The 4 Things Working Well In My Business Right Now

[00:00:00] Emma-Louise Parkes: Hello. Hello and welcome to this week’s solo episode of the ambitious introvert apologies for my slightly Husky voice. I am recording this and the first week of November. And any of you that follow me on social we’ll know that I had a pretty bad bout of flu. At the end of October, I was in bed for about, I think it was in bed for eight or nine days in total.

And I’ve been up in about. Just over a week now, but still really, really struggling with breathlessness and the cough. So apologies if I take a cough break, but feeling much better myself, but just one of those reminders really to us, that definitely when I was in corporate, I would try to rush back so quickly from being ill.

And now I’m much more able to listen to my body. Really realize that I needed to rest for much longer, you know, the illness wasn’t just when the symptoms had stopped, my body was still really, really tired. So it’s been a week off client calls this week. So I’ve been able to take your. But just to reminder, listen to your body.

Always, always. So for this episode, I’m going to share some of the things that are working really well for me in business at the moment. So a bit of a different episode, but I’ve been just looking reevaluating, looking back over the year as we’re approaching the end and trying to see which aspects of the business are working really well, whether it’s growth and when.

What feels good, whereas aligned where is bringing in business, where we’ve been spending a lot of time without much results, et cetera. I’ve honed it down to four things that ain’t going to talk through a little bit with you today and share the, I feel like for me and my business are working really, really well now at disclaimer.

That’s not, it’s not plug and play. Everyone is different. Everyone’s strategy needs to be unique and bespoke everyone’s business is different, but what I want you to take from these examples. Is there anything here that I go, Ooh, I’m really interested in that or, yes, I think I could implement that in my own business or I’m already doing that and not seeing results.

Do I need to optimize it or do I actually just need to ditch it and not bother at all? Excuse me, first cough. So the first thing that’s been working really, really well for me, my business is email marketing and I’ve gotten really excited about email in the last six months or. Now when I was doing my conscious consultant certification, part of that training was about email marketing and about, you know, nurture sequences and all of that good stuff.

But one of the things that Gemma shared with us is that she had an expert in to audit her email marketing. Our Jim has a huge list. She has a massive email list and she sends amazing emails. If you’re not on it, I recommend it. So she had someone. And completely audit her email. So really looked at what was working for her.

It went through all the stats and then they made an analysis and obviously it was personalized. It was based on Gemma’s list and their habits and you know, her offers, but they made suggestions. About where she could tweak things where she could optimize where she was losing people, where she was losing sales, where people were and weren’t engaged, et cetera.

So she shared this with us and it was really, really interesting because, um, what I really love about that is. Jamie gets a lot of experts in tow business that are expert in that one thing to look at it. And a lot of us, you know, often when we invest in groups or masterminds, it, it can be a broad overview, but at her stage in business, it makes complete sense to invest in someone that’s really going to nail down on that one thing.

So. He said the average average business should be sending three emails a week to that customers, which was really most of us thought that was really a lot Gemma thought. That was a lot, I think she was doing too. Um, but explaining the reasoning behind it that. Actually a lot of people are emailing most days.

And a lot of people’s inboxes are very busy. So if they’re on a number of less, they have a number of subscriptions. You could very easily get lost. If you’re popping in there once a week or less, it’s not really enough to solidify them, seeing your name and for them to make the connection. So. It’s an interesting one because it definitely brings up feelings of I going to be emailing people too much.

I see everyone going to unsubscribe and actually what this guy said to Gemma was expect unsubscribes at first, because there will be people that go wait and want to hear from you this often. As harsh as it sounds that it’s part and parcel of it. You want people to unsubscribe if they’ve not interested in what you’re saying, because if they’re not interested in what you’re saying, they’re probably never gonna be interested in what you are selling.

So they are not ideal people to have on your list. Anyway, so she implemented this same thing happened. She had a lot of unsubscribes, but then she’s had her listed number much more engaged. So I was at the time email him once per week. And I decided to try out three. So I sat once a week when I first started my email list, just because it felt very manageable at the time I was still new to marketing and anything more than that would have overwhelmed me.

And I kept my email quite simple as a template of sharing. The well, the most popular posts of the week, basically on social media. When I started the podcast, I added the podcast show notes to it and then sharing that. So it evolved slightly over time, but I decided to pit two, three times a week, excuse me.

And I separated out the podcast. So that now goes out to my email list on a Monday. So they get some content about the podcast and the link to listen. Then on a Wednesday they get some kind of value or promotion email. So for instance, the week I’m recording this, I had just released my business audit. So they went out to my list first as a priority because they get the first chance to book.

And then on the Friday, which is actually today, cause I’m recording. That is a little recap about the business audits and then also the Roundup of the week. So the most popular post on Instagram, the most popular posts on Facebook and also, um, what I’m reading at the moment and what I’m really enjoying at the moment, anything like that, that I’ve got to share.

