Break Free from Social Media Burnout: Andrea Jones on Email Marketing Mastery

You can find Andrea Jones at:
Website: https://onlinedrea.com/
Newsletter: https://onlinedrea.com/newsletter/
Podcast: https://onlinedrea.com/podcast/https://jeffsieh.ck.page/

#KrisWard
#VirtualAssistantSuccess
#LeadershipDevelopment

Andrea Jones Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day and I am your host, Kris Ward. And today in the house, we have Andrea Jones. We’re so lucky to have her back. Oh my gosh, this is going to be a packed hour. She just oozes wisdom and content anytime she speaks. And Andrea, if you don’t know her and oh my gosh, if you’re on anywhere, you should, she’s everywhere, but she is a mindful marketing strategist.

[00:00:26] And today we’re going to talk about marketing outside social media. Doesn’t that sound interesting? Welcome to the show, Andrea.

[00:00:34] Andrea Jones: Hi, thank you so much for having me back. I’m excited to be here.

[00:00:37] Kris Ward: Oh, we’re excited that you fit us into your calendar. Okay. Where do you want to start marketing outside social media? I’m sure there’s some ears perking up right now.

[00:00:47] Andrea Jones: Yeah, I think that there’s this feeling right now around social media that’s negative and for a good reason. Like over the years, we have all Integrated social media is a part of our life. Like even when we go to the bathroom to do number two, we are, we all take our phones with us.

[00:01:07] I know we do. I know we do. We don’t just leave it. We don’t just sit there and do nothing these days. Back in my day used to have that little book on the back of the toilet. Okay. We don’t.

[00:01:16] Kris Ward: We’re here now. Let’s go. You’re going to stay for the show. Okay. Go ahead.

[00:01:21] Andrea Jones: Yeah. I think that because we live and breathe social media so much, it can feel very overwhelming as a business owner because we see the best of everyone.

[00:01:30] We see the highlight reels, we see our competitors, and then we start shitting ourselves like, Oh, we should be doing this. We should be doing that. We should be doing more. We should be doing better. And it puts us in this doom spiral of I know social media can be a good tool to grow my business and I’m tired.

[00:01:48] I want to try something else or, I used to get really good results on Instagram and now it’s crickets. And so I’ve been exploring this a lot lately with my clients, with my members, because it is a very collective experience. So if you’re feeling this, I promise you, you’re not alone. There are solutions, but I think that’s the starting point is like recognizing that

[00:02:10] we’re not as in love or we don’t see social media as this magical solution as it once was.

[00:02:16] Kris Ward: Yeah, it can be overwhelming. I do find that. And sometimes if, I’ve got different algorithms in different places. So I’ll tell you, usually on Instagram or something, I like to go there for recipes. And what I’m so thankful for is that my algorithm is set up for that so that I don’t get discouraged, overwhelmed Oh, you’re right.

[00:02:33] I should be doing this. Or I saw somebody doing something or one of my competitors Oh, that’s a good idea. And ah, like it’s just hard on the brain when you can’t control when it’s coming in. So it, and then of course we’re constantly having to feed the beast. That’s a problem. And then the more you feed one beast, you’re like, Oh, should I be on the other platforms?

[00:02:51] Then you have people hitting you up all day long. I, if I had a nickel for everybody that reached out to me on LinkedIn, how they could improve this platform or that platform, I’m like, hi, and here’s 400 reasons why I can improve you on whatever your videos, it’s okay, thank you. So yeah, we’re all in overwhelm. It can be all, it can be tough. Very scary. So where do we start?

[00:03:14] Andrea Jones: Yeah. I think the first point is really recognizing the role of social media plays in your life and your business. Okay. So sometimes we like social media for personal use, like you mentioned the recipes, but we struggle with business. And so if we think about what art.

[00:03:30] We’re resistant to that can be very helpful because it can be the inverse, right? Which is my, in my case, I don’t use social media for personal use. My friends and family, we text I’ll see you in person, but I don’t post my kids. I don’t like, I just don’t post like that on social media.

