EP. 15: 3 core problems stopping you getting consistent sales

Jun 13

Also available on Apple, Spotify and Google as well as all other major players.

What’s this episode about?

Here’s what I’ve noticed about growing a business:

You can know everything you need to be doing to effectively market your services but doing it is really hard.

No amount of content consumption changes this. And that’s the temptations isn’t it, to learn more, watch more, listen to more people.

And the problem with this? It’s easy to get it wrong. It’s easy to lose hours on ineffective marketing, attempt a million different tasks and not do any of them that well and be thwarted for weeks at a time by procrastination and overwhelm.

After many conversations and working with over 150 businesses in the last few years, I have noticed 3 core problems stopping you from getting the sales and give you endless overwhelm and make you second guess yourself.

In this episode I share those core issues and give you 4 actions to take to start moving forwards.

Episode key takeaways:

You need to get in front of more people - but work out what that looks like for you depending on the answer to a very important question (which I tell you in the podcast, obvs).
You can’t stay consistent if you try and do everything yourself. Fact. If outsourcing isn’t an option yet, then automation is what you need to do. I share where to start and 3 core automations you need in place BEFORE the Summer Hols.
You’ve put all your eggs in the Instagram basket, and the basket has a hole in it (does that work as a metaphor?!). I share why you are not alone and practical step to building other baskets (aka doing things that are actually going to bring you sales).
If you know you need to get your sh!t together and grow your business, but can't seem to actually take action - the Bloomin' Marvellous Marketing Academy is HERE - whoop! Listen for more info or click the link below and I'll send you the details!

KEY LINKS:

PR Episode with Pippa: ‘Can small businesses really do their own PR?’

Click here if you want to know more about the Bloomin’ Marvellous Marketing Academy- it will create an email - you just need to hit SEND!

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Hello, and welcome to growing pains. The marketing podcast for parent and baby brands who want to grow and get more consistent sales, but without the overwhelm of feeling like you have to be online 24 7, I'm Sophie, your host, and a Facebook and Instagram ad strategist who specializes in parent and baby brands as well as a mom of two.

Join me each week as I alongside some wonderful guests, she had practical tips and advice about how you can use and combine marketing strategies to get more impact for your effort.

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of growing pains. So today we're talking about three core problems that I see clients having all the time and not just in my current business, but also with all of the businesses I've worked with over the last five years, Whether that's women's health and wellbeing experts, whether that's people selling their services or e-com, I think fundamental issues remain the same for most small [00:01:00] businesses. And even more. So I think with mums who are trying to juggle lots and lots of different things maybe have other priorities other than just their business. So it's not like you're just working in your business Monday to Friday nine to five.

You might be working around naps. We might be working around that nursery school hours. Working evenings weekends. Some of these core problems can really be exacerbated by this lack of time. So today, that's what I'm going to talk about. These three core problems. Before I do. I just wanted to, before I do, I wanted to talk a little bit about what I've noticed about growing a business.

And often the case is that, you know, everything you need to be doing to effectively market your business. But actually doing it is really hard. And sometimes that can feel really frustrating, like why can't I just do it? Like the knowledge that I share on here, some of it will be new knowledge and it will be like, okay, I didn't actually know about that.

And other stuff we'll be like, yeah, of course. I know that I need to do an email list. Of course. I know I [00:02:00] should make my website is easy to use as possible for people. But often it's not a case of knowing what you should be doing. It's more about actually getting it done, finding the time, finding the head space I'm really combating all those different things. You come up against all the time. Really no amount of content consumption can change this. And the temptation, I think often is to learn more, watch more, listen to more people, really just trying to take in as much information as possible. And even when you're on Instagram scrolling, it's like, you know, following people who are.

Sharing information about reels and about Instagram and it's quite overwhelming, isn't it. Even I find it overwhelming, the amount of jump on this new audio and you must be doing this now and reels and quick do this before it like blows up and you can get on this bandwagon. It's really hard to ignore that and actually focus on what you're doing.

My best performing real. It has got 13,000 views and it's totally unrelated to my business. And it was a trend that I jumped upon because I was like, [00:03:00] oh, that's fun. And yet it's fun. But it brought a lot of people to my account that were totally irrelevant. Could my time have been better spent on a reel that actually bought my ideal customers to my Instagram probably, but you know, it's lessons learned, isn't it.

