Fixing your focus when you fail with your "warm" market

The Struggle Is So Real, Why?

If you're reading this, then it's likely that you feel like you've been slighted by your family and friends and you're wondering what you're doing wrong. It's not you, it's them. Well, it might be you, but it's probably them. There's nothing wrong with them, they just don't see you as the authority or subject matter expert in what it is that you're selling.

It's hard for us, as people to change the way we view others once we've decided who they are. The difference between you and the person they will give their money to for services and products in most cases is they have no idea what these people are doing on the weekends. They have no knowledge of their personal failures and all they know them for is being the expert in the industry they work in.

I'm not calling you a failure I'm just saying this, when you fell apart at work and said you were going to set the building on fire if you called the same friend who won't buy what you're selling that may be why. If your aunt has been watching you throw away money for 30 years, you're not going to sell her on your new business venture in the financial industry. It's unfortunate, but they just don't see you as capable of what you're hoping to convey.

This is especially frustrating if the parties that you're falling flat with are seemingly identical to your customer avatar or what you've identified as your target audience. They might look just like them on paper, but they aren't them.

Before we get into what you can do to start really selling and making money in your business, I'll tell you a little about how I understand this so well. When I started my career as a saleswoman the first product that I sold was Girl Scout Cookies and of course the people were buying them because they wanted the cookies. They didn't really care who was selling them, so it didn't matter if they trusted me to handle their order and deliver the cookies or not. My next couple of products were a little different.

The first was my foray into knock off perfume sales when I was pregnant with my son, and I was very determined. I call that success because I did sell several bottles before I got tired of riding around with the girls all day who just wanted to smoke between stops. However, my friends and family did not buy any of my perfume and it's one of the reasons I quit. The second time, I was 29 years old, and I had bought into a MLM company called Visalus, I was so sure that I was going to make this work and I was going to create this amazing life for myself, my 8-year-old son and my infant daughter.

I WAS STRESSED TF OUT. We were supposed to work out and drink this protein shake and share our 90-day challenge with our network in order to get them to buy shake mix, join the challenge, AND become business partners. I was challenging my body and myself and I was challenging my network. People started avoiding me and my messages, I felt completely defeated and my spirit was deflated. Here are my take-aways:

1. They did not believe shit I was saying.
2. They did not want to work out or put in any effort toward being fine.
3. I was already thin before I started The Challenge, so they were like, "Girl, shut up. You literally look the same."
4. If they bought anything it was because they did want to work out, but they didn't stay on the challenge usually after the 90-day period.
5. If they bought something they felt sorry for me.

Finally, I stopped selling the shake mix and the challenge and I went back to working at Xerox wishing I could be an entrepreneur. I had failed with my warm market, and I did not know how to get a new market, that was not something they taught in the program. Essentially, you were going to collapse your network and become rich from the people you knew. That did not work for me.

Unfortunately, when I started #CreativeAF Consulting in 2019 I was armed with little more than the experience I had from selling Girl Scout Cookies, shake mix, my now defunct podcast, Between Us Girls, and what I had learned in college on my way to a master's in marketing BUT I was determined to figure out how to do what I had seen myself doing in my big dreams. Well, I finally figured it out but not without having to do the following things and I'm going to give you these tips so that you can move your business forward much faster than I have in the last 3 and a half years.

Here's Where You Should Focus Instead

Get Some Experience

Get some experience, this isn't to say that you don't know what you're doing yet. I'm sure you've thought extensively about what it is that you're selling, how you want to sell it and who you want to sell it to. Getting experience in this capacity means you need to find some way to build a portfolio so that you have evidence of your ability to execute the work you say you can. It can be very frustrating when you're trying to sell something to somebody, and they just don't believe you based on what you're saying.

