Brent Peterson (00:02.424)
Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Chantel Cornelius. Chantel, go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day -to -day role. Pronounce your name correctly, because I know that I got it wrong. And give us one of your passions.

Chantal Cornelius (00:20.011)
Okay, thank you, Brett. It's great to be here with you today. I pronounce my name Chantal Cornelius. My mom was not French, but named me after a little French girl called Marie Chantal. So I like to say it Chantal. And I'm used to being called all sorts of weird and wonderful things. So I am the founder of Apple Tree Marketing. I set it up in the year 2000, which is quite a long time ago now. One of my passions,

Can I do one outside of business? Yes, I'm going to. One of my passions is horses. I am currently sitting in my office, which is in my garden. I'm surrounded by fields and trees. And if I crane my neck and look over to my left, I can see my horse out in her field. And earlier today, I've been on it all day today. It's been a really busy day.

Brent Peterson (00:52.912)
absolutely.

Chantal Cornelius (01:16.107)
And I had a gap of about 90 minutes earlier today. And I thought, right, I'm doing it. And I went out and I bought her in from the field and it started to pour with rain. And she looked at me and went, really? Are we really doing this? And I spent about 10 minutes grooming her, tacking her up, getting her ready to go. And then it stopped raining. And we went for a ride only for about 30 minutes in the sunshine. And it was absolute heaven. And it was the break and the fresh air that I needed. So that's...

She is one of my passions. She keeps me sane and grounded.

Brent Peterson (01:49.582)
That's awesome. I watch a lot of British TV as well and I wonder how do they get so many sunny days to do filming? Or is it AI now that the English TV is using to not do gray skies?

Chantal Cornelius (01:53.813)
Hmm.

Chantal Cornelius (01:57.227)
You

Chantal Cornelius (02:01.751)
Yeah, we make them up. have strange and wonderful light in this country in that you can have a day when there isn't bright sunshine, but it's light enough that it looks okay. I got married once upon a time, many, many years ago, and it was actually faintly drizzling that day, but you look at the photos and it almost looks like it was sunny. You can't see the rain at all, so it's all very...

It's not very deceptive. And we're British, so we just get on with it as well. don't worry about it because it rains so much. We just grin and bear it and get out there and do it.

Brent Peterson (02:34.476)
Yeah. All right, so before we get into content and we're going to talk about marketing and strategy and things like that, I would like to tell you a joke. all you have to do is give me a rating one through five. So here we go. I ate. I'm sorry. Let's start over. This is going to be a great. You're going to love this joke. OK, here we go. I ate a clock the other day. It was very time consuming.

Chantal Cornelius (02:46.909)
Okay.

Chantal Cornelius (03:04.424)
Okay.

I'm trying hard not to laugh because in some ways it's quite funny. So I'm going to give you a three out of five, Brent. I think it needs work. If my other half was here, we do a lot of improv together, and if he was here, he'd go, no, the punchline should be this, and he'd come up with something much better.

Brent Peterson (03:09.767)
You're allowed to laugh.

Brent Peterson (03:15.37)
in some ways.

Chantal Cornelius (03:33.021)
I'm going to go away and work on that for you and make it better for you. But it's not bad. It's OK.

Brent Peterson (03:37.804)
Yes, I appreciate it. I've got one more, it's sort of French, and I'll try to get the delivery right this time. Most people don't realize that the opposite of a croissant is a really happy uncle.

Chantal Cornelius (03:41.567)
Okay. Okay.

Chantal Cornelius (03:52.509)
Okay, that one I... okay, right. I've got it. Okay. Now, there's an interesting point there because your accent, you say croissant. We say croissant. So in England or France, that doesn't work. Because les Français say croissant. And that's what that's... And we're posh over here in England, or some of us are. So we say croissant. So...

Brent Peterson (04:04.856)
Mm

yeah.

Chantal Cornelius (04:21.483)
So that's why it took me a while, but I see what you mean. It's a cross -aunt. Yeah. Okay. No, no, not for an international joke. No, sorry. Fail.

Brent Peterson (04:26.07)
Yeah. Let's... I just have to ask you, would that strategy of me doing jokes like that really resonate with all of your clients?

