In the Podcast:

01:23 – Episode Overview
03:12 – Guest Introduction
05:13 – Stumbling upon on the Idea for Her Business
08:01 – How did Meryl Drew Interests on Her Business
09:44 – Content Played a Part on Their Business
12:57 – What Did they do Differently in terms of Content Strategy
17:45 – Other Methods They Used to Get Traction
22:48 – Methods She Used to Ramp Up the Acceleration
25:45 – The Role of SEO in their Marketing
31:03 – Things that Meryl Would Do Differently
34:34 – Traffic Generating Strategies in Her Business Going Forward

Meryl Johnston launched Bean Ninjas in 2015 with $1000 and a dream of changing the global bookkeeping game. It has since grown from Meryl’s kitchen table into the multi-national, award-winning business it is today.

Episode Overview

Welcome back to Episode 55 of the Teach Traffic Podcast. I’m your host, Ilana Wechsler. And today we’ve got a really interesting guest and story that I want to share with you today. I’m interviewing a lady called Meryl Johnstone and Meryl is an interesting person because back in 2015, she launched her business called Bean Ninjas, with $1,000 and a dream of launching and changing the bookkeeping industry.

So she has grown her business called as I said Bean Ninjas. From her kitchen table to being a multinational and award winning business entities today. But it also interestingly, she launched it in seven days. She followed Dan Norris’s seven day startup method.

And it was really off the back of his Dan Norris’ book, as well as his journey that she launched this been ninjas business in seven days, and has grown it to as I said, what it is today, which is an amazing testament.

So I thought it would be interesting to chat with Meryl today about the way that she grew her business, how she got early momentum. And then once sort of that low hanging fruit was captured how she grew it beyond that, which is obviously a completely different skill set entirely. So let’s get stuck in today’s episode.

For information on today’s episode, you can visit TeachTraffic.com, where we will provide some show notes and resources, today’s episode, so you don’t have to write any notes. We’ll do all that hard work for you. So let’s get stuck in today’s episode.

Guest Introduction

Ilana:
Welcome to today’s show, Meryl!

Meryl Johnstone:
Thanks Ilana, it’s great to be here!

Ilana:
Awesome. It’s awesome to have you here. So before we kind of get stuck into how you stumbled on your new business idea, and grew it to the level that it is today, which is a very decent business. Do you mind giving us a quick five seconds about who you are and what your business does?

Meryl Johnstone:
Sure. So my background was accounting though, when I was at university, I wanted to run businesses. And I thought that learning about accounting was a great way to get exposure to different businesses. And so that’s why I started. And actually, it took me 10 years to get out of the corporate accounting roles.

Ilana:
I can relate, I spent 10 years in corporate too! (laughs)

Meryl Johnstone:
It was a good grounding, I learned some great skills. And as an academy, you get exposure to all kinds of different businesses. And you get to see the mechanics of how they run and then numbers, and also have conversations with business owners. So it was a really good grounding.

But I always knew from earlier that I wanted to own and run businesses. And being ages was my first business. I had a tennis coaching business back when I was at uni, and my transition from corporate to go out of corporate was consulting. And I did that for about nine months before I realized it wasn’t the business model for me. And it was quite hard to scale.

And there are some other frustrations with that business model and being introduced, which is more in the vein of a product type service type business model with my solution to address the problems that I saw with the consulting business model. And so Bailey just started back in 2015.

So were about four years old now. We started as a bookkeeping, fix, favorite keeping service, specializing in zero software. And now we do bookkeeping, but also financial reporting. And there’s an education arm to the business too. So we’ve evolved as the businesses growing,

Stumbling upon on the Idea for Her Business

Ilana:
Interesting. And you’ve got an interesting story about how you started that business. You want to sort of touch on how you stumbled on this idea?

Meryl Johnstone:
So I’ve been working in a co working space with a guy called Dan Norris on the Gold Coast. And I didn’t know much about what he did. But it turned out he ran a business called WP curve, which was the product or service related to WordPress.

And he’d also written a book called The seven day startup. And he’s kind of been pushing me a little bit to get out of consulting and maybe do the WP curve for accounting.

So having read his book, and then also feeling some of these frustrations with consulting and doing custom work, and just cash flow challenges and difficulty building a team, I decided, Okay, I’m going to do this. And I’m going to, I’m going to launch in seven days for the methodology in that book. And my my co founder, Ben macadam, had also read the book.

And so he flew to the Gold Coast. And in in that week, we we just created our own logo, we built a website in WordPress, we did our best guess at what fixed fee bookkeeping packages should look like. And we found our first customer, he’s actually still a customer today.