[00:03:46] And so for me, it’s strictly business. And so that helps me separate those two things. So when I’m not working, I’m not on social media. So I think defining the role that social media plays in your life and your business can be helpful. And I like to do this in a form of a meditative practice.

[00:04:02] Just like with traditional meditation, I would say, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, calm your mind, and then go to social media, open the app that you usually open, let’s say it’s Instagram and start scrolling and notice the feelings that you have for certain posts. Does this post make you feel happy?

[00:04:18] Does this post make you feel sad? Does this post make you feel mad? There’s a lot of like rage baiting content out there that’s just designed to make you mad, right? So notice those things and you can then make choices about it. So if you see these posts that are just infuriating you, do you want to take the time to edit your social media or do you want to just decide, you know what I’m done?

[00:04:38] This is not for me. And I think. Either, like there’s no wrong options here, but you got to start with a very intentional practice of is this actually working for me or do I need to explore other options?

[00:04:50] Kris Ward: I think you bring up some really good points. I don’t have any personal or family connections on any of the platforms and thank you to my lovely aunts who, once upon a time, I didn’t even know they were connected to me, and then they comment in the post that I looked pretty, and I was like, oh, thank you very much, but that’s not what this was about, but anyhow.

[00:05:09] And then the other thing I would say is I, what I find too, cause you, again, feeding that beast. If I’m going to go in to comment or do my engagement on my post, I set a timer because really easy, not only for time to fly, but for you to feel bad that you still haven’t done enough. Whereas if whatever your choice, whether it’s 10 minutes or 20 minutes a day, and then you say, okay, oh, I feel good.

[00:05:29] That went off. I did do that the whole time. Okay. So we’re all in agreement on social media and the things we should do, and it can be overwhelming and it’s all there. Okay. So how are we going to get outside of that? Like you said.

[00:05:40] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So in my mind, there are three different tiers of marketing and it’s very similar to your traditional like sales funnel, right?

[00:05:49] Like you need to be able to attract people. So you need to have people to find you. You need to have some sort of nurturing part of your marketing. So they build, trust with you and they love you. And then you need to have a sales focus part of your marketing where they buy from you. And so where social media usually falls into place is like people find you and they fall in love with you on social media.

[00:06:11] So in my mind, those are the two for if we’re getting rid of social media, those are the two that we need to replace people to find us and people to fall in love with us. And so we think about the find section of it. There are so many different ways you can do this. Just me being on this podcast is a way for people to find me.

[00:06:26] I’m going out, being a guest on your amazing show with your super smart listeners who love listening conversations like these. And so I’m

[00:06:34] Kris Ward: excuse me, flattery will get you everywhere. Continue. Go ahead.

[00:06:37] Andrea Jones: Yes. I will give all of the compliments. You all are beautiful as well. And so this is, that’s just one way that you can help people find you.

[00:06:44] Search engines are another great one. When we think about collaborations like these, when we think about discoverable placements. Let’s say you’re doing something like tech talks or things like that, like places where people go looking for solutions to the problems that they’re having, that’s where you need to show up.

[00:07:05] And so it doesn’t have to be social media. It can be blogging. It can be a podcast. SEO titles. It can be YouTube videos. It can be referrals and networking in person. There’s so many different ways you can do this. So an example would be one of my clients, she is this executive for, in corporate America.

[00:07:26] And she specifically coaches black and brown women to get into the C suite. Okay. So for her, she does have a social presence. It’s very late. Most of her clients come from in person networking, so she’ll go to networking events and then she’ll say, connect with me on LinkedIn. And so that is her way of helping new people find her.

[00:07:46] So it doesn’t necessarily have to be all reliant on social media. You could skip social media completely if you’d like, but you just need to know that you’re pulling that lever of like, how do people find me?

[00:07:57] Kris Ward: And I think though, to your point, I would think then people may, you still, they’re going to check you out on social media.

[00:08:03] So even if that’s, if you’re doing it in networking, physical, and and whenever I get discouraged about social media, I think, oh, at least I don’t have to go to a breakfast at six o’clock in the morning and meet 25 people. I can do this in my pajamas and talk to 250. So that’s what saves me from when I get discouraged.