Chantal Cornelius (04:44.203)
Would that strategy, depends what you're trying to do. If you were trying to audition as a comedian, then no. If you were looking for feedback and advice on how to become funny, then yes, maybe. That's all right.

Brent Peterson (04:58.606)
All right, good. Well, there you go. I'm not trying to do either. I have no point in doing it other than it's fun sometimes. Okay, let's start. Tell us a little bit about your background. I know you said you started 20, 24 years ago. So you were four, which is interesting. Tell us the reasoning why you got into it and yeah.

Chantal Cornelius (05:06.474)
yet.

Chantal Cornelius (05:18.271)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. I was for, yes, exactly, early starter.

Chantal Cornelius (05:28.747)
Okay, why did I get into running my own business? Well, it turns out that having spent about six or seven years trying to work for other people, it turns out that I'm not very good at taking orders and instruction. And having left university, I, the longest I managed to hold down a job was about 18 months, because I would always either argue with my boss, or because I always knew better than them, or I would walk out or I would

I'd get fired or I'd be made redundant because they said, well, we don't actually need you anymore. And but yeah, so I got to the point in 2000, I'd been thinking about setting up my own business for a while. I was working for a printing company in Oxford and it wasn't very exciting, but I needed a job site. So I took it.

and various friends of mine had gone off and set up their own businesses. And eventually I thought, you know what, I could do this. I've got the guts and the determination and the craziness to go off and do it. And so I did. And I, set it up and it was the second best decision I ever made, I think. So yeah, been doing it ever since. No major regrets. It's had its ups and downs over the years, but on the whole, still loving it.

Brent Peterson (06:45.806)
And your first best decision was buying your horse or was it marrying your husband?

Chantal Cornelius (06:52.85)
You are the first person to pick up on that. I've been saying this for a while. It was the second best decision. I hope he's not listening because the best decision was actually to divorce my husband. Sorry. But it was, I got divorced in 2021 and it was the best decision I made. We had 22 years of mostly wonderful marriage and then stuff started going wrong. So I decided it was time to move on.

And life has been a lot more fun and bonkers ever since.

Brent Peterson (07:22.862)
All right, well, let's get into marketing now. Tell us a little bit about USPs and why they don't work.

Chantal Cornelius (07:25.14)
Yes.

Why don't USPs work? USPs, unique selling points or unique selling propositions. I started hearing from clients many years ago, I stand out or I'm different because, and what I realized is they were all saying the same thing. I work with a lot of coaches and I have lost count of the number of times I heard coaches say, I'm different because I help you get from where you are to where you want to be. I'm like, that's what all coaches say.

I once heard a coach say, I'm a coach. said, great. What do you specialize in? I specialize in business and life coaching. And I said, well, that's kind of all of it. So what I found is that everybody says the same thing while trying to be different. As well as coaches, I work with a lot of consultants, trainers, speakers, and an awful lot of them, there's just them in the business like me. So they are the business. And it would be very nice if we could say, well, what makes my business different is me.

but it's really difficult to package that up and sell it. So if you sell products, it's easier to have a USP because you can say, for instance, here's this nice cup, which actually happens to have my name on it. This was a gift from somebody. So I could say the USP of this mug is that it has my name on it and it's completely customizable. And some lovely person had words put on it.

So for products, it's easier to do that because we're looking at something tangible. We're looking at something solid that you can pick up and go, okay, it's white, another USP for another mug might, well, actually it's blue or it's handwritten or whatever. Much easier to do with products. With services, we're looking at something that's intangible. You often don't get the results until you've already bought into it. You might pay a coach upfront.

Chantal Cornelius (09:19.271)
and you've got to work out what makes them different because you're paying them some money before you get anyone near the results. So that's why they don't work. They are not different. They are not unique. There's nothing unique about a USP. that was a good title for a TEDx talk.

Brent Peterson (09:34.392)
Yeah, I'm a believer in the book Traction that there's a thing that Rockefeller Habits, entrepreneur operating system. And one of the things that they tell you to do in setting up your business or setting up your marketing strategy is to figure out what are your three uniques. And I feel like having three uniques hopefully would set you apart from your competition and...