We’ve just developed from there. So we each put in $500. And growth in the early days was slow, because we had to earn every dollar before we could spend it. And we were doing this as a side hustle, really, we had other businesses we were running.

So early growth was slow. And then we realized, hang on this business model has legs. And that’s when we really made a concerted effort to be able to transition into that into being ninjas full time.

Ilana:
Yeah, right. So I’m just curious, how did you get your first customer?

Meryl Johnstone:
We posted in Dan’s Facebook group. And it was a guy called Jared Robinson, you probably know of as well. And he was in that group. And Ted Shaw can help with bookkeeping, and he was our first customer.

Ilana:
There you go. I love stories like this. So it’s the kind of thing that I think that you know, you start and where you end up four years later, because I’m sure where you are now looks vastly different, or maybe not vastly different, but somewhat different to where you started.

But had you not started, you wouldn’t have ended up where you are now. So it’s it’s such a, I guess, a chicken and egg thing? I guess.

Meryl Johnstone:
It is. And I’m such a big believer in speed of execution. And that’s something that we did when we started the business, but the whole way through. I don’t as an accountant, we’re trying to analyze and think about things.

And I do like to analyze and think to a degree, but I think it’s really important to act quickly. And then just test and iterate.

And so that’s something that we’ve we’ve tried from day one to really have it’s part of that culture as the business which is can be difficult in the industry that we need financial services.

Ilana:
Yeah, I’m sure I mean, I guess that’s how I’ve pretty much run my business today is to try something right. Does it work? Okay, great. How can we pivot and iterate? Or is this does this have legs?

No. Okay, that would just kill it, you know? Anyway, let’s not digress. So you’ve created your business in seven days, what sort of, what did you do next, in order to drum up, I guess interest in your now productised accounting service.

How did Meryl Drew Interests on Her Business

Meryl Johnstone:
So at the time, we still didn’t have a big network, I’ve only been living on the Gold Coast for maybe three years. And I hadn’t put a lot of time into building a network, we didn’t have an email list.

And we weren’t really known in any industry, though. It was friends and family to start with just getting in touch with with everyone that we knew this was both me and my co founder.

And just letting people know what we’re up to, we were trying to tell a story from day one. So our original story was that we’ve we launched this business in seven days last week. And this is what we’re up to. And so that people, some people found that quite interesting, especially if they had read the seven days follow.

And so having a story to tell in those early days, enabled us to have more conversations, because people were interested in listening and also wanted to help us.

So I’d say, for the first six months, it was all relationships, friends, family, friends of friends, that became customers. But at that we wrote our first blog post in that first week, too.

And so we were already starting to slowly build an email list and starting to create content. But it took a lot longer for that to actually turn into customers. It was all direct relationships, in the early days.

Content Played a Part on Their Business

Ilana:
Yeah. Well, I can imagine, you know, like you quickly generate those initial customers through your relationships and referrals. But then you exhaust through that.

And then what So you mentioned that you wrote your first blog post, as a content marketing strategy, how often we do write content? And then what would you do with that content? Once you wrote it? Would you syndicate it out?

Meryl Johnstone:
Yeah, so we, we’ve gone through different phases in the business in terms of how frequently we produce content. So we I think, in the first year, we were trying to write content every second week. And then we’ve been through phases where we publish weekly, at the moment where we’re publishing blog post less than that.

But we were trying to get into, but we have a consistent routine around it. So our audience knew what to expect and when they could expected. And in terms of promotion, we would say we were building an email list, we were also sharing on social media, and back then you could post on Facebook and get some organic reach without having to pay for it.

And so we would share also share our content in groups where it was relevant. We weren’t just blasting out everywhere. But if someone asked a question, and we had had a piece of content that answered that question, or it was a topic that we thought that was interested in, then we were also sharing our content in different groups that we were really active and try to be great participants. And give is not just blasting out our stuff.

Ilana:
Did you find that people were taking action, like moving to the next step, as a result of your content? Like was your content, doing the heavy lifting in terms of making people take some kind of action to take the next step?

Meryl Johnstone:
Not in the early days, I’d say certainly now, so with four years, or four and a half years into the business, that content starting to pay off.

So it led to other opportunities, though. So if you’d asked me a new one of the business need all of the effort that we put into content result in a customer, a direct customer, so someone read our content, and then board, I would say no.

But I think that’s partly the sales cycle in it, when you’re selling bookkeeping services, someone needs to have a high level of trust before they’re going to give you a access to their finance, since and then bank account details and things like that.