[00:08:18] But to your point though, especially when you’re all, your business is about social media. She does have to have her ducks in order on some platform because they are going to check her out online after they’ve met her so we can’t eliminate it, but we can decrease the grunt.

[00:08:33] Andrea Jones: Yes, and you mentioned a word earlier that comes up a lot when I work with people, which is this feed the beast.

[00:08:40] Yeah. Kind of thing. So if she were on a platform like Instagram, for instance. Like Instagram, your post lives for like maybe two days and then no one’s ever going to see it again. Whereas LinkedIn, you can post today and there was still gets likes and comments like this week, next week. And so for her, it’s a lot lower of a lift to go.

[00:09:00] I’m going to keep my LinkedIn updated. Then I’m going to keep my Instagram updated. Yeah. And and for her, really her LinkedIn is just reflective. So she’s really posting a couple of times a month, just saying, here’s what I’m working on or here celebrating a client or celebrating a milestone.

[00:09:16] So it doesn’t have to be complicated by my stuff. She’s really just reflecting her experience and it’s the easefulness of it that makes it easier for her to go, Oh, okay, this is my strategy. I find people connect with them in person and then they find other ways of going through my world, but I’m with you.

[00:09:33] I like social media. So for me, I’m like, I don’t, I’d rather not be in person if I can help it because I’m very introverted. So leave me at home with

[00:09:43] Kris Ward: just the mileage I have to get up and go out. And for so many of us, my clients are around the globe and I also live in a very country, remote area the countryside, so that’s not going to happen.

[00:09:54] Okay. So you, and you brought up some really good points about LinkedIn too. You don’t have to feed that as much as the other platforms. So I know when we were chatting, a fair amount of your business comes through email marketing.

[00:10:05] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So I actually did a self analysis earlier this year on my audience.

[00:10:13] And it was really because a particular sponsor was asking about my audience size. So I was like going through all my numbers and I have more people on my email list than any of my social platforms. So my email list is 19, 000 people and my biggest social platform right now is Instagram and it has 10, 000 people.

[00:10:32] Okay. So yeah. Email is where most of my community hangs out. I have far more people on my email list than anywhere else. So it got me thinking a lot about why that is, and I think it’s because email marketing for me is a very intentional process. I have to be selective because I’m not emailing every day, whereas I post on social almost every day.

[00:10:55] I think there’s an intimacy in it because I’m in their inbox. And I think there’s a storytelling aspect that I can just play into even more than with social media. And so with my emails, I end up talking about like life lessons and stories and how they relate to my marketing. And people like that and they want to hang out with that.

[00:11:16] And so email for me is also where I see the most conversion. So even though I’m a social media gal through and through my whole goal was to get people on my email list. And then I usually sell on my email list, or really what I call, it’s not really selling for me. It’s more like a suggestion, like here’s something that could be helpful for you.

[00:11:35] And so I call this the before I go strategy. So in my newsletter, yeah. So in my newsletter, I share it’s all the mindful marketing memo. I talk about usually a life story. So in this recent one, I took my daughter out for a charity barbecue, my six month old, and she just spit up all over me right when we got out the car, right when we got there, a two year old and dad already had skipped off ahead and I’m there with spit up covered baby.

[00:12:01] And so I had an option. I could stay in the car and be miserable about being covered in spit up or I could just go enjoy the barbecue. And so I just went. I just went. I was like, you know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m clearly holding a baby. This is part of baby life. You’ll see, they’ll put the story together.

[00:12:16] Yeah, the two and two together. And so to me, that was a story about showing up as you are and like being human and genuine and like real life moments. And so I told that story in my newsletter. And then I have a little section at the end that’s ” Hey, before you go, if you want to learn how to do this, I teach I’m teaching a workshop in my program or you can book a one on one call with me.”

[00:12:38] We can figure out what this looks like for you. And so for me, it’s not about the story isn’t about directly selling, but I do want to make a connection now for someone to go. Okay. I like what she’s talking about. I want to know more. And so that’s my before I go strategy.