And as a follow up on that, if you don't have a USP, how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

Chantal Cornelius (10:08.715)
I'm so pleased you asked me that. The research that I started doing back in 2015 led me to identify what I now call standout strategies. I did a lot of digging, a lot of reading, a lot of looking into what makes businesses different. And it's actually, it's not based on the business, it's based on the customer. We have to focus on what our customers want and...

It's not about what they need, it's about what they want and it's how it's the emotional attachment. So it's how they actually want to feel when they're working with us. I had a meeting earlier today with a new accountant and he, I felt safe. I felt looked after. I felt vaguely amused actually. He got me really quickly. I don't really like numbers.

And I felt safe and looked after with him rather than previous accountants who have used financial jargon with me, which I just don't get. I do marketing of words. I don't do numbers. So when we're looking for a supplier, there are certain ways that we want to feel. are certain emotions that we want to feel. So as service providers, our job, what makes us stand out, what makes us different is to look at what the customer wants to feel.

So all of this digging and research led me to identify five standout strategies. And when you apply, when you work out which of the five is the right one for your business, because this is not about using all five, because that's not unique. You have to have one, sometimes two, but mostly one. When you know which of the five it is, I've developed a set of language that goes with each one, which is based around emotions and feelings. You can then use that language, the words, the feelings, the emotions,

in your marketing. So for example, the accountant, he was actually recommended to me by a friend. And the first thing I did was go and look at his website. The language on the website actually made me smile because he's got two big buttons on the homepage and it says, you a number novice or are you a spreadsheet supremo? And I went, I'm a number novice, absolutely hit that one straight into

Chantal Cornelius (12:32.021)
down to earth, sensible, practical speaking. It really got me, it got my emotions of, want somebody who's gonna look after me. Whereas if he'd have gone, we work in partnership with you, if he'd got off into tax speak, wouldn't have worked.

Brent Peterson (12:51.0)
That's good. just was thinking, what does my homepage, my website look like? I think.

Chantal Cornelius (12:54.923)
Checking. Don't worry about it yet because what we could do is you could take the test that I've developed to work to help you work out which is the right strategy for you and then you can check your website and see if it's got the rights of language on it.

Brent Peterson (13:04.759)
Yes.

Brent Peterson (13:11.0)
They're perfect. That sounds like a deal. I'll take you up on that. So tell us a little bit about some of the factors you put into it. And the first thing I think of in terms of marketing is a lot of small business owners, when they start doing their marketing, they don't actually track anything. They don't actually make sure that there's a baseline to start from. So they don't really know what success is in their marketing. you feel as though... Give us your...

Chantal Cornelius (13:15.637)
you

Brent Peterson (13:41.004)
view on what makes a strategy a strategy and how do you define success of that strategy at some point.

Chantal Cornelius (13:49.297)
I love that. What makes a strategy a strategy? Strategic marketing can be a bit of a scary phrase, but it's basically about working out where you are now, where you want to be, and how you're going to get there. And too many businesses forget all of that just go, we're going to go after new clients. Let's go on social media. Everyone says we must be on social media. We have to be on TikTok and Instagram, whatever. And they rush off into the tactical marketing.

I always say strategy before tactics. I'm going through an interesting time with my business when I've taken my eye off the ball. I haven't got as much work coming in as I'd like. So rather than jump into the tactics, I sat down with my business mentor who happens to be my other half and there was probably a glass or two of wine involved. And we went strategic. He was like, okay, where are you now? And where do you want to be? So how many clients do you want? What type of clients do you want?

Okay, what's the best way to get there? So doing all of that, that's marketing strategy. It's working out that kind of that baseline before then jumping in. And because we've worked out all of that, when he said, okay, so what do you think will work best? I just went, well, I'm just going to pick up the phone and ask people for recommendations. And that's what I'm doing. And it's costing me time and it's costing postcards and stamps because I write thank you notes to people because that's unusual.

gorgeous fountain pen with beautiful turquoise ink. That's all about standing actually. But it's not costing me any other money and I'm not messing around on social media hoping that somebody might see me. But if I hadn't done the strategic work, stepped back, stopped, thought about it, I'd been going off at lots of different tangents. I see it a lot, particularly when businesses are in a bit of a panic. I haven't got any work. I know, I'll throw loads of time at social media.

or I'll go frantically networking. No. Even if you're in panic mode, especially if you're in panic mode, stop, step back, get somebody to come and sit down with you with a glass of wine or beer or coffee or whatever, and sit and really think about where you are and where you want to get to. So that's the strategic element. Once you've done that, it actually becomes much easier to do the measurement. I've been making phone calls for, I think it's four weeks now.