And it's really hard because in an ideal world, you probably want to outsource a lot of this stuff. Like, you know, part of the resistance says, yes, I know I probably need to update my website, but that is not my area of expertise is not my zone of genius. And that is not something that I want to be spending my time doing.

And so it's really hard. You want to outsource. But actually, it's not as easy as that when you're starting up and you don't have the cash and you don't have the funds and they actually, you do have to learn some bits yourself. It's really hard.

, I think the issue with the, just show up and do it. It's not just the technical knowledge. And part of the issue as well is obviously these mindset hurdles. Constantly learning new things is exhausting, constantly learning. But also this decision fatigue, where to focus your time and attention, and [00:04:00] not even just every day, but like every hour, like, you know, you've got to do less. That is bigger than the amount of time you actually have to work. So less decision fatigue around what's the priority.

What should I do first? What's most urgent. What's going to you know, improve things for my customers versus what's going to improve my business what's going to really help me move forward today. And really, you can get stuck in that, what's going to help today, but sometimes you need that space to be able to step back and think what's going to help me in a week and in a month and in six months. For example, At the moment, I'm part of APR membership with the lovely pepper who did one of our earlier episodes, which I will link to in the show notes, because it's really brilliant episode.

She is starting to prep all of the people in the membership for Christmas sales. And that is the reality is that it's not just a case of right. What do I need to do right now today? But it's a case of what do I need to do today to help my sales at Christmas? And it's really tough. And it's so easy to lose. Ours on ineffective marketing, you know, [00:05:00] attempting to do millions of tasks and not doing them very well. And then have massive overwhelm, which leads to procrastination. And this to-do list of doom that I talked about on last week's episode.

Sorry. You might be thinking well, yes, I saw very true. But what is the answer? How do I break the cycle? And after so many conversations with clients and all the different businesses, I think I've worked with over 150 businesses in the last four or five years as I've been working for myself and I've noticed. Three core problems that stop people, getting sales and give you this endless overwhelm. And second guessing yourself. So in today's episode, that is what I'm going to go through. Those three core problems. And then I'm also because we are all about action taking and not just taking in more information that you're not going to use.

I'm going to give you four actions that you can take today, which will help you start moving forward. Okay. Let's dig into the first problem. The first one is you're not getting in front of enough. People I've talked about this one before. This will [00:06:00] not be a surprise. Anyone, if you have been on my Instagram or listen to any of my podcasts before, because getting in front of new people is so fundamental to most businesses. I can't see myself stop talking about it anytime.

Same. But it's really, really hard and it's slow and it can be so demoralizing sometimes when you put so much time and effort into something and you're not seeing those results. But if you want predictable sales, you have to be increasing your audience size every single month. And what's also really hard about this. Is that there's so many different ways you can grow your audience. And I think often, and I'd be interested. I'd love to get your feedback on this. When I say you need to grow your audience.

Do you just think, okay, she's saying I need to get more followers on Instagram and therefore I probably need to do reels because I think at the moment that is a lot of the conversation or I need to go into TechTalk and ditch Instagram, because Tik TOK is where the massive audience growth. Isn't the moment.

And the reality is, is that. That might be the answer, and [00:07:00] that might be what you need to do, but also there's so many different ways you can grow your audience and it really depends on your strengths, your niche, your strategy. And honestly the most successful strategy will probably be the one that you can be most consistent at.

But you need great audience. And you need to get focused and take daily action to see your numbers going up and identifying a plan for that. Like, what are you going to do? And how are you going to do it is so, so critical to moving our business forward. So here we are with my first action for you.

The first action is there are three measures that you can kind of use to see. Are you getting in front of enough people? The first one is website visits. The second one is email signups and the third one is social media followers. Now. On a piece of paper or on your phone or on a whiteboard or somewhere that's fairly visible. How many website visits have you had in the last month? Okay. You'll find that either on your website provider like Squarespace or WordPress, or you'll find [00:08:00] on Google analytics.