So I think it was partly that industry. But also, we went that great at writing content in the beginning. And we didn’t really have a clear strategy, there was a lot that we needed to learn about it.

But even in the early days, so I think within nine months of writing regular content, I was starting to get asked to speak at events. And I spoke at zero con when they needed it was a pretty small business and zero clubs, a conference that has about three and a half thousand people.

And so wasn’t directly leading to sales, but it was gradually helping us to kind of move up that credibility line off, even if it wasn’t in front of customers.

But it was in front of the industry. But I think, step by step, as you create content, you build influence. And and also you refine your message and also figure out who your audience is it you might not get results immediately. And we definitely didn’t.

But I’m really glad that we persisted because now four and a half years later, we are seeing good results.

What Did they do Differently in terms of Content Strategy

Ilana:
Yeah, right. So you mentioned that your content is different now based on what you’ve learned. And you’ve got more of a content strategy.

Do you mind sort of touching on? How is it different? And what have you done? What do you do differently now, with your content that you were not doing in the beginning?

Meryl Johnstone:
In the beginning, I just wrote about whatever popped into my head, and whenever I felt like writing about, and sometimes that audience might be interested in that.

But I wasn’t writing with the audience in mind, I was writing me in mind and what I wanted to say. And I think now, more more effective strategy, which we’re using now is to think about who our audiences and who we want our audience to be.

And then what kind of content would actually be useful for them, what would be interesting, and we also broke out content into some different categories. So we’re an accounting business.

So we write some content related to that. And we might write about the right features or how you solve a particular accounting problem. But then, when we’re working with small businesses, so we also have content thats related to building culture in remote teams, scaling businesses, systems and processes.

And so basically, we looked at what are the broad range of topics that our audience are interested in, let’s pick some categories. And then let’s be more intentional about how much we’re writing about in these different categories. And when we’re going to be producing the content.

As an example, we, in March of this year, we launched a financial literacy course. And so we looked at what are the what’s the pain point or the multiple pain points that we’re solving with this course. And then we started to create content that address or even raised some of these issues.

So that was a lot more strategic approach, then the early days of just writing what I felt like.

Ilana:
And did you include certain components or elements to the content or is just purely a text based thing?

Like Did you have a call to action at the end or some kind of something that people opt in to?

Meryl Johnstone:
We haven’t opted. So we’ve been through phases way, sometimes we’ve tried to have a unique opt in, that relates to each piece of content. But we found and I can see merit to that, but it was just too time consuming.

And within our budget constraints, I’d prefer to spend that time on something else. So we actually don’t do that anymore. Even though if we had more resources, we probably would. And instead, we decided on making one awesome opt in. And so we have, we do have a couple of outcomes that we’re using, but there’s one that performs particularly well.

And we just put a ton of value in into that. So it’s got things like a cash flow forecast template that I created, it’s got a huge checklist of things to check in zero.

And there’s a bookkeeping timetable that I created as well. So if someone opts in, they get all of those things, and they’re really useful resources. So we actually just decided to focus on that. And then most of the most of the posts will have a call to action will have that opt in.

But then, depending on the post, so some of the posts that relate to the financial literacy course, then the call to action might be to join out a five day challenge, a free five day challenge that leads into the goals.

And if I move to our podcast for a moment, we say we don’t have advertisers on our podcast, but but we advertise big news on the podcast.

So we have pulled the actions, that red light, we’ve recorded a number of different call to actions, and depending on the episode, then we insert one of those call to actions.

Ilana:
Interesting. Do you find that there’s certain call to actions?

Or do lots of people register for the challenge more versus other things? Or is it sort of contingent on what is that leading piece of content?

Meryl Johnstone:
I think it, it comes back to why someone reading that content. And so there might be multiple reasons they might have come across it, maybe they saw it in the email list.

So I think the the person who’s reading it, their behavior will change depending on what they were trying to achieve. So if someone was searching for a particular solution to how to connect stripe and zero, and then they read our post about it, and then there’s an opt in that relates to that, then I think the success rate is higher than if they just read it a general business post, and then the opt ins related to zero tips, because they might actually not be interested in that opt in as much with the challenge.

It’s only early days. So we only run the challenge once. And so we’ve only been testing those call to actions over a short period of time. I don’t have enough data on that. Yes, but that’s something that we’re really we are really data driven with everything.

So I’m interested to dig into that we’re actually running the challenge again, at the beginning of October, I’m really interested to see without if we can tweak what we did, and anyhow, results are going to change. Interesting.