Chantal Cornelius (16:14.751)
In fact, I can tell you because I have my measurement on the desk in front of me. I'm a very visual person. I love colours. And on the desk in front of me, I started tracking this actually on the 19th of August. And today is what, the 11th of September. That's about three weeks. And my goal was to make five phone calls every day to people I hadn't spoken to.

and new people on the list. if I make five phone calls on Monday and I leave a message for all of them, if one of them phones back the second day, that doesn't count as a phone call because I've already phoned them. So it has to be five new people. And I've done a different color pen every day since then. And I've done my tally. So as I'm making my calls, I'm marking them off on the sheet in front of me. Because then I can go, OK. that's good. dear. I didn't do so many that day.

And I kind of look at it and it gives me a little buzz because it's like, I'm doing okay. So that's how I measure. That's how I'm measuring that. But it's, one of my marketing mantras is do more marketing that works less of what doesn't. The only way you can work out what works and what doesn't is by measuring it. Every time somebody makes a new inquiry, every time somebody calls me, emails me,

whatever saying, can we book you to speak or can we talk to you about mentoring? One of the first questions I asked them is how did you hear about me? It's a really simple question and too many people don't ask it, but it's vital. And I then track that I have a database. So the new queries go onto the database. Every three months, I pull off a list of my existing customers and I look at the source of the inquiry. And for the last, I don't know how many years,

I've almost given up measuring it because it's the same every time. About 33 % of my new business comes through me speaking at events. 33 comes through me networking at events and 33 comes through referrals. Now I know that doesn't add up to 100. The rest come through, I've got a client of 15 years standing who found me on LinkedIn. I've got...

Chantal Cornelius (18:34.067)
clients. I work with an osteopath who happens to be my osteopath but I went to see her first and then she said, can you help with my marketing. But it's the speaking, the networking, the recommendations that's where my business comes from. But I know that because I asked the how did you hear about me question.

Brent Peterson (18:51.438)
Do you find, I do some speaking and I never get on stage and try to sell people, do you find that it's, would you categorize speaking as sort of passively selling your service and then somebody reaches out to you because they're interested in what you're doing?

Chantal Cornelius (18:55.732)
I'm out.

Chantal Cornelius (19:09.483)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I do two different types of speaking. do speaking where I'm paid to speak. I speak to a lot of peer groups. I spoke to somebody this morning who's actually booked me to do two sessions for her groups next year. There'll be 30 people in the room. I will go and run a half day workshop with them all about standout strategies. She's already said to me, A, she's going to pay me, which is fabulous.

And B, she said, you can contact any of these people if they want a follow -up session with you, go for it. So I won't overtly be selling. I won't be saying, so if you'd like to book a session with me, I'll just say at the end, look, if you want to follow up chat, here's a link, go and book it on my calendar. So that's the paid speaking. But I always check, is it okay for me to do this? And the client this morning went, just do it. The other, I mean, she actually mentioned it before I did. The other speaking is where I speak for free.

but I'm speaking to an audience of potential clients. So I might be invited to speak to a group of coaches. I do that a lot. I'm there primarily to share value and advice. They pick my brains. ask me, we do the strategy work, we do the standout strategies, and then they might pick my brains about all sorts. Invariably, people then say to me afterwards, could I have a follow -up call? Yes, you may. Here's the link, go and book it in my diary.

clients come that way as well. So there's no, I'm never on stage going, here's my program. I did do that years ago and did it very successfully. But these days, because I've been around the block a few years, I just go and deliver fabulous value, hopefully. And then people come up to me afterwards and say, I want some more of that. I had somebody at an event, I speaking at a conference in Singapore, client name drop, earlier this year. And somebody came up to me afterwards and said, I have to work with you. How do we do it?