Try to offer some of your products and services in exchange for reviews or even bartering so you'll be able to build a body of work that clearly represents what you say you're able to provide. It's not something I wanted to do because I knew that in order to earn money, I had to charge a certain rate for my time and energy. However, I spent at least one year working with brands with smaller budgets so that I could create a portfolio and if you take a look at the work on this website, you'll see a wide range of brands and businesses that I've worked with over the years. Each one taught me a valuable lesson and left me with skills I used in the very next project.

If you take the time to do this, you'll be able to easily pitch your services to those who are ready to pay, and they won't question your expertise. Maybe you've already done a lot of work, but you don't have it organized? If that's the case, then take the time to put it all together in one place.

Share Your Knowledge

If you don't have experience or the ability to build a portfolio but you have the knowledge, which is why you started in the first place, then share the knowledge. Take a page from my handbook and start a podcast or a blog that focuses on your subject matter. Or just start sharing on your Facebook what you know, that will also help you to stand out experienced in your industry. People won't know that you know if you never talk about it. One of the biggest problems I see is that people seem to have this desire to hoard their knowledge and feel like it should only be for those who have paid for it.

That's incorrect, if they don't have any idea that you can help them, they won't let you help them. It's counterproductive to hold onto knowledge and information that could be helping your ideal customer or your target audience because you want them to pay for it. Here's something I've learned over the years; people love to listen to others talk about things, but they don't necessarily have the skills to go and do the things they're hearing about. If they want it done there's a pretty large probability that they'll ask you for your services if it's something they know they need.

Here's a Bonus, they won't know they need it if you don't talk about the struggle that takes place if they don't have it. So, share your knowledge.

Build Online

A good place to focus when it's time to pivot is on building an online presence. The only way to create a new network of people who are interested in what you're selling is to make sure that people can see you. The easiest way to do this is on social media, creating a page or profile dedicated to your brand or business on any social networking site is ideal. Some people use their personal social media to market and advertise and this is why they find that nobody is buying what they're selling.

To reiterate and earlier point, your family and friends are generally not your audience even if they look like your target. I often have to explain to my clients that moving their friends and family to the profiles they're trying to build is counterproductive because they don't actually care. They love you, but they're not who you're talking to. You'll want to look into building a Google Business or Yelp page but be careful about stacking reviews because if they look like you asked for the reviews it's harder to seem reputable.

Make it a priority to get some press, whether it be getting onto podcasts or written up in blogs in your industry or simply submitting your press release to the media. A good content marketing strategy can help to build an online presence as well, if you google "MSCreativeAF" it's unlikely that you'll miss me under that search term and that's not by accident. I purposely put myself and my name everywhere because I wanted to build online. MUZE can help you with this if you're interested in getting started and you don't know how.

Prioritize Branding Before Marketing

Branding goes far beyond having a logo, and a website. Yet people seem to think that once they have a logo and a website that's all they need. You may know who you're going to target with your marketing, but have you really researched these people? Do you know where they live online? Do you know how they think? What are their pain points in addition to what makes them say yes? If you don't know these things among others, then you're not ready to market and you need to pull back and go back to the strategy room. If you're selling soap, and the person next to you is selling soap then what is it that sets your soap apart from theirs? It's got to stick with the target, or they'll just go buy the soap that looks the prettiest or costs the least.

Consider the difference between Zest and Dial, they do the same thing, but they mean something different. Or look at Dawn and Palmolive, they do the same thing, but they mean something different. Branding helps to increase brand recognition and awareness, it helps others to build trust in your brand and as I stated previously, this is when you find out what really makes your customer tick. Spending the time to build your brand internally and externally will inherently increase its value and make it easier for you to achieve what you set out to when you started your brand or business.

Stop Struggling and Start Winning

Here's the bottom line, they love you and they want you to succeed (in most cases) but they're just not your people. Once you're able to clearly define who you are in business and show that to the public your people will find you and you won't have to beg them to buy anything. So, put your focus on developing your brand from the inside out and start talking about it. That is marketing at its core, promotion and selling of your products and services. If you're not confident in what you're selling and what you have to offer, then the target won't be either. You can do this!