[00:12:53] Kris Ward: Okay. So let’s talk about that a little bit more. So do you have, I did notice a big difference because I thought, all right. Email you’re supposed to talk about what you’re doing what you’re working and what you’re working on stuff like that cuz that’s how I met them It was about business and then I was spoken to some by someone and she’s no. It should all be personal stories you can tie it into things and so I did that and I did notice a huge Increase in my open rate is it was you know Just life stuff farmer and sometimes I tied into a story and sometimes not always but most of the time so do you have some parameters around?

[00:13:27] You How long they should be, how short the story is you do it once a week. What are the offers do you always offer? What are the sort of ingredients for that recipe?

[00:13:36] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So I do post once a week, at least to my email list on Tuesdays. That’s also the day my podcast comes out. So I know we’re going to talk about podcasts too, but I do add like a little mention of the podcast in there.

[00:13:48] Okay. And as far as the storytelling goes, I don’t give myself parameters. So when I started this exercise, I actually did a series called thinking out loud. Last year which is really what shifted things for me. Cause I was like, Hey, I feel like people are in love with social media. I’m noticing that.

[00:14:04] Email and podcasting, even for me personally, is doing better than social media. And I’m a social media gal. And so I just started thinking out loud about things and I would use analogies. I would use stories. I would use some client examples, my own examples. And so I don’t have a hard and fast rule about this.

[00:14:21] I think because I’ve been in marketing for 10 years, it’s easy, easier for me to come up with these things. And so I’m relying on my expertise. And I think that there, but there’s a human component to it where I write as if I would talk. So I think it’s almost as if, you can’t really ask someone like, how do you know how long your story is going to be when you tell it?

[00:14:42] It’s just the story is the story. I do try to edit it down, but I think. A lot of the reason why my clients and customers come to me over anyone else is because they feel the connection to me. Being a mom, being a woman of color, being, I used to live in the U S and now I live in Canada.

[00:15:01] Kris Ward: Hold on, stop the truck. I didn’t know that. Where are you in Canada?

[00:15:04] Andrea Jones: I’m near Niagara Falls.

[00:15:06] Kris Ward: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:08] Andrea Jones: I’m right across from Buffalo, so I didn’t move like too far from the U. S. Gotcha. All right. Yeah.

[00:15:12] Kris Ward: Yeah. All right.

[00:15:13] Andrea Jones: Because you’re on the East Coast, right?

[00:15:14] Kris Ward: Yeah, I am. I used to live an hour outside of Toronto, like in Whitby, but I have been to, like, when you live in Ontario, you go to the Falls anytime somebody visits.

[00:15:21] So I have been there 100, 000 times, but but I didn’t know you’re in Canada now. All right. My apologies. We interrupted her intelligence, but that was surprising. That was news. All right. Okay.

[00:15:30] Andrea Jones: Fun fact. See, and that was a connection moment. So that made my point, right? It’s yeah, the more that you can like layer that in the better.

[00:15:37] And I will say this, though. I do have hard boundaries around what I share and what I don’t share. So I don’t talk about my family as much. So specifically like the adults in my family, I do use my kids because they’re teaching me a lot of lessons. Yeah. And I use their first names, their nicknames.

[00:15:54] And but I don’t talk about my family a lot, especially my, like the adults, my extended family. They didn’t sign up for this. So they don’t want 19, 000 people reading about their business. And then I don’t talk a lot about certain things in my life. Specific hobbies. If I’m traveling, I don’t say that I’m traveling.

[00:16:13] Things like that, where I’m like, I do have to protect myself. So I do share authentically, but I do have boundaries around what kind of transparency I share.

[00:16:23] Kris Ward: Would you share after you’ve traveled? It’s just a security thing. Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I went. Oh my gosh. I remember seeing people do that all the time.

[00:16:29] Like people should not know that you’re not home. Like me and my family, my in laws were all traveling and we leave today.

[00:16:39] Andrea Jones: It feels very much like a home alone situation. It’s do we not watch the movie? I’m like, I don’t know about this people.

[00:16:44] Kris Ward: Okay. I think sometimes I would call myself a recovering rushaholic.

