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Are you a business owner? Or are you on the verge of taking that side hustle to the next level? Or curious about the world of entrepreneurship? Join Vivian Kvam, Co-Owner of Tandem Works, each week for a behind-the-scenes at small businesses and what it takes to succeed.
Each episode is full of inspiration, education, tips, and great conversation with people like you, people who are figuring it out. Take your business to the next level with insight from expert guests in business, leadership, and marketing.
Vivian Kvam (00:00)
Hi friends, welcome back to this episode of Writing Tandem. And today I'm just gonna be sharing with you some of the things that have come up recently out of a workshop that I actually taught in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to a group of business owners. And I was invited there by the organization called SCORE. And if you haven't checked out SCORE before.
the rhyming, right? I'm going to highly recommend it. This is one of my first like real interactions with score mentors. And I have to say it was it was awesome. And I've heard of score in the past, but I've never really engaged a whole lot with it. And I think this really shaped for me some thoughts on how I might go about engaging with a score mentor, even for myself and for our business. So
Check it out, check out the school, the organization is widespread, it's all over the country. And essentially, it's business mentors, often retired but not always, who mentor folks like you and I who are in business or maybe launching a business, or you could have been in business for 10, 15 years. So they're really there with you throughout the entire length of your business journey. And they pair you up.
with a mentor who can just help you through that journey. And I just think that is an awesome, awesome thing, awesome resource. So the chapter there had heard me speak at Entrefest and invited me to come lead a two-part workshop session, just addressing a lot of the mindset pitfalls that we have around marketing. And I love this topic.
because I do think there are a lot of misconceptions or myths, if you will, about what marketing is, that it's difficult, that you have to be some sort of expert, and all kinds of things. In fact, there are eight mindset shifts that I think are so important when it comes to entrepreneurs especially who are figuring out how to do this whole marketing thing.
and just demystifying it and helping business owners feel at ease. And a lot of this is actually learned over my own entrepreneurial journey and Michaela's as well, my business partner. And one of the special offerings, we have a signature offering here at Tandem Works. It's called a marketing and communications roadmap session. And it's a marketing strategy. But we often call it a roadmap instead of a strategy because it
really is charting out for a business owner or for the marketing person on a team who's maybe, you know, maybe been handed the role. I think that happens a lot. And they're like, I'm just not sure. Or there's so many different strings I could pull here when it comes to marketing communications and what's really gonna move the needle for us, for our organization, for our business. so having a roadmap, which is literally a plan, a checklist plan,
is game changing for so many. So game changing in fact that we actually have been like doing our own process on ourselves and that has been game changing for us and that's pretty cool. All that to say that as we have done these workshops with multiple business owners, marketers, organizations, nonprofits who are trying to find clarity and a clear path forward with their own marketing communications.
There've been a number of like mindset shifts that I call them that I think percolate to the top, right? They kind of, these are the common things that bubble up all the time for entrepreneurs or those who's with an entrepreneurial spirit. And so I think like the first thing to level set here on is like who feels marketing is overwhelming? I think so many of us can raise our hands and be like, yeah.
marketing and how we tell our story, how we communicate our story just feels really overwhelming. And today I want to start to challenge the way you think about marketing that it doesn't have to be intimidating, that it's simply a tool for how you tell your stories and how you drive action. And it really can be both fun, fulfilling and have a great ROI. So there's eight mindset shifts.
I'm not gonna cover all of them today because there's just there isn't time. But if this intrigues you this whole idea of there being eight mindset shifts for you to consider within your own business, love to have a conversation. In fact, I am offering a free one on one 30 minute opportunity to jump on with me and we can talk through any of these mindset shifts that maybe pique your interest and might resonate with you.
So I will give details on that. And at the end of this episode, of course, you can look in the show notes too, for the link to that. It's something that we feel, McKay and I have just been talking a lot here about how do we make ourselves more accessible to the people that we want to serve? And one of the ways that we can do that is by offering ourselves for brainstorms and for one-on-one opportunities where you can bring a thought and idea and we can just help you with it, right?
Sometimes we're so close to the idea and we're just looking for some validation, some fresh ideas, help us unpack, you know, this thought that we have or we're just stuck. And in fact, we did one, I met with a husband, wife team. We're thinking about launching a podcast and for their business. And they just wanted to brainstorm that, right? Like what, what string do we pull first? I think that's like the biggest question. So be watching for that. I'll give details in this episode, but
Okay, let's jump into these eight mindset shifts. There's eight mindset shifts that I believe can transform the way you approach marketing and they're related to common traps that entrepreneurs often fall into. And so I hope this resonates with you. And then as these episodes go, I'll just keep unpacking different ones. And again, if you want to jump in and cover all eight mindset shifts, we could definitely do that sometime in a one on one.