So decided to implement this about a month ago. And interestingly, I didn’t have. An influx of people, unsubscribe. Um, I think there were a few, but nothing, really to nothing remarkable. And the engagement rates have stayed pretty consistent and I’ve actually made more sales from email and the last month.

I have done before. So all of this to say, I think don’t be overwhelmed. Think, oh my God, I’ve got to send three meals a week. What am I going to say? Like start manageably and then build up. If you feel that you have the capacity and the content and the value to share for me, it was very easy now to send three really good value packed emails a week that are actually relevant to my audience.

So I’m totally happy doing that. But if you feel. Be a stretch, then start with what you’ve got. Just make sure that what you’re sending is really, really good value and that it’s a cadence that, you know, you can keep up with, you know, that you can manage that amount per week. So that is the first thing that is working really, really well for me at the moment.

The second thing is project management. So we moved to click up as a team probably about, oh, I’m going to say four or five months ago now. And. I’m not very techie. It was very overwhelming. I looked at it. I didn’t really understand it. So I let my OBM built out. She created it perfectly for the business and what we need, but now that I’ve settled into it and I’m used to it.

It’s game-changing so everything goes in clicker. As a task and you can set tasks to repeat. So we have to communicate now so much less. There’s no emails. We don’t have to communicate on slack in the same way, because things are just automate. They just pop up and populate, which I adore. So for instance, I will get on a Monday, a reminder to create my content for the week.

And then I simply create the content in a Google doc and I click tick. And once it’s marked as complete with the tick, then a notification goes that the content is there and it’s ready to be posted. And this goes on through the week is, is certain clients that I need to check in with on certain days, or there are days that I need to reach out to person that if I’m following up with a potential client, I can just pop it in there for three days, time, you have five days time, a week’s time, whatever, whatever that time period is.

But the really great thing is those things that recur. We have to week or day after day. So, you know, go into the Facebook group and replying to any comments in there, checking my Facebook, DMS, checking my Instagram, dams, all of these things now part of a project. So they just pop up and it a bandwidth wise and brain space wise.

It’s amazing because. You don’t realize how much we carry in our brains, trying to remember to do everything every day. And it also means that I don’t drop the ball. So there are no days that I now don’t go in the Facebook group because I got busy and forgot, or there are no days that I don’t log into Instagram because I didn’t feel like it.

Or I got distracted because it’s all just there. It’s all ready to go. And once it’s done, I take it off. It is very satisfying. I have to say. No affiliation with click up. It is not the only project management tool out there by any means. It is the one that seemed the most robust for the way we operate.

And it’s also very, very good value for quite a few months. We were able to use the free plan. And now we are on the plan, which is, I think it must be about. $14 a month or something like that. It’s like 10 pounds something when it comes through on the bill per month. Um, but we’ve been able to build up content bank in there.

We, yeah, really, really recommend this. If you are in that stage as well, where maybe. You’re on the verge of outsourcing, but you’re not quite ready to yet, but you need something that’s a little bit more than a planner or a to-do list. Uh, you know, my thoughts on to-do lists, if you listen to the show the other week, then highly, highly recommend automating all of these repetitive tasks into clicker.

So number three of things that is going really well within the business is repurpose in the podcast. Now this is not something I did for probably about the first. Seven or eight months, um, other than the show notes. So the podcast was edited, the show notes were produced, and then those show notes got sent out as part of the once a week email as it was.

And they got used as one piece of content in the week as well. And I realized that I spent a lot of time and effort in producing the show, had some great guests, wanted a way that I could really highlight that really make the most of the time and effort that I’d put into it and reach larger audiences as well.

So we decided to do this was treat the podcast as my lead content. So this is where the most time and effort goes into producing the show. And then. Create the majority of my weekly content from that. So you may have noticed, especially if you follow me on Instagram, over the. Maybe three months, majority of the content that has been repurposed from the podcast.

Excuse me again. So what’s really great with this. As it allows us to create some great graphics, pull quotes out from there that would otherwise get lost. It means that I can take these some shorter posts. I’m going to say they’re almost like snippets that. Lifted from the podcast, but you don’t have to listen to the podcast to be able to get value from them.

And then I’ve been taking those. We’ve been doing about three a week and sharing those as value posts in Facebook groups, sharing them on LinkedIn, obviously. And the podcast growth in that time has been exponential. Like what if I plotted a graph based on previous downloads as to where I, where I am now, it just doesn’t make sense.

And I am convinced that it’s because of this growth is because of the exposure from. Taking these really valuable, like short aspects of the podcast, along with the link and a quote and share in that in lots of places. So it’s enough to peak people’s interest to make them click and listen. Maybe you listen to now, maybe you found this podcast in that very way.