Okay, great. Sign here.

Brent Peterson (21:09.486)
I think when...

When I was, I participated in a number of conferences in the e -commerce space. And one of the things that was always frustrating was to get, go into a session that you later learned was a pay to play session and that the speaker isn't necessarily, let's just say they weren't that great at what they're doing. And they just got up there and gave us a presentation on a PowerPoint. And it was, it was just their sales pitch that would use for a webinar. Do you help coach?

Chantal Cornelius (21:40.703)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (21:43.392)
In marketing, do you help coach that category of marketing?

Chantal Cornelius (21:48.181)
as in speaking and selling from stage.

Brent Peterson (21:51.458)
Well, no, as in one of your strategy, so I attend a conference called CEX Content Entrepreneurs Expo. It's every year. one of the, they talk about pillars of, you want to do a speed, be speaking or have a podcast, you want to have a blog and have a newsletter or something like have three different pillars in your business. One of those pillars oftentimes is public speaking. But I think a lot of times people get it wrong. Like we said earlier, where they're just getting up and they're doing this pitch.

I think there needs to be more education around how a marketer would get up there and do their presentation, especially if it's pay to play, and not be overtly salesy.

Chantal Cornelius (22:26.476)
Definitely. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. have a number of clients who've come to me. We do the strategic work and the thinking and then we work out the marketing plan and what marketing they're actually going to do. And if public speaking is part of that mix, I then work with them to make sure that they're doing it right. I've had some clients who've never spoken on stage before, I never want to, so I'm not going to encourage them to because they would just hate it. I have others who said, I'd love to do it. I want to tell my story.

Okay, fine, let's look at the story. Let's look at, I do take them back to basics of like, how are you going to walk onto the stage? How are you going to stand there? What are you going to wear? Because we need to think about all of this. And I've had all that training. And I love doing it, particularly with clients who haven't done very much of it. But we then look at, okay, what content are you going to deliver? I get this a lot where clients might be doing a 10 minute presentation at a networking group. And

Most people try to cram far too much into the time they're given. No matter how much time they're given, they pack in way too much. They just like strip it out, simplify it. So yeah, I'll look at the mechanics of being on stage. I'll help them work out what the message is. I'll help them script the 10 minutes or the 30 minutes if that's what they need to make sure they get the points across. But also so that they're doing the sales bit in a very subtle way so there's a nice call to action.

and none of my clients want to go on stage and say, buy me now, because that's not how they are. But I have to nudge them, say, okay, make the offer at the end, tell people what the call to action is. You've got your book, read from your book, show the book, whatever. So yeah, lots of that. But we always treat it, it's a marketing tool. So it's part of the mix, definitely.

Brent Peterson (24:16.718)
What do you feel, if we looked at sort of as an American, do you think there's a difference in how we do our marketing compared to how English do marketing? I'll say, you think, I mean, in my opinion, is English do marketing better than Americans? But is there a different strategy between both?

Chantal Cornelius (24:33.353)
Yeah, we do. we're much better at marketing than you. I'm kidding. You walked into that one. It is very different. I about a month ago, I was in Denver at a big conference NSA, the National Speaking Association, fabulous group of people. And they run a four day event called influence, which I was invited to. I went to some of the pay to play events.

Some of them were good, some of them weren't so good. What I've really noticed is, a couple of things. Over in the States, you are much more extroverted and you're much braver than us. Over here in the UK, we're also people are very reserved. I'm not, but a lot are. So I was wandering around the sponsor stands at Influence and people would go, hey, how are you? Come and have a conversation. Okay, yeah, I'll come and have a chat.

In the UK, if you walk around an exhibition stand, lot of time, the exhibitors won't look at you. They've got their eyes down and they're playing on their phones because they don't actually want to talk to anyone. So I'm like, why are you there? So I had some great conversations. What I have found is that since then, I have received rather a lot of emails from these companies saying, hey, you signed up to come to our webinar or you've booked a call. And I thought, no, I didn't.