[00:16:51] And sometimes we have a quiz in case anyone wants to try to tell you which business personality you are. And I think when I made the switch, though, to telling more personal stories in my email marketing, I still think I did it with almost, okay, there, is that enough? Is it done? You know what I mean? And almost like when you have to, you’re learning that you have to comment on social media.

[00:17:09] It’s okay, is that enough of a comment? Have I engaged enough? Am I done? So I think. What you, what I’m hearing, and of course it’s just the breath in which you do everything, you’re incredibly thoughtful and purposeful and articulate in the way you deliver your content, your work, all that stuff. So I think what I’m thinking is just look at it as a place to explore and lean into it and really truly, I’m putting out a newsletter and I think I’m always surprised when somebody replies to it and I’m like, says something about my story.

[00:17:36] I’m like okay, I’m doing this because they tell me to do it, but my God, I didn’t think anyone was reading these. So I think. The attitude may could use some improvement. And I think that’s the biggest thing I’m hearing from you.

[00:17:48] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So this is another thing I’ve been thinking a lot about. I’m saying that because I don’t, this is a framework that I haven’t fully embedded into my business yet, but it’s definitely something that has me curious, which is layfulness.

[00:18:01] So how can we add an element of playfulness into our marketing? And I think this is why social media took off so much initially. So if we go back 15 years ago, when Facebook first. started existing. Marketers weren’t ruining it. It was about connection. We were doing the Facebook poke for fun, right?

[00:18:22] We were playing Farmville for fun. And so I feel like sometimes as business owners, we get too serious about our work because it is tied into our livelihood. We do have to make money. However, we can hinder that livelihood and that potential profit. If we are all business all day, and I think it’s just how like any sort of human relationship works, right?

[00:18:45] You could check out the grocery store and not say anything to the person. If they say, hi, how are you? Can be like, fine. Or you can be like, hi, how are you? I haven’t, it’s a great day out. What’s this lovely weather. You know what I mean? And I feel like that human connection piece is the piece that really makes a difference.

[00:19:02] And how long is that? I don’t know. And sometimes it’s a miss, right? There’s some stories where I’m like, Oh, this is great. No replies. And then there are some stories where I’m like, is this too much information? And then people respond back and they’re like, Oh, this feels so human. And yeah, that that’s how I go about it.

[00:19:17] It’s like, how can we be playful and Yeah, have fun with it a little bit more.

[00:19:22] Kris Ward: Okay. That’s some wise words. Okay. You don’t know what you don’t know. So where else do you think we’re missing this in the email marketing? Like that most of us step over.

[00:19:32] Andrea Jones: Yeah. So I talk about like my regular weekly memo, which is my mindful marketing memo, but I also do sales related content as well.

[00:19:41] So outside of my weekly newsletter, I do talk about the stuff that’s happening in my business. So recently I did an Instagram bootcamp and this was about probably 10 or 15 additional emails over the month where I was promoting the bootcamp and I think it’s easy to go into it and go. I just have to be like the bootcamp starts on this day.

[00:20:00] It’s free sign up. But I’m still layering in the level of playfulness. So I did a little bingo card where it was like marketing buzzwords and which buzzword are you with like your birthday and your birth month. And so adding a little bit of fun to it. I shared stories about some of the wins that we have with our clients, but also the misses.

[00:20:21] That we had with our clients as well. And so I think that outside of like email newsletter, the sales email has to have the same flavor as a newsletter. Otherwise, again, just feels like you’re just trying to sell. And so I try to layer in those playful moments as much as I can.

[00:20:40] Kris Ward: I think, sometimes I deal with my clients.

[00:20:42] And often they all think 1 of the problems with them is they always think once they get past this next thing, right? Things will be fine. And they don’t understand. It’s a fundamental lack of setup that they don’t have an understanding of their tools or their team or oh, my gosh, time tool. I can’t even talk.

[00:20:58] Okay, whatever. Time, team, and toolkit, right? I forgot. They say it a thousand times a day. And so often they’re thinking once I get past the next thing, or if I was more disciplined, if I was more structured, if I was more organized, and it’s no, that’s not the problem. Most of my clients are the go to people for everyone in their life.

