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Your messaging is what helps attract your audience to you. There is your brand messaging, which shares who you are, what you do, and what makes you different. Your sales messaging is the conversation you have with a potential client or customer to ask for the sale. When you are launching a program or service, you want your ideal audience to resonate with what you are offering and to buy from you, but that’s not always the case. Even though your content is spot on and hits all pain points, your sales messaging isn’t making your ideal audience want to stop what they are doing and buy from you. This doesn’t mean you are a failure because your program didn’t do well launching, it just means that you need to get more clarity around your foundational messaging to begin landing those ideal clients and customers with your appealing words.
Our guest on the podcast today is Marketing and Communications Expert, Kathryn Thompson. She is a Canadian-based entrepreneur with more than fifteen years of marketing and communications experience, who inspires people to use their stories to create change in the world. After growing one of her businesses to close to a million dollars in sales in less than four years, Kathryn sold it with a single email. Kathryn is now the Founder of Creatively Owned, a marketing and communications firm that helps entrepreneurs use the power of words to create instant appeal for what they are selling.
In this episode, Kathryn and I dive into:
- Her background coming from an entrepreneurial family to becoming an entrepreneur herself as a marketing and communications expert
- How to create content without spending endless hours creating it
- What to do as a struggling introvert to sell your products and services
- Learning the foundations of your messaging as an entrepreneur
- …and much more
This is the last episode in Season 1 of the podcast. We will resume in February 2022, so stay tuned for more amazing episodes. In the meantime, follow me on Instagram @introvertcoach for more helpful tips as an introvertpreneur.
How One Entrepreneur Became a Marketing and Communications Expert
Kathryn comes from a long line of entrepreneurs in her family with her dad and grandfathers. She always felt a calling to be an entrepreneur or to do something similar. It just took her a little longer. She had to pursue that corporate career first to realize it wasn’t something that brought her joy. With her more traditional route, she went to university and spent 15 years working in the corporate space before she actually decided to ditch that lifestyle. She started in the creative industry as a wedding and travel photographer, but then eventually opened her own brick and mortar business five years ago. She has since sold that business all with one email.
One thing that really stuck with her though after being in the creative space was being told that she wouldn’t make a living in the arts, which actually sparked her to launch Creatively Owned, her marketing and communications firm to help entrepreneurs get paid by doing what they love. Kathryn has since transitioned her business to serving coaches, still creatives, experts, consultants, and makers because she is passionate about helping people create a business and profit out of their passion.
How to Create Content Without Spending Endless Hours Creating It
Overstimulation and being on social media too long, especially as a highly sensitive person can affect your nervous system. For introverts and highly sensitive people alike, it’s important to take care of your energy and not spend too much time on social media or creating content. The biggest recommendation that Kathryn has for introverts and highly sensitive people when it comes to creating content without using so much of your time and energy is to find a parent piece of content like a blog post or a podcast episode and repurpose it into content for other platforms. Kathryn used to do a lot of blogging, and then she would take that and stretch that content as far as she could. How many different topics can you pull from that? How far can you stretch that content? Can you automate that delivery, so are there ways in which you can schedule the post so that you’re not having to be on social media?
When you’re batching, and repurposing content, you’re not having to reinvent the wheel all the time. One of the biggest misconceptions many entrepreneurs have is that they have to create all this new content, and you really don’t have to. Repurposing content allows you to create multiple pieces of content without feeling like you have to create content in the moment or reinvent that wheel. This will then drive your content for the week, month, or however long you can stretch that content.
Another thing that entrepreneurs like this struggle with too, is feeling like they are repeating content over and over. Repetition can actually be a great thing for your audience because there is a great chance that they don’t follow you on every platform or have even subscribed to your newsletters. Your audience will evolve and grow, so even taking past posts to share with them in a new way is a great way to repurpose. New people are going to come into your space and that’s how you create that consistency and messaging is if you do have that repetition of content. It not only saves time, but helps you avoid burnout because if you’re constantly creating content it can become exhausting and nobody has time for that.
Struggling as an Introvert to Sell Your Products or Services
Do you mention what you are selling online with your products or services? There are a lot of introverted entrepreneurs who don’t talk about their offers. Instead, they only share value-based content or educational content. If this is something you struggle with yourself, Kathryn mentions that the value content and the educational content should really always be in alignment with what you’re selling. It’s an easy tie back into the offers that you are selling like your program or service. The value that you’re offering should be directly linked to the thing that you’re selling, whether it’s a product or a service. You don’t want to put out content that doesn’t drive people to your sale. Otherwise, you’re just creating content that doesn’t really have a purpose.
There are a couple things to look at as the underlying reason behind why you don’t want to talk about what you do or you don’t want to ask for the sale. You don’t have to ask for the sale on every piece of content that you put out there. That’s another misconception Kathryn says that a lot of entrepreneurs have is feeling like they are being pushy for constantly asking for a sale. You can add value in content that drives people to your products or services without ever having a call to action.
What you can do is create a system within your business, where you have to make sales, or you’re making sales, so if you’re somebody who wants to sell on a month to month to month basis, then there has to be enough content in that month asking for a specific sale. If you’re running your business on launches, and you launch four times a year, or six times a year, then those pieces of content are where you drive a lot of your sales. Then, the other pieces of content are designed to warm up your audience and create demand for what you do with your compelling content. We’ve been conditioned with the whole salesy piece because we’ve seen people sell in an icky way that made us feel icky. The value piece that you’re adding upfront, if it’s done in a compelling way that creates demand, even for them to spark an interest to ask a question, at the end of the day, you’re helping them. Whatever you have to offer is going to help them and if you believe in that, and you’re there to serve them in that way, then you aren’t being pushy because your people are going to reach out and want to see what you have to offer.