Other Methods They Used to Get Traction

Ilana:
I know content marketing is is a long game, and it’s a long term play. And often it takes a little while to get results.

So what are some of the other methods that you were that you used to get traction in the early days?

Meryl Johnstone:
I had a podcast outreach strategy. So we didn’t have a podcast for a bit over a year. But back then we didn’t have a podcast. But I was trying to I had a strategy, where I was nobody, no one had heard of me. So I had to work really hard to get my first five podcast interviews.

So being interviewed on our podcast back in 2015. And from that was part of our strategy, I think I was on 15 podcasts in a period of something like six months.

And that was hard work, because I really had to try and explain why these guests should host me. And that really helped in again, it wasn’t a direct sale, but just people being more aware of the pain in his brand and our story.

And maybe I read a piece of content, and they heard that podcast, and then they heard another podcast. And then I thought, oh, maybe I should call Bean Ninjas.

Ilana:
So many touch points in there and sort of really hard. And this is what I find I find happens a lot with business owners is they.

So attribution focus, like, is this one specific channel working for me was not I’m going to cut it off, when really, there’s so many touch points that are all leading up to that final sale and who really gets the credit for it. Will they all do you think?

Meryl Johnstone:
they do? And that’s something I’ve struggled with, especially around content, because the the payoff period is so long. And often it’s hard to collect data on that.

And but I’ve really believed in it as a strategy. I know, I used to cover a little bit of criticism in some of the mastermind groups that I’ve been in about why am I putting resources into these when I could be focused on more direct sales type strategies that might result in a sale today.

But I feel like building a brand and building assets, signing to rank for keywords, and and building awareness of who I am, who are the key people in the business off.

It’s a longer term strategy. But I think we’re building more of an asset than if we just try to quick short term sales strategy.

Ilana:
Yeah, hundred percent agree. And I think podcasting is such an amazing medium for sharing content and building a relationship with your audience that I’ve in my experience, like so obviously, I’ve got my own podcast, we’re talking about it now.

But I also go on other people’s podcasts. And it’s incredibly, what’s the word? It Like, it sort of it’s quite sticky, like it lasts a lot longer in terms of the effect of it and the content, people consume content at different times.

So contrast that to speaking an event which I kind of say it’s like a bit of a sugar high, you know, you get an A huge influx of leads within the event is over.

And then the sugar rush is over the you know, in versus a podcast, which is much more consistent. And as you say, it’s a real asset.

Meryl Johnstone:
Yeah,100% I agree with that. And but when you were talking about events that actually reminded me of two of our other really early strategies, we don’t focus on as much now.

So one was, one was referral partners. So I spent a lot of time building relationships with accounting firms. Because we don’t do tax.

We do GSE, but not income tax. And so we could refer a lot of work to accountants, but that strategy didn’t work very well for us, because they retained their really good bookkeeping clients, but didn’t refund refer the more difficult ones to us.

But we in the early days, we did get some clients out of that. And I was part of BNI for a little while, which some of your audience may be familiar with, which gets you to think about how can you help other people and refer them work and build relationships with people, again, that have access to a group or an audience of your target market?

So we did that in the early days, but I don’t spend as much time on that anymore. And then we’ve been to I actually spent a lot of time going to events to not speaking in the early days, so much bit more just building relationships.

Ilana:
Yeah, look, I can relate to that, too. When I started out with my agency, or what 70 odd years ago, I used to do a lot of business, networking breakfast, I didn’t do BNI. But I know it up and I is.

And it was a great way to build a referral base, at least like you know, I never did web design, for example. So it was a great way for me to meet a web designer, that I could refer them work, and then they might possibly refer me work.

So business it working, I can relate is definitely where I cut my teeth sort of growing my business. Alrighty, so content, referral networks, all that kind of, I guess, slow burning type strategies.

What are some of the other methods that you used once you had a few clients under your belt and needs to really kind of ramp up the acceleration?

Methods She Used to Ramp Up the Acceleration

Meryl Johnstone:
So we tried Facebook ads, probably in about at the 18 month mark, we ran ads to a free zero audit. And we thought it was a pretty good offer, we’d had a convert at an event before and it converted well.

And it didn’t convert well. Well, actually, I let me rephrase that, what some people signed up for, but then no one would give us the zero file access in order for us to do the audit, because I thought we might be a scam.

And so it went well. Yeah. So that was our first attempt at Facebook ads, and it didn’t really result in sales. Then we ran Facebook