But the first one is that you already are a marketing expert. So shifting your mindset into thinking, am a marketing expert right now. And the myth with this one is, that people so often think I don't know how to do marketing and it's intimidating and it's only for those creative types, right? People who think in like a very creative way. And that's such a myth because so much
about marketing is just simply storytelling. And you do storytelling every single day. And you do storytelling that leads people to take action every single day. One of the examples that I recently used is like you use storytelling maybe to help your toddler eat more vegetables. You're selling them on the idea of the benefits and the results achieved by.
eating their vegetables and it might be that you talk about superheroes or you take on a persona or maybe you have a funny song or you engage their mind with facts and data. Or sometimes you're just very entertaining, right? With how you help convince them or maybe you tell a story about how you also didn't like broccoli. But now you do and what benefits it has. Like that's all it's storytelling, it's hooking.
somebody in, it's helping them understand, and then it leads to result them eating their vegetables. And that might seem silly. You might be like, Vivian, what does that do with marketing? Well, it has everything to do with marketing. It's storytelling. And that is at the end of the day, what you are doing when you tell somebody about a favorite vacation that you went on and you're explaining the feelings that you had while you were there. And they start to think, hi, I I'd like to take a vacation there. Like what travel agent did you use? How did you, and you start sharing with them. I mean, that's just like,
writing in an email about an experience you had and then helping them connect with being able to make a purchase. So really at the end of the day, it's all storytelling. Okay, I have to be careful not to dive into all of it with everything or this episode of going forever and ever. But the second one, the second mind set shift, that almost got awkward, is you can't do everything experts tell you to do and you don't need to.
So the myth here is that you have to be on every platform out there, that you have to do all the things that marketing experts are telling you, and you have to do it all right now. And that is just not true. At the end of the day, it really is about finding the things that work for you, that you enjoy, that you want to do, that you have resources to do, that you have skill and know how to do, or you can obtain those.
and doing those things really well in a way that attaches to what we call a marketing funnel. And at the end of the day, that's really all. It's very simple. You do not have to do all the things. And we actually often tell clients during our roadmap and communication sessions to get rid of certain channels or platforms and discontinue using them, at least for a time, so they can really become experts on the ones that resonate with where they're at in their business now.
So I think that's very freeing for a lot of folks and surprising to them. They are just inundated with have tos and shoulds. Okay, mindset shift number three is that you really wanna market with the story of your client's transformation, not the specs of your solution, right? So the myth with this one is that if I build an amazing product or service until everyone about all the amazing benefits, they will buy it. And it's the whole...
If you build it, they will come. And I know this can sound really harsh to people, but at the end of the day, like they're not coming because they don't care yet. Right. And so often we can get stuck in marketing with the benefits, like our list of benefits that our service has, our product has, versus focusing in on the story about the transformation and how people are going to feel. Cause at the end of the day, that's really how we make.
our initial buying decisions. And then we start looking at like benefits and comparing and things like that. Okay, so myth number four is to stop hiding behind your branding. People connect with you more than the branding. And the myth with this one is that you need a cool logo or a slick website or a polished video or just everything has to be in place before I can market or product my service. And that's not true. I have some really fun stories about that.
If you ever want to dive in, if this is like where you're hung up, I have some really interesting stories I would love to share with you in a one-on-one about had we waited for those things, we would have missed out on some really huge opportunities and how often I see that happen where people think they have to have this cool slick logo or whatever it is, right? The polished thing. And at the end of the day, that's just not true. That is not what marketing is about. And you
You've got to stop hiding behind that and really get out there with your story and your branding. Mindset shift number five is focusing on the metrics that actually matter. This is huge. And as if you've listened to this podcast, you know that I do like metrics. I like tracking things. And really the myth here is that the more I increase likes and shares and traffic to my website or followers,
or subscription open rates to my email or subscribers or all that, the better I am at marketing. So basically if I look at my analytics report and I see things going up, then I'm a good marketer. And if I don't see things going up, then I'm a bad marketer. And at the end of the day, so often we get focused on metrics that don't actually matter.
And finding clarity on the two to three that actually matter makes a world of difference. And it's a really important mindset shift. This is one that's easy to get stuck in vanity metrics, should metrics versus things that actually matter to your business. And I think so often when we unpack this one with business owners and marketers, they're really surprised to find out how much they've been tracking that they don't need to or
that maybe they haven't been tracking that really could help them with the health of their marketing plan and their communication plan. So that's a huge one. The whole like vanity metrics versus metrics that really matter. That is a really good one to unpack. And again, so if any of these are resonating with you, love to just chat more on that. Number six, do the simple before the sexy. And the myth with this one is that a slick,
campaign, a sexy ad campaign or a video is what you really need and that's going to make all the difference. And at the end of the day, like those can be helpful tools with your marketing. Absolutely. And having run a video production company for years prior, I totally agree that there is so much value at times in high production value and things or something that's very cohesive and in like that slick ad campaign.