No, I just came to say hello. I think what's happened is they've been given the delegate list from the event and they're emailing all 750 odd of us. That's not how we do it over here. In the UK, we have different laws to you around emailing. So in this country, have to opt in, somebody has to opt into a mailing list before you can sell, send them that sort of content. Whereas in the States, don't think, I think your laws are very different.

Yeah, you, we're far too reserved in this country. We are rubbish at just picking up the phone and saying, hello, have you got any work? Hello, can I come and speak at your event? I've had fabulous success in the last three weeks by just doing that. And people are quite surprised, but it's, it's working. So yeah, very, very different, very different styles of marketing. I don't know which is best. know which I prefer. I know what works for me.

Chantal Cornelius (26:51.891)
And I think that's the key. You've got to look at what marketing is available and who your clients are, and then look at what is the best for you and them.

Brent Peterson (27:02.316)
What is your favorite color and why?

Chantal Cornelius (27:02.933)
you

Chantal Cornelius (27:07.363)
good question. Another good question. Well, today my favourite colour is orange because I happen to be wearing an orange jumper. But actually, no, my other favourite colour is green. It's beginning to go dark now, but I can still see green outside the window. I'm surrounded by trees and grass and all sorts of greenery and it just...

I watched a TV program recently, it was a gardening program, and there was this wonderful couple who talked about the fact that their favorite color was green and all the plants in their garden were green. There were no other colors. I think there might've been some white flowers actually, but they didn't have any red, pink, orange, yellow, none of that. It was all green and it was absolutely beautiful. It calms me down. I love going out and walking my dog in the morning.

even if it's raining. And if I have to go and spend a day in London, I get home and I need to get out in the green. And when I'm in places like London, cities, I miss the green. So yeah, green.

Brent Peterson (28:17.706)
If you had a bit of advice that you would give to a small business owner that wanted to start marketing, where would you tell them to start besides calling you first?

Chantal Cornelius (28:28.427)
I'd yeah, call me and I'll send you a copy of one of my books Where to start? okay. If this is a person who has never been in business before and has no contact

doesn't happen very often actually. best thing to do actually I think is talk to the people who you already know. If you've come out of corporate life and you've decided to set up your own business, talk to the people you already know. If you're on LinkedIn, and you should be on LinkedIn, talk to your connections, even if it's just picking up the phone to say, you know me as working for this company, but I've branched out, I've set up my own business, and I just wanted to let you know.

And it is about having phone calls, not sending out a mass email because it's too easy for emails to go into spam boxes or to be ignored and deleted. So pick up the phone because you never know what might come of it. When I set up my business, I actually went to, I jumped out of corporate and straight into my business, didn't have any business contacts, but I had a graphic designer who I'd been working with.

at the company where I worked. And I called her one day and said, I'm setting up on my own. I'm leaving that company. I'm setting up on my own. And she said, have you thought about XYZ? And she gave me some advice. And she suggested some people for me to talk to. And I phoned these people, and that's what got my business going. And I got work out of it. And that just came from phoning the graphic designer to say, I'm leaving that company. I'm setting up on my own. Just thought I'd let you know.

So I think for anyone who is really starting from scratch, talk to the people you know. Don't worry about mucking around on social media. Yes, you're going to need a website at some point, but get a LinkedIn profile set up and start talking to people. Tell people what you're up to.

Brent Peterson (30:26.7)
Yeah, that's such a good point. I sold my business a couple of years ago and I restarted a new business and I did effectively use LinkedIn to get feedback about my website and what people thought of it. Cause I have a different think, I think differently than other people. And I think what you said earlier about doing what give people what they want, not what you think they want. I think that's what you said earlier.

Chantal Cornelius (30:45.951)
Mmm.

Chantal Cornelius (30:54.047)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (30:56.366)
that gives a good indication of what people are looking for rather than just saying, here's what I'm selling, buy it. I started with not trying to sell anything, just trying to get feedback on, does this resonate?

Chantal Cornelius (31:04.648)
Yeah.

Chantal Cornelius (31:10.505)
Yeah, yeah, it's too easy to say, I've got this great idea, I'm going to sell X. And you put loads of money and effort and time into marketing and create a gorgeous snazzy website. And then you find that nobody actually wants to buy X, they want Y. So you're much better off going and doing some research, getting some feedback and finding out what people actually want.