[00:21:14] And they get so much stuff done that then they start to realize if I can’t get it done, no one can. And what I’m telling you that for is I, Often say to my clients, actually organized structured people, that can be a downfall because you just keep reorganizing yourself, right? And that’s what I did many years ago.

[00:21:29] It’s okay, I’m now reorganized. And it’s like taking a screw and a screwdriver and you just keep stripping it. Like you’re just turning so tight. So I think too, to your point is I tend to get overstructured okay, my newsletter goes out Friday, boom, this is it. And then. I would have had maybe, Oh, so then we have to do a newsletter on Tuesdays in case we have a promo.

[00:21:49] So I always talk about behind the scenes, what I’m working on, and then occasionally sprinkle in our promo or whatever, but, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but you’re like, okay let’s have a newsletter. And then maybe I’m just going to send out a bunch of emails and a funnel for this new product and understanding that it is your list and that you can change the game or the frequency of it.

[00:22:09] And you aren’t okay. If I now start sending it out on Tuesdays about our promo doesn’t mean I have to do Tuesdays for the next five years.

[00:22:16] Andrea Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I feel that very deeply. I used to think I was a free spirit. I could tell you’re not, but yeah. And then I started running my own business. It was like, Oh, I just want to create my own structure.

[00:22:33] And so I do find myself doing that where it’s like, Oh, it’s time for the Tuesday newsletter. What am I going to say today? Or I don’t have any ideas. And so this is where that playfulness comes in is I’m trying to play in my sandbox that I created. So I don’t want to break down the sandbox and go, Oh, now it’s a water slide.

[00:22:51] You know what I mean? I like my sandbox. I, so I set up the rules, but I want to be able to play with in that however I feel called to. And also what I will say is one thing that’s been a huge relief to me is a lot of people aren’t paying as close of attention as we think they are. I think this is called the spotlight effect in human psychology, where we feel like people are paying attention to us and they are, but not that much.

[00:23:16] Yeah. And so I think that’s also part of it. It’s if my Tuesday newsletter comes out on a Wednesday, I don’t know if people would notice. I think I would be the only one like working myself stressed over what. So that has also been a huge relief. And then because I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I go back and revisit my past newsletters.

[00:23:36] Yeah. So in this, so I have two kids, right? One six months old, one’s two and a half. So I basically had two kids in two years. Yeah. So there’s a lot of like recycling of content in those two years when I was pregnant and when they were super little, because I’ve been writing and talking about this stuff for so long.

[00:23:53] And so part of it too is okay, how can I freshen up something I’ve already done? Or the recently actually I went back through social posts and was like, oh, this is good as is. I’m just going to repost this exact same thing. And so permission to do that is also granted. And do you tie the two together?

[00:24:11] Do you have signed up for my newsletter and LinkedIn or how did those cross pollinate? How do they find you to get on your newsletter? Yeah. So I actually do paid ads for my newsletter and this is another way where people can find you. And then I do, I sponsor a lot of other things. Actually, so for example, coming up in the Kristmas holiday season one of my Online colleagues, Lizzie Goddard is doing a bundle of things and I sponsored it last year and I’m going to sponsor it again this year and it just gets me in front of her audience, which is like 50, 000 people and so they sign up for the thing.

[00:24:48] They also get on my email newsletter list. And so for me, that feels less like way less pressure than having to post and post on social media. And so I signed up for the bundles. They get their thing. Great. They are also on my email list. Great. And so that’s the way I’ve been growing my list primarily over the past two years.

[00:25:08] But outside of that, I talk about it on my podcast. I do talk about it on social media and I have a lot of free offers that lead into the list, which are, I use as promos on social media. So my live stream guide does really well. My launch plan toolkit does really well. So things like that, where I can just put, 300, 500 behind it on Facebook and Instagram ads, and then people come in two, 3 a lead.

[00:25:31] And it’s very handy for growing my list. I think, we’ve had people on the show before, of course, talking about email marketing. And I do think sometimes I think it could be the Friday special because you go I got it. And then next week you’re like, Oh, I, I should be doing that and pay more attention to that again.

