teenagers. It's interesting.
Emily: Yeah. That I haven't gotten there yet. Sure.
Teresa: Yeah. My daughter is nearly 12. It's her birthday soon. So yeah. She's also stretching into that part of the world, but like, how do you do all of these? Like how do you balance and juggle and manage. And like, I've been doing loads of stuff with my audience, with my members, talking about being the CEO of your business, like how you step into it. And then be in charge. And hysterically as I did that, my dog came into my office and vomited under my desk.
Emily: Yeah. That's so funny. Like side note, all three of my kids were like throwing up yesterday and I had one of those days. I'm like, oh my gosh.
Teresa: Yeah, like, it's hard. How did you manage it? How did you manage all of it?
Emily: Um, I mean, yeah, I have a few, uh, a few thoughts on this.
Emily: I have help. I have a full-time nanny. I have a really supportive partner, has been who really steps in when you know, I am the breadwinner for our family. And so we have that arrangement and he does a lot around the house and helps then I've got my a full-time nanny. I don't do it all myself. And that's the main thing.
Emily: And I didn't just start out and have all this help. Like I had, you know, cleaning and support and a chef now, but in the beginning I didn't, and I was having to figure it out with the resources that I had and there is that stage. And so I sometimes think people are like, well, I can't do it. Cause I can't afford nanny, or I can't afford help, but it's like, no, there is that phase where you have to figure it out.
Emily: And I worked basically from 8 to 11:00 PM for a year after my kid went to bed and built my business. That's not forever, but that's, you know, the beginning. But then you have to figure out if I don't get help, I can't keep doing this. And so once you can start to afford that help, you have to offload what you don't know necessarily what you can't be doing.
Emily: Right. And so my cleaning and cooking, I, you know, I can't do. And so I try to put myself in where I excel and it's not housework for me. And I, and I also would not thrive as a stay at home mom. I thrive with being able to go do my thing. I don't work 40 hours. I work about 30 hours a week. And so I'm with my kids, like basically from 4 on.
Emily: And I'm also very intentional. At least I try to be, I'm not perfect at this, but it's work time or it's family time. And I try not to mix the two so that I get that, you know, if I don't get necessarily the same amount of quantity of time that a stay at home mom would get, but I get quality time then that is sufficient for me.
Emily: And I feel like that, you know, solves that mom guilt that we sometimes get.
Teresa: All the time.
Emily: The other thing is, uh, yeah. Right. And it's never going to go away.
Teresa: Nope.
Emily: Yeah. The other thing is the understanding of, of seasons. So I think that there's times where I need to be spending more time with my kids or we're we haven't vacations planned or things going on or it's the summer.
Emily: And so it's like, that's going to get a little bit were of my attention potentially, but there's also times where my business is really busy. Like actually right now I'm in that time of launching a software coming out in January and that's pulling a lot of my attention. And so. I'm having to work more than I want to or would normally, and that's okay because I'm in that season and I think I've had to learn that of it it's never going to be this perfect balance. Honestly, there is no such thing as balanced.
Emily: And so sometimes your health might get a little less attention or your relationships or your family or your work. Like. You, you can't have everything at the same time in this perfect balance and that ultimately, you know, it doesn't exist, but you can create the balance that is like your definition of, of success and balance for you, which, you know, I I'm big on like setting my hours and making sure I have my vacation time, but then sometimes I do work more and that's the reality of like the season I'm in.
Teresa: And you're completely right. I think seasons was a new thing for me until I started really hanging around with people in the states. And suddenly I was like, this makes really perfect sense. You know, when we're listening to like, you know, miracle morning book or whatever, and you've got three kids, I don't think that applied to him at that point. It caught me up like.
Emily: Especially a baby is going to wake up when I wake up.
Teresa: Yeah. Like that, that isn't how you can work at this point.
Teresa: But as you said, it's a season, it's a point in which you're in. It's not necessarily going to be forever.
Emily: Yeah.
Teresa: So I had a very different Chris who is a doctor. He talks about work-life balance, but he calls it, instead of like a whole paper on it. And everything's very smart. In fact, just as I thought, this thought he needs to come on the podcast. But he calls it work-life negotiation and negotiation, because balance implies that it's on a scale and it's like tipping. It's not.