Brent Peterson (31:32.258)
Yeah, I think the other part that you had mentioned earlier was just around measurements. But you also have to experiment. And from my own personal self, I've experimented with different market segments, and some are harder than others, and some are more effective than others. not that you want to, I think you want to balance between that hard and the effective and the easy, right? I think that you need to find that sweet spot where you're able to

Chantal Cornelius (31:43.583)
Mm. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (31:59.16)
do your work in a space that's comfortable for you but also doesn't require you to work so much that you're not cost effective to the client. so I think that constantly experimenting and rethinking about what you're doing, it's part of marketing, right? You have to measure and if it doesn't work, try something different.

Chantal Cornelius (32:07.912)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Chantal Cornelius (32:18.012)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But what I would say a bit of a caveat is don't don't think you have to try out everything. I meet a lot of people who say, you have you have to try it and fail. Don't you? And no, you don't. If you're thinking I like I like your idea of looking at different the different markets and industries to go after. When I see people just throwing time and effort, particularly at social media going, well, you have to try it, don't you?

No, you don't because if your clients aren't on TikTok, don't go anywhere near it. Don't waste your time. So I think experiment with market segments and industries. Yes. Work out when you've decided which industry to play with this month, look at where they hang out and go there. Go and and market yourself there because that's where they'll be looking for somebody like you.

Brent Peterson (33:07.854)
So last question, not around do you need to fail, but are there times where failure is really something that's in your favor?

Chantal Cornelius (33:21.715)
No, I hate failure. I've never understood what people say, you have to fail to learn. What? Why? I hate failure. No, hate it. No, I think in marketing, it's much better to learn from other people's mistakes than to learn from you doing it. So if I was looking to branch out into a new industry, I would do a load of research to look at

where those people hang out, what marketing should I be doing so that I get it right? I might not get it absolutely right first time, but I won't rush in and go, I'm just going to try this and see if it happens. No, I'm going to do the strategic work, do the research. I would also look at my competitors. If there's one of my competitors who's doing very well in that industry, I will look at their marketing, like, okay, what are they doing that's working? Well, I'm going to do some of that because then

they've probably already made the mistakes and failed. And now they've got it right. So I'm just gonna copy them. No, no, avoid failure at all costs. there are gonna be people who hate me for saying that, but no, I don't have time for.

Brent Peterson (34:35.754)
Chantal, we have a few minutes left and at the, at the end of the podcast, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they want. What would you like to plug today?

Chantal Cornelius (34:43.797)
Hmm.

Chantal Cornelius (34:47.711)
Thank you very much. I would love to plug my website. We didn't go into the detail of the strategies. However, if anyone who is listening and watching would like to work out which of the five strategies is the best one for them, the easiest way to do it at the moment is to go to my website, apple tree uk .com and click on the Take the Test link. That will take you to a page where you'll see five columns of words.

funnily color -coded. Think about how your clients feel when they work with you. If you're not sure, ask them. And then tick as many of the words on as many of the lists as you want, where you definitely know. So if your clients say to you, when I work with you, I feel peace of mind, or I feel energized, or I feel a sense of belonging, tick those words. Fill in your contact details, hit submit.

The numbers will come through to me. I run them through a clever spreadsheet and I will then send you a report that tells you which is the standout strategy to use for your business. And Brent, if you'd like to do this, please do because then we can look at your website and the wording. What I'll do then is I will send you details on how to use the correct language in your marketing. So yeah, do that. It's a free test, appletreeuk .com and then go to the take the test page.

Brent Peterson (36:13.432)
Perfect, I will put those in the show notes and what we could do is I'll do blog post about how that experience went and maybe in six months or a year we'll do a follow -up podcast.

Chantal Cornelius (36:28.383)
That would be fabulous. Yes, let's do that.

Brent Peterson (36:32.138)
Chantel Cornelius, AppletreeUK .com, strategic marketing. I'll get the words out eventually here. Thank you so much for being here. It's been such a pleasure.

Chantal Cornelius (36:36.917)
Mm

Chantal Cornelius (36:40.534)
You

Chantal Cornelius (36:46.699)
Thank you for having me. It's been great fun.