[00:25:47] But I think it’s really fascinating to me to hear that from somebody that, their main game, their main frame is social media and the power, and we all know, listen, anybody can be in LinkedIn jail, can be Instagram jail, can happen overnight, it can happen in a minute. And so we know we’re supposed to own those lists.

[00:26:05] But to hear the depth and the thought that you put into that list and how you’re reaching them and communicating with them, I do think also there’s so many layers of a lesson there. And one of the big one is stop business izing it. I made up a new word, write it down. And over, overthinking it and structuring it and looking at it as a conversation.

[00:26:25] Again, we need that reminder, at least in the beginning. I do is this is a place where you can reach people. So make it fun and talk to them and do what you want to do. It’s your damn list. Yeah. Yep. Yep. And especially those of us who have small businesses. And I’m using small in quotes, right? Because I think that, it just depends.

[00:26:45] But when it’s us running the show, right? Like when someone needs to like book a service with us, we’re customer support. We, we’re leading the charge. Even if we have a team of, five, 10 people, it’s a lot of it still rests on our shoulders. And so when we can add in those layers of personality, it really helps make a difference.

[00:27:06] If someone’s choosing between us, the small business or the mega brands that are so templatized, they’re broad and almost meaningless that people aren’t as attracted to them, especially right now. They want someone who like, they want to choose a business that feels like they’re, they care. And so that’s part of why I show up this way as well.

[00:27:26] Kris Ward: And I think too, you’re, I always say your strength is your weakness. So when I’m, I’m a let’s get it done kind of person and I’d rather show you what I did than tell you what I’m going to do. Because people say things all the time and that’s wonderful, but it’s also a downfall.

[00:27:40] So you know, and I really struggled with that with my book. I was not somebody. Yeah. That was really great. It’s saying, okay, I’m working in chapter two now to me. It’s oh yeah, whatever everybody is until you have a book. So I think it’s a great reminder too, that whether I over structure it, make it every Tuesday, but there is all kinds of things we’re working on in the business.

[00:27:59] And I don’t share those until I go to the. We’re, this is what we have now, but you’re right. There’s stuff happening and there’s successes and things with my client stories that I could be sharing. And that is real and raw. And I resonate with other people that are doing that. You get to know them better, the fabric of it all. So that’s a powerful reminder as well.

[00:28:20] Andrea Jones: Yeah, I think that’s it. It’s like, how can we reflect what’s happening in our business instead of project, like whatever it is we’re trying to sell. And I think this reflective I like to think of marketing as a mirror. Like how can it how can I show what’s actually happening here?

[00:28:40] And this is also why I love podcasting as well, because a lot of my, like how I show up to teach a live class is exactly how I am in the podcast. So if you don’t like my vibe in the podcast, you’re going to hate me. And so and I often use private podcasts as a way to communicate with my members as well.

[00:28:58] And so for me, these marketing kind of avenues are designed to reflect what it’s like to work with me. So they get like their little, their little Costco sample and they’re like, Oh, I got to buy the whole box. That’s my whole guiding light as I’m going through this.

[00:29:14] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. Oh, you’ve inspired me as always, Andrea, listen, first of all, where can people find more of your brilliance?

[00:29:22] Bye.

[00:29:23] Andrea Jones: Oh sign up for the newsletter. If you go to OnlineDrea. com there’s a newsletter link at the bottom where you can sign up for the memo, or you can go to OnlineDrea.com/newsletter and get it in your inbox. And also if you like podcasts, the mindful marketing podcast is on every app. And that’s again, one of my favorite places to spend my time. And so connect with me there and we can continue this conversation.

[00:29:48] Kris Ward: Yeah. And make sure you share this episode with a business buddy. Do not let them be banging around by themselves. There is a lot of really useful content here. So oh my gosh I think I’ll, I’m, I’ve got notes furious down here. I’ve got an attitude adjustment. Here we go.

[00:30:03] Andrea Jones: I love it. Yay.

[00:30:05] Kris Ward: All right. Thank you again so much, Andrea and everyone else. We will see you in the next episode. episod