Maybe you’re in a Facebook. And you found a nice post with a link and you thought that sounds interesting, but also for people that aren’t interested in the podcast, it’s still a great post and they still get some value just from reading that. So this is a system that I really recommend to anyone is to take a piece of lead content that you put a lot of time and effort into creating something really, really helpful and really valuable.

So it could be a podcast. It could be video every week. It could be a blog post, something that’s just a bit meeting. And then creating shorter pieces of content from it. I’ve got friends that do this with blogs and really, really successfully. So then most of their social media posts are, you know, pulling out aspects from the blog and then directing people back.

If they want to read the full. And also then duplicating it as an email as well to their subscribers. So we’d highly, highly recommend that as I say, definitely contributed to massive growth of downloads of the podcast over the last few months. So really good system as well for making sure that you really get the value out as much as possible, rather than just constantly creating something new or.

So the last thing that I’m going to cover that has been working really well for me in this business is referrals and recommendations with. Kind of isn’t surprising because one of the things that I said when I created this business is I, it was basically an intention is I want the majority of my clients to come from referrals and recommendations.

So how I made this happen was obviously to give the best service that I possibly can to all clients that I work with because a, I want them to be satisfied, be I’d love them to return as clients and many, many of them. And see, I would love for them to recommend me to other people, because actually when someone recommend someone to you, it bears much more weight than if you find someone on social media or via Google and you run into that person, you feel like you have to get to know like, and trust them.

When someone recommends psychologically, we much, much more likely to buy because we have that personal recommendation. We have the trust in that person. So I set this up so that my clients and my former clients are able to refer people to me. If they think that would be a good fit. And if that person signs up, they then get a referral.

So everyone is happy. I get new client, the client gets the coach that they need, and the person that referred also gets a monetary gift to say, thank you. So it’s been working really, really well, and I’ve actually just extended it as well to complimentary business owners who have a similar audience. So if you are someone who is newer in business, maybe you don’t have a lot of clients or a lot of past clients.

That you can ask for referrals and set this kind of thing up. Think about complementary businesses. Who are the people that have the same audience as you, but they doing a different thing. So for instance, it could be that, uh, if you’re a personal trainer, it could be a nutritionist or dietician. They could work with very similar people to you.

They do an, a complimentary thing, but it’s not exactly the same. And it’s very likely that that person could need both of you either at the same time or one after the other. For me, it looks like web designers. Work with online business owners. It could look like life coaches for introverts that aren’t focused on business strategy.

It could look like any of these things where we think, oh yeah, actually you work with really similar people to me. And we can both really help these people, but in a different way. So if you ask someone yeah. Doesn’t love marketing, but you know, the importance of it for growing your business. This is a really great way to supplement it.

And so you don’t feel like you have to be online all the time is to, to make this kind of referral or recommendation program where everyone gets value from being a part of. So those are the four things that I want to chair that I feel have been really, really helpful in my business. And definitely over the last six months, I’ve seen considerable growth and return from, so that is email marketing.

Bringing in project management tool of which I use clicker repurpose in the lead content and really making a number of posts each week out for the podcast and referrals and recommendations to ensure that I have a nice pipeline of clients coming in. So I hope that was helpful. I would love to know which of these you use in your business or which of them.

Piqued your interest about that you think you could either implement or optimize if you want to share head on over to Instagram, I am at Emmylou parks and drop me a message. I would love to hear from you and notebook recommendation today because it’s a solo episode, but if you didn’t already see, I have collated every book recommendation from day one of the podcast and created a redone list with it.

So. I’ve got this hosted on notion and notion is beautiful software. If you’re not familiar with. It’s free and you can make just really beautiful pages and lists. And rather than creating a PDF, I decided to pop the read in this to notion because I’m going to be updating it so regularly with new episodes, that it didn’t make sense to keep creating something.

So, if you would be interested in getting your hands on every book recommendation from day one of the podcast, which was over a year ago now from every single guest, which with a clickable link. Which gets updated every quarter, then head on over, I’ll pop the link in the show notes, but head on over to my website, Emma Lewis, parks.com/reading list or one word, and you’ll get it in there.

It’s been really useful for me because I’m reading every book that every guest has ever recommended. So I I’m working my way through them. So collating them in order and being able to. Go through has been really, really great. And it’s really taken away that decision fatigue for me. Cause I’m a huge reader.

As you probably know if you’re an email subscriber, I’m reading a different book at least every week. It’s really great to have ones that have been recommended by people that I really value people that I know are hugely successful and people whose opinion that I trust so that I know I’m not gonna be wasting my time.

And it’s been really great to have them that, so I thought this would be a really useful resource for you guys as well. So if you do want to get your hands on that for free. Hop into the show notes. The link will be there, but it’s my website. Emma Louis Parks slash reading list. Thank you all so much for listening.

And I look forward to speaking to you again next week.