Now the second one is how many current email subscribers do you have? Not the ones that have unsubscribed or the active email subscribers. Even if that's their row, like you don't have a list or you haven't engaged with your list for ages and ages and ages. Just put the number that's there for now. Okay. Even if it's there, I just put zero.

And then your current social media followers. If you've got multiple platforms, you can put split out, put the multiple numbers, or you can just put the one that you're most active on and that you would actively. That you would actively focus on. If you were going to increase your audience size.

Now the key to this really is to drawing a line in the sand. Looking at what's there. And then every month, Go back and update it and look at how far you've come a track your progress, because if you're not looking at the numbers, then you won't know if you're bringing new people into your world. You won't know what's working, what's not working. So you might have a huge focus on your social media and actually the numbers aren't going anywhere.

But something you did on your website that you didn't even really think about has massively [00:09:00] driven up your website, traffic, because a blog has done really well in your keywords. And suddenly the numbers are coming in there. So you really need to start looking at where these new people are coming from. And tracking it over time. So really, really simple. And if you're thinking. Well, I'll probably do that once. And then I'll probably never look at that again. I'm just going to flag to you that that's the kind of accountability that a coach or mentor or someone who you invest in to support you is going to give you.

Because you can't necessarily do it on your own. And if staying on track and being consistent month in month out is an issue for you. And you need that accountability, then I'd definitely start to think about getting some support. Okay, action to now, this is a really interesting one. It's not what you have to write down. It's just one. You need to think about. So someone asked you a question that required like a considered response. So not just a simple response, but something you need to explain or take a little bit of time over. How would you want to reply? Would you want to speak to them? Would you want to write it down for [00:10:00] them? Or would you want to draw or take a picture? And kind of show it to them that way. Now I would speak to them. It's why I'm obsessed with voice notes. Is why I'm doing a podcast and it's why I have no problem chatting on stories or live videos, because speaking is always my preference. I find it so much easier to collate my thoughts and speak than I do anything else. Now I can write. And I really actually quite liked to write but it does take me longer to form my thoughts.

I'm not the best at find detail so often. I, if I put written stuff out, there will be errors in it. Which is why I like speaking. And honestly, pictures for me. It never going to happen. If you notice on my feed, pretty much all of the pictures, any imagery.

Is either of me because I find taking a selfie relatively easy. Ah, because I've practiced it a lot. And the graphics are relatively basic. Like I'm never going to be doing. Beautiful design led graphics or taking really stunning pictures. I [00:11:00] love accounts that do that. It's never going to be my way of creating my.

Vision my message. Anything like that? That's just not me. So bearing all that in mind. When I'm thinking about how I want to communicate my message to potential customers or current customers, whoever it is, I really need to think about what is going to work best for me. And that's why really, I started doing the live videos on Instagram and the podcast.

'cause I find I started doing a blog and I just realized that the time it took me was so disproportionate to the impact that it had.

Say my preference is always going to be audio or video. Next we'll be writing. So I tend to write my emails, although I have thought about doing a like video email and I might test that and see it because actually a little video that I send to people, or even a private podcast for people that are in my world with extra information, like weekly thoughts.

And then creating graphics or taking really beautiful images would always be my least preferred option. And on. Very rarely do it. But [00:12:00] there was so many ways you can bring people into your world. And probably despite what you've read dancing or reels, isn't the only one.

So really think about what is your preference and then start to brainstorm. Okay. So if this is my preference, what ways can I use that to bring people into my world? Okay. Problem to. You are trying to do everything in real time. Now, does this sound familiar? Oh, God, I've got to go and get the kids in 20 minutes. I really need to write my Insta pace today and just get it out. 'cause, you know, you need to post on Instagram, but you haven't left yourself enough time. You haven't planned it. And you know that you just need to do it.

Now. Marketing can feel so overwhelming when you're doing all the things. You know, you probably need to get super strict with yourself, make a plan and just implement it. Right. But the reality is, is the other stuff always takes priority.

You probably don't have enough time to get everything done every week. So you have to drop stuff and inevitably that creates [00:13:00] inconsistency and then you can feel really crap about it and really like, oh God, I know I'm meant to be being consistent with my email or with my. Blog or with my podcast or with my social media posts. And I've just missed one this week.

