Marketing Root Work Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Last year I took on a project to interview clients and stakeholders because I realized that what powers word of mouth marketing, referrals in particular, is what clients say about us. I felt I couldn’t in good conscience ask you to ask your clients why they refer you if I didn’t do the work myself. My integrity as a business coach comes from my own experiences; my willingness to d...

Send us Fan Mail One of the trickiest challenges I deal with is fully owning my value as a coach. This shows up in my conversations with perspective clients. Especially when it comes to sharing what I charge and what clients can expect regarding outcomes. This is a part of myself that keeps saying Really? Can you actually charge people that much? When Harrison Moore offered me a free coaching sess...

Send us Fan Mail A problem I struggled with this year was trying to figure out how to connect with my right-fit clients and stakeholders.  It was a problem that I kept circling around like a kind of doom loop.  Finally, I stopped because when I'm stuck in a doom loop it means something needs to change: I need to do more research or I need to think about the issue more expansively or something...

Send us Fan Mail One of the most effective ways to promote your business is to offer events: workshops, classes, and networking opportunities to name a few. But not all events are created equal.  To learn more about what goes into creating memorable, transformative events, I spoke with Heather Black, a speaking strategist and event expert . Heather has spent years learning what it takes to create...

Send us Fan Mail Painful though it is, failure is really a business owner’s best teacher if you frame your failures in a way that allows you to fail forward.  In this episode I talk about six ways you can reframe failure and use failure as a springboard to success. Not saying that you'll ever enjoy failing. You're human. But at least you'll learn to think of failure more as a useful...

Send us Fan Mail If I asked you whether you intentionally made it difficult for people to say yes to your offers, you would be shocked. Of course you don’t! You want to make it as easy as possible! Ah, but what you don’t know can hurt you. More specifically there are dozens of hidden choke points people encounter that cause them to ignore your offers. My podcast guest, Blyth Ellsworth shines a gen...

Send us Fan Mail If there were only one question I could ask heart-centered business owners it would be this: What do you really want to create? Assuming it were absolutely possible. I love this question because it immediately blows past all the obstacles and things we don't want and shifts our focus on something wonderful; what we DO want. In this episode I talk about why a problem-focus doe...

Send us Fan Mail I often tell people that owning a business is a hero’s journey. Nothing is going to stretch you and push your buttons more than the daily adventures of running a business.  Leslie Boyce knows this better than most people. Over the course of her career Leslie has been a cabaret performer, owner of a local gym, and is now a business coach who helps women business owners get unstuck...

Send us Fan Mail Something I think a lot about (too much perhaps) is getting to the reasons people choose us. There are always going to be a lot of people who are doing work that is similar to what we do. There are always going to be people who promise the same outcomes. And yet our client choose to specifically work with us. For lack of a better word I’m calling this our marketing mojo.  Here’s m...

Send us Fan Mail Coaching is largely process-driven similar to therapy and although our clients receive real benefits, those benefits can be subtle and hard to articulate. For this reason I often find myself reluctant to ask people to pay me. Or when prospective clients push back on the price I quote, I cave pretty quickly. From the many conversations I’ve had with coaches, this is a common challe...

Send us Fan Mail If you do fantastic work and help clients get results no one cares if you're a misfit. It’s such a relief to know you can be yourself, fly your freak flag (if you so choose) and do what you do well in the way you do it. If you have devoted fans they will be delighted to send more clients and customers your way because it feels good to tell people about someone who does great...

Send us Fan Mail When you are a great, trusted referral source, you have two very powerful social contracts working in your favor: You get to be a kind of "rock star" to your peers (you know about a great resource your peers don't yet know about). When you give a referral the business to whom you give the referral very much wants to return the favor. Reciprocity is a powerful persua...

Send us Fan Mail Most of us think of life challenges as obstacles to creating a successful business. What if instead your challenge became a springboard to creating something instead? When she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Cheyenne Dorsagno decided to use her experience to create an entirely new business so she could help others who are facing their death. Cheyenne’s experience is a true hero’...