But if the simple things aren't in place before doing the sexy things, then the sexy things aren't that sexy. In fact, they become very frustrating. You don't have a good ROI and you literally are burning money at the end of the day with those types of things. And I say that I raise my hand if you're watching like hand is raised, have totally fallen into the pitfalls of getting caught up in things like that and not sticking to.
a very small list of things that we know really make a difference and are simple and work for like every single business that maybe aren't overly sexy, but they are simple and important to do. And I heard somebody say this the other day, so I've kind of run with it now too. Simple doesn't mean easy.
Right? Simple doesn't mean easy, but simple is possible and doable. And it doesn't have to be complicated, right? It doesn't have to be all this fancy complicated stuff to successfully market and communicate what it is that you do. And so we have a very simple list of things that every business can use to help them.
really get the foundation there before they start jumping into those more, you know, sexy pieces of their marketing. So love to talk about that more. I could go on on, I'm gonna stop there. Okay, number seven, you and everyone involved with your business is always marketing, always, always. So the myth here is that marketing is only the responsibility of the marketing person and it doesn't involve the rest of the business.
And I'm going to add to that just like off the cuff here. A myth with this is that I'm going to hire a marketing person and then I can stop marketing. And that's not true. Hiring somebody or having a marketing person certainly may mean that they're going to take on doing some of the actions of marketing and some of the tasks involved with that. But at the end of the day, your marketing
for your business and organization is intrinsically the, it's the job of everybody. And most certainly, the founder or the ED, for sure. At the end of the day, marketing is storytelling. And so the stories that you are telling are your most powerful marketing tools. Hands down, regardless of.
how you're telling those stories, like as far as a channel or platforms of its website or Facebook or one-on-one or in person or an event or a podcast. At the end of the day, your most powerful asset is the stories that you are telling and the stories that people are telling about you when you're not in the room. And so the person who works at the front desk is marketing. The person who services the tickets is marketing. The person who makes the things is marketing. Marketing is happening all of the time.
through the stories that you're telling both internally to each other, that's marketing. And then it's happening externally in the stories that you are telling to your community and the people that you are trying to reach. So it doesn't happen in silos, it happens throughout the organization. And as soon as you start to embrace those types of concepts and you can start to train people to understand, and maybe that's even training yourself to understand that you are marketing all of the time, it really changes the game.
right, when we don't put that into its own silo. Okay, number eight. I really am having a hard time like holding back and not diving deep into all of these. But there's only so much time. number eight mindset shift would be simplify your focus. So pick one to three key offers or products and focus on them. That is the mindset shift.
So the myth here is that I need to showcase my entire menu of options, whatever it is. So service options or product options and talk about everything I have to offer at the same time. And here's the thing, like it is just overwhelming, right? So think about big brands. It can appear that a big brand is talking about all of its services or all of its product offerings at the same time.
But when you start peeling back the onion and looking in on that organization, they have teams that focus on individual products or services who put together all of the marketing communications around that. So really, even though the organization as a whole might appear as if they are promoting like this huge menu of different services or products that they offer, at the end of the day,
We as humans all kind of work the same way and we can only focus on so many things. And so they have teams that are focused in on those. So when you look at you and your organization and your business, you have to look at capacity, right? And what you are truly able to focus on and tell well and market well and communicate and tell stories about well. And it's one to three. That's just what it is. As soon as you start trying to focus on
everything in your menu and your offering.
It gets complicated, right? And you're spread out and people start to become confused. Hand raise again here, right? Here at TandemWorks, we do a number of different things. And we have definitely fallen into this like myth, I guess, or into this roadblock of we've been scattered where we're trying to talk about all the different things we do versus focusing in on a few key offers that we have.
and really making that our main focus. And then as people are invited in to your story as you're sharing that, certainly other offerings may come up that are more appropriate or make sense. And you can certainly talk about those, but at the end of the day, focusing on a couple, one to three key things is really going to help you and your team and your brain be able to focus. So if you're a team of one, then focusing on one might be your thing, right?
three tops, it's like the most you could possibly do. And if you have a team and you're gonna have them break down and focus, then make sure that team knows that they can only focus on one to three key things at a time. As soon as you start trying to spread out across multiple concepts or services or products, you've lost it, right? Like you've lost your ability to do that internally and you've also started to confuse your audience.