Teresa: We, we're negotiating, like you said, sometimes your negotiation is actually a summer and therefore I need to pull away from the business a bit more. This is what I'm going to do to allow this to happen. Other times, like now when you're very busy, I'm going to have to put more time in and therefore something's going to have to shift over here.
Teresa: Also. I'm super, um, with you on the home help, I got, uh, someone to come in and cook for us about, oh, probably a few months ago now. Oh my goodness.
Emily: Yeah.
Teresa: Game changer.
Emily: It's a game changer. Yeah.
Teresa: Like, you know, because it's things like my husband does the cleaning. He's, he used to be in the military. He will not allow anyone to clean our house cause no one clean as better as him.
Teresa: And that's fine. He does it, I don't. But cooking was my thing. I like cooking. But when you run a business. Like, now, you know, it's getting up to 6:00 PM this evening. We're on a call. If we didn't have the amazing Rachel who cooks our meals for us, I would walk out this door and if my daughter's here, she does a week with me and a week with her dad.
Teresa: If my daughter was here. And if she's not in her dad's, they'd look at me like ‘What's for dinner?' I'd be like, I've been talking to a computer all day, a little bit tired. Um, I haven't done any actual work with a few bits. So. And it was when Rachel Rogers this book actually I'm in her membership. She talked about like home outsourcing as the first thing she outsource. Like people think, oh, I need a VA or I need this, but it's like, actually, that time, but not always for work. Like the fact that I don't have to cook, clean, finish off.
Teresa: And then suddenly eight, o'clock where I'm so tired. And then I just want to go to bed. Like I get a couple of hours. So I think that's so important.
Emily: It's important to you and your business, like it, it will support that growth in your business for sure. And I think you have to find like, what's the first thing you can offload in your personal life, especially as a mom, I feel like, you know, we do have the expectations that we do both still is they're very, very much so. And the reality is that no matter what you see on the front end, people aren't doing that, they have help. Like, so when people ask me that it's like, I'm not doing it all, actually. That is how I do it. I don't do it all.
Teresa: And I think being honest about that is so, so important, because as you said, as a mum, mum, girl is full on real 24/7, 365 days a year. Like no matter what we do or how we do it, we'll feel guilty about something. I think when someone is trying to do everything and they're trying to build everything and then looking at someone else going, how the hell are they doing it?
Teresa: They need to know the truth. They need to know that we're not doing it. They do have to get help. And yeah, that wasn't, you know, I was a single parent when I first started my own business and it was hard work, really hard work. Like I'm in a different season of life. I haven't.
Emily: Seen that. And that's what I was going to say. Yeah, exactly.
Teresa: And we're doing something different. In 12 months’ time it might be different again, who knows? So. Emily, honestly, you've been an absolute wonderful podcast guests. I've really loved having you on. And you're an inspiration, like seriously, you know, you're 27?
Emily: Yeah I just turned 27.
Teresa: What the hell. So I'm gonna say inspiration because otherwise I'm sat here thinking ‘What are you doing Teresa? You're like 42.'
Emily: I'm partly born this way on clean. So I don't know any other way. But thank you.
Teresa: Honestly. Amazing, absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Now obviously we will link up to everything in the show notes. But where do you hang up the most? Where do people come out and find you and say ‘Hello.'
Emily: Yeah so Instagram is my platform. emilyhirsh on Instagram I hang out with most and then if you love podcasts, I also have a podcast it comes out twice a week, called The Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast.
Teresa: Love it. Thank you so much Emily. It's a really pleasure to have you on.
Emily: Thanks for having me.
Teresa: There we go that was the lovely Emily. I hope you enjoyed the episode. It was really good fun to chat to her. She's got a very successful business. And has achieved a huge amount. Yeah and it was a just good to hear and good to understand how she got where she got and her thought behind launching and all that. So, I really hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget, go check out the book, there's a link in the show notes. If you are not sure where the show notes are you can go to teresaheathwareing.com/228 as in the numbers not words. And you found the link there and obviously don't forget about the 90 day program, the price going up as well. So, I will see you next week. Back for solo episode. Until then have a fab week.