Learning the Foundations of Your Messaging as an Entrepreneur
If you are struggling with what to say, how to say it, and when to say it, then Kathryn says you have a messaging problem not a content creation problem because your content is all driven by your message. Kathryn’s program, Messaging That Sells, really lays the foundation of your messaging, and then it gets into sales messaging. There is a difference between your brand message, which is who you are, what you do, why you do it, and what makes you different. Then your sales messaging is where you have that conversation with your potential clients asking for the sale. It can be around product launches, online course launches, and promotions, as it is a very different sort of messaging than that core piece of messaging. Her program is an eight-week program that really does help you lay that foundation down first, but also how to sell what you have to offer, and how to create messaging around that and being in alignment with you because everyone is different in terms of how they want to sell or what feels good to them for selling to start attracting more people. You can create the best offer in the world, but if you don’t have the messaging piece down you’re not going to sell it.
As a new business owner, you probably know your audience to some degree, but it’s probably on a more surface-level basis. As you start to work with people, you get to know them better. You get to know your ideal clients better and on a more intimate level. This allows you to speak to them even better. That being said, Kathryn mentions that messaging is always evolving. Give yourself the space or grace to put something out there and if it doesn’t work retry it because your messaging today is still evolving. As you evolve, and my clients evolve, then the market evolves and your messaging is going to evolve with it.
Getting Clarity Around Your Messaging as a Multi-Passionate
There is a lot of rhetoric and conversation in the market that focuses on one thing and getting really specific, or you’re not going to attract people. As a multi-passionate entrepreneur herself, Kathryn does not buy this method because she has had a lot of success being passionate about more than one thing in her business. You don’t need to be super niched or nailed down. She always says to instead create that sort of umbrella message. What is that big purpose that you’re wanting to serve? What sparks joy for you in that brand? Then, under each umbrella, you can talk about multiple things that other multi-passionates will resonate with.
For Kathryn, it’s helping people share their stories in a really impactful way so that they can change the world for whatever corner of the world that they’re in, and whatever they’re doing. You just need to get really clear on what you do, what you stand for, what makes you different, and that can be at a broad level. Whatever you do as a multi-passionate, do not force yourself into a box. You will end up just spinning around trying to land on something that you will never be able to land on because again, you are multi-passionate. She encourages all multi-passionates to be specific enough that your message is clear on what you deliver, who you serve, and what makes you different. Don’t be too specific though, where you pigeonhole yourself into something that isn’t going to work for you.
Figuring Out Who to Work With and Creating Your Messaging Around That
With niching down even in the service provider field, virtual assistants in particular, they are usually told that if you don’t specialize in one thing, then you’re an expert in nothing. It can be really conflicting for multi-passionate entrepreneurs to hear because they love so many things and it can make them feel like they are doing something wrong. It’s a really good thing to offer many things, especially at the beginning, to figure out what you love, even as a multi-passionate. Learning new things and figuring out what you really love to do is a really good way to go about it. Kathryn always encourages people to try on different hats, especially if you’re multi-passionate starting out as a service-based provider. Learning those new skills, even if you don’t offer the skill to your clients, it’s still a skill that you can use in your own business. Especially in the early stages of service-based businesses, if you start to work with a variety of different clients, you’ll start to see which clients are your ideal clients. You can choose to get a little more specific and turn people away by your messaging if that is what you want, or there are ways you can be a little bit broader and fulfill that multi-passionate desire within you.
Kathryn gave so many powerful tips on creating more appealing messaging to help you sell your offers by using the power of your words, especially as an introvert on this podcast episode today. She shared her background coming from an entrepreneurial family to becoming an entrepreneur herself as a marketing and communications expert, how to create content without spending endless hours creating it, what to do as a struggling introvert to sell your products and services, learning the foundations of your messaging as an entrepreneur, getting clarity around your messaging as a multi-passionate entrepreneur, and figuring out who you want to work with and creating your messaging around that.
Don’t forget to follow Kathryn on Instagram and subscribe to her Be A Sought-After Entrepreneur Podcast for more valuable tips on being a multi-passionate, and creating a more appealing message for selling your products or services, especially as an introvert. If you’re interested in working with Kathryn, then sign up for her Messaging That Sells program waitlist now to learn when you can enroll.
If you have struggled as an introverted entrepreneur to sell your offers, what is one piece of valuable content that you can create that doesn’t have a direct call to action?
a breakdown of this episode
[1:44] Kathryn’s background and becoming an entrepreneur after finally ditching the corporate world
[5:01] How to create content without spending endless hours creating content or being overstimulated on social media by repurposing and batching your content
[12:31] Struggling as an introverted entrepreneur to sell your products and services and how to go about selling in a way that’s not salesy
[18:51] Going back to learning the foundations of your messaging and more on Kathryn’s Messaging That Sells program
[28:23] Getting clarity around your messaging as a multi-passionate entrepreneur
[35:58] Not niching down too much, being a little broader with your ideal clients, and creating your messaging around that
If you enjoyed this episode, I invite you to take a screenshot and tag me on your Instagram stories @introvertcoach and tell me your biggest takeaway!
resources mentioned this episode:
- Thetarareid.com
- Join the Introvertpreneur Club
- Apply for a VIP Creativity Day
- Kathryn’s Instagram
- Kathryn’s Website
- Creatively Owned Facebook Community
- Be a Sought-After Entrepreneur Podcast with Kathryn Thompson
- Get On the Waitlist For Messaging That Sells
- Guide: Content That Converts
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