And it can feel really rubbish. But the reality is you can't do everything and. You need to take the pressure off yourself so you can give yourself some space and actually be thinking in a creative way rather than constantly under pressure and stress.

Here's action. Number three for you. I'm going to talk through the three basic automations and and give yourself a point for each one that you already do. Okay. So the first one is that people can sign up to your email list and then they get a welcome email sequence. Okay. So whether they sign up on your website,

Through your link in your bio? Wherever it is, they sign up, they get an initial email and then maybe two or three emails afterwards. Okay. That's the first automation. The second is that you shed you'll your social media, even if it's not down to the nth degree, even if it's not every single post, you know, for the next [00:14:00] six months, even if it is just like a week in advance or two to three posts a week that you know, are going to go out and it gives you some breathing room. So you're not always on the back of it. And the last one is slightly different depending on whether you're lead gen or e-com, but for lead gen, have you got an automated Booker call sequence? So whether that's, you know, they click on it and then they go through to a calendar and then they get a link to then have a chat with you and it goes straight into your diary and you literally have to do nothing.

People can just sign up on their own and it all happens. And you just jump on the call. Bonus points if you've got a form for when they sign up. So they complete it. So you actually know what you're going on the call for. And from an econ perspective, I'd really be looking at, an automated abandoned cart, email.

If you're with Shopify, they do send those out for you. And if you're with Shopify or. Commerce, you will have the option to kind of add those automated emails. Anyway, but I would always recommend that you actually do them yourself in your email system, like Clavio or mailer light, because they're much more [00:15:00] design led and you can edit them much more. I think Shopify in particular only sends one out and I'd actually recommend two to three. So those are the three core ones. If you're not doing any of these. Like really honestly, ask yourself why. Is it a tech issue? Is it because you don't know what to write? Is it because you haven't got the time or if I can be as bold to say, you're not making the time. Is there a way you can prioritize it, getting these done before the summer holidays? Because if you want to have time off over the summer holidays, if you want to have that space, these can be in place and can work for you without you touching them at all. Now, the next level of automations are where you start to invest in paid ads like Google or Facebook. And they do the work for you. So you set them up and then they are there doing the hard work day in, day out 24 7. That's the kind of next level of automation and there's lots and lots of different things. You can automate ways that you can optimize these automations.

But those are kind of the key ones to get started with. Okay. Problem [00:16:00] three. You relying on Instagram and only Instagram to sell. So if you've put all your eggs in the Instagram basket, now they've changed the goalpost. Your reach has dropped and serve your sales. You are not the only one. Okay. I think 20.

20 20 22, early 2021 Instagram and paid ads. Facebook ads. Where. Working incredibly well. They we're working incredibly well. You could get sales quite easily. People were engaging. People were at home and they needed that engagement. And actually it was incredible time for small businesses on Instagram. And using ads as well, to be honest. The trouble is that has dropped off now to the point where it's become really, really difficult to consistently get sales on Instagram.

I'm Facebook, as I've said it before, you know, it's not as easy to get those sales on Facebook ads anymore. You need to be much more strategic and you need to have it as part of a marketing mix. [00:17:00] You can't rely on any one strategy anymore, which is why you need to be thinking about all these different things.

And really the key here I want to sort of say is. You need to make sure you've got a clear journey from the point that someone finds you to the point than buying. Okay. So I've talked a little bit about this before. How do you draw them in, how do you build their trust? How do you then get in touch with them? Exactly when they need you, it's all about this getting in front of the right people with the right message at the right time.

That's the money-making strategy. But. If you are only relying on Instagram. It's probably likely that you are neglecting other channels. Okay. He might not be, you might be feeling really smart. I'm thinking, Nope, I am all over my email and all over my website. And if you are, then I'm so pleased for you.

If you're not, this is action for, okay. I want you to imagine it might take a little bit of leap of faith, but just imagine someone doesn't have social media. So no Instagram and Facebook. Tick tock, literally nothing. And [00:18:00] they're looking for your service or product, how would they find you and what would that experience be like? Really try and look at it through really neutral lens.