Send us Fan Mail This is really embarrassing for a me to admit as a marketing professional. I have a very hard time handling the praise people give me and my work. It's not a simple issue either. I can't think or talk myself out of this issue. Perhaps you can relate? Or there's something else that makes success hard for you to own? In this podcast I talk about my journey and what I&...

Send us Fan Mail It might surprise you (it surprised me) that we choose the role of victim a lot more than we realize.  It's quite normal to wish we could just win the lottery and all our problems would be solved. It's normal to want to be saved by a big, cool person in our field; it's normal to assumed we're doomed (unless we're saved); it's normal to blame evil forc...

Send us Fan Mail Nothing kicks my butt (and perhaps yours as well) than looking at my business numbers. When the numbers aren’t what you want all kinds of negative emotions come up. But finances and the numbers are an extremely important part of owning a business. Your reluctance to look at the numbers has a negative impact on all parts of your business health! To help me sort this out, I talked w...

Send us Fan Mail If you're like many service-based business owners I talk with, finding ways to stand out to your right-fit clients is always a challenge. I had a great conversation with Emily McGregor of PenguinCat Creative about how her agency uses humor and storytelling to create unique marketing that gets attention and conversions. Want to find out what "Mullet Marketing" is? Yo...

Send us Fan Mail We know at a gut level that there are right-fit clients “out there”; people for whom if they just knew we existed would be thrilled to hire us. And at the same time it feels very, very challenging to stand out in this very noisy, cluttered virtual marketplace in which there are so many people making claims similar to ours. How do our right-fit clients find us? How do we find them?...

Send us Fan Mail It seems absurd that anyone would fear success. As small business owners everything we do is in service to creating sustainable business which empower others. And yet I, myself, often experience episodes of pure panic when someone says “yes” or when a Substack post gets an enthusiastic review. Seriously, I’ve yet to read a positive testimonial written by one of my clients!  Fortun...

Send us Fan Mail There are influencers out there who will tell you owning a business is a no-brainer. Just enroll in their $25,000 course and the money will roll in while you sip cocktails on the beach. The money is rolling for them. The money will not be rolling in for you. Small business ownership is the essence of adventure. Owning a small business is confusing, uncomfortable, and risky as is a...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve been in the entrepreneurial realm for more than a nano-second, you’ve no doubt heard the seductive promises of passive revenue.  Write a book or create a course and your evergreen content is out there for millions of eager people to buy. You can lay on a beach in some tropical paradise and the money will roll in like magic. Ah that it would be so! This week I spoke with...

Send us Fan Mail We don't talk much about integrity in small business circles. This is probably because integrity can smack of moral judgement. But integrity is actually about how we show up for ourselves and for our values. When we get out of integrity, we create messy, avoidable problems for ourselves and our business. In this podcast I share how I was out of integrity with a particular bus...

Send us Fan Mail I probably don't have to tell you that we can be our own worst enemies when it comes to creating a sustainable business that makes a difference. Shadow gremlins, scary stories, old insecurities all conspire to keep you small, invisible...and safe. A strong resilient "root system" is the key to creating the business and difference you desire in the world. Here I shar...

Send us Fan Mail A common concern I hear from small business owners is the amount of time and effort it takes to enroll a right-fit client.  Boy do I understand! On average I need have discovery calls with 10 interested people in order to sign someone up for my one on one coaching package. That's a lot of conversations to have. Fortunately, it CAN be easier. I share my primary strategy which...

Send us Fan Mail There are virtual summits for every imaginable profession and business focus. Perhaps you've attended a few? Speaking at a summit, like speaking at a live event, can be a great way to share your expertise, gain recognition, and cultivate win-win relationships. Suzanne Culberg (20 + speaking engagements at summits) shares her experience and wisdom with me. In our conversation...