on the outside to looking in. So those are very like quick overview of the eight mindset shifts when it comes to your marketing and your communication and over the next couple of episodes sprinkled throughout. So we'll still have interviews with great guests, but I'm going to be sprinkling these in so that you can start to pick up a little more meat on each one of these.
because I think these are so key. this is so important and I've taken a lot of time to try and synthesize this down into something that feels manageable and bite-sized because so often people are like, okay, how do I tackle this whole marketing thing, right? What are the key elements that I need to focus on? What do I need to be doing? And this really is it. It's shifting your mindset.
in these eight key areas. And as you do that, you will start to find clarity and rhythm and a little more simplicity and it just starts to gel and come together. So that's what we're gonna be chatting about here. Now, before we leave this episode, I want to level set on a few key terms and I'll keep bringing these up throughout the episodes as we're going here. But one is marketing. So the term marketing.
At the end of the day, the term marketing really means attracting. It's attraction. And so sometimes just switching the word where you're like, attraction. Okay, that's a lot easier to think about than this like ambiguous word of marketing and what all that means. So attraction is simply about generating awareness and kind of creating demand and bringing people in. It's being that magnet.
And that really is about focusing on understanding your audience and then just shaping your message and your stories so that you are attractive, right? You're resonating with potential customers. And thinking about it that way, it's like, okay, that's a little easier. Like I tell stories that attract people to things all of the time. That's what it is. And so...
just level setting on that term, okay? So the next one is sales because marketing and sales go together. At the end of the day, you're marketing so that people take an action. That's the sale piece, right? And people hate the word sales and they're like, I don't like sales, I don't do sales. So I challenge people to be thinking about connection. A sale is just about a connection, that's it. It's about directly engaging with the potential customer or client.
who are already interested, they're already attracted and just helping guide them from their interest into taking a step. And at the end of the day, when you start looking at that, that it's not a sale, it's about connecting. That's not sleazy. There's nothing sleazy about connecting at all. In fact, it's a service to help people make the connection that they need in order to get the transformation and results that they want to achieve. And so,
If you could start thinking about sales, scratch that word as connection. Okay, how can I help these folks connect with what it is that I offer? How can I make it easy for them? How can I alleviate any stress that they have? That really starts to change things. And it really is about building long-term relationships and providing value. And I think at the end of the day, like that's something that you want to do.
You enjoy that. That's why you're in business or that's why you're running the organization that you're running is because you desire to serve people with your offerings. Well, it doesn't serve people if you don't help them make the connection with what they're trying to achieve with you. So, so often we try to silo those things as well. Like we've got like our marketing silo here. We have our sales silo over here and they shouldn't live in silos. They need to go together.
And certainly you may have people who function in a sales way, but at the end of the day, as you know, if they're being salesy, yeah, it is sleazy. It's like nobody resonates with that. But when you're connecting with people's stories and you're helping lead them where they need to be to be able to have transformation in the way that you offer, that's a beautiful thing. That's super awesome. Okay, so summary here. Marketing is actually attraction.
and sales is connection. So attraction and connection, those are things that you are already awesome at, right? Like that's the myth number one, that you have to be some expert. You are an expert. You are already an expert at those things. Okay. If you are resonating with any of this and you're like, tell me more, I want some more one-on-one, I would love to have a one-on-one with you.
And you can do that. There is a link here in the show notes where you can hop in and you can grab 30 minutes for free with me to do an unpack to do an unpack. What am I trying to say to unpack any of these mindset shifts and just brainstorm through them and dive in happy to bring up like talk through what that looks like for you in a personal way.
So I would love to do that with you. And then we do also offer 90 minute sessions. They're a flat $300 and it's just an opportunity to dive in deep on something that maybe is holding you back or an idea you have. Maybe you just need to brainstorm a little bit, not feel alone and stuck on an island. And so there's an opportunity to do that as well. And so that's linked here in the show notes as well. But again, like Michaela and I've talked a lot about how can we
be a more connected resource with you, with our community of people. And we feel like this is one of the ways that we can do that is through being able to have one-on-ones with you and you can grab one for free. So 30 minutes and we can cover a lot in 30 minutes. So I think they're gonna be really fun. I'm excited for them. I've had a couple book already out of the event we went to. It was one of the first times we decided to make this offering available.
And I'm just excited to jump on and have conversations with folks who are trying to figure things out, right? Been there. It's important to consider that we all work together in order to make dreams, our dreams happen. It doesn't happen on a deserted island all alone. It just doesn't. We have to have people around us. So that's why we're here. That's why TandemWorks exists. And I will put all the information for you in the show notes.
And then be watching for and listening for episodes following this where I'm going to deep into these eight mindset shifts so that you can just be a rock star and feel super confident about the stories, the marketing, the attraction, the connection that you are doing for your business. All right, guys, well have a great day and I will see you in the next episode.