Do you nurture your email list in the same way as you do your social media? Do you check your website stats as much as you check your reels views? Like how long are people spending on your site? What are they looking at? What are they reading? Sometimes we rely so heavily on assuming people will follow us on social media or even just look at our social media.

We really neglect to look at this bigger picture about how people are finding us. And what their experience is when they do. And once you know what you're looking at, you can start to make micro changes that put together have a really big impact. So the action here is to kind of do a little bit of an audit on yourself. Okay. So take out your social media, completely someone coming to your website, totally cold.

What would they find Google yourself, but in incognito mode see what comes up, see how it looks, go through, even get like a friend or family member or something to [00:19:00] go through and really look at what that journey is. Without the lens of social media in the background.

Without the opportunity to do the highlights, you know, start here or doing a sale on your social media. Like what if your social media wasn't there? How would you get a sale out to people? How would you stimulate sales? Okay. So just kind of do that audit on yourself and have a look. Is there any way that you can improve? It is anything you can do.

Now. I'm really aware because I've talked about at the beginning, that again, I'm giving you loads of information that some actions to take. But are you really going to do it on your own? Like, are you really gonna make that difference? And honestly, I'm going to talk about this in another episode, more properly.

'cause I think when you see things on Instagram or you hear someone on a podcast. You might think that they've had quite an easy journey or they've just done it all on their own. And it's just really not the case. I've invested so much money over the last five years and coaches.

And it's whenever I've invested in a coach, they helped me make really brave decisions. They [00:20:00] helped me retain focus. I'm really honestly, that's when I made the most progress in my business.

Personally, I don't tend to work with pure coaches who help you find your own answers. I like co-chairs that mix between training, mentoring, and coaching. like to be supported by my answers by also like, like a mentor to challenge me. I like someone who's made the mistakes, so I don't have to make them. And also someone who can say like, okay, you don't know how to do this. I will literally show you how to do it.

And really it's kind of working out. What's worked for me and what I love doing and what I already do with my clients, which has inspired me to create my new action orientated group program. Called the bloom and marvelous marketing academy. Or I probably going to call it bloom for short.

I'm so incredibly excited about it. It's a group program specifically for businesses who sell to parents. So that's probably you guys, if you're listening to this. And you want to create a business that is part of your life, but doesn't dictate it. And I think that is just so key for me.

[00:21:00] And also that means you can easily take an income of like three to five K every single month. Okay. It's going to be a really good fit for you. If you feel like you're pulled in a million different directions on a daily basis, and you're not feeling very confident that you're doing any of it. Well,

You'll probably predominantly marketing or business on Instagram. And you know, you can't rely on it for sales, but you're just a bit overwhelmed about what else to do and where to start. You're in it for the long game. And you're so determined to move forward. Step by step. And you've probably consumed enough free content for a lifetime and are ready to get out of your own way and start taking messy, imperfect action as long as it's in the right direction.

You've got big ambitions to scale, but you know, that consistent sales only come with consistent marketing and you are just so ready to make that happen. The ultimate result of working with me in this program is going to be that you grow and you get more sales.

But honestly, More than [00:22:00] that. You're going to be able to finish a month saying everything's moving in the right direction. And feel confident that if you just keep doing what you're doing month on month, you will make amazing progress. Okay. And for me, that is just so key.

So, if you resonate with the above, I think you're going to absolutely love the bloom and marvelous marketing academy.

We still on the 27th of June. And they're going to be limited spots because it's the first time I've run this. And I really want to make sure that I can give you the level of support that you need. And that together we can craft what this looks like. I know how it's going to run, but I really want your input over time to really make sure it's giving you the absolute support that you need. Oh, my God. So excited. If you're interested, there is a link in the show notes and you needed to click it and just email me and say, I want bloom and marvelous marketing.

I will send you all the details and we will go from there. Thank you so much for listening today. I really hope you found it helpful. And I will speak to you next time.

Thank you so much for joining me this [00:23:00] week before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes, right when they're released. And if you ever enjoyed these podcast episodes, I'd really love to ask you to leave a review in apple podcasts reviews are one of the major ways that apple ranks their podcasts, and it only takes a few seconds, but really does make a massive difference to new people.

Finding me. Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of growing pains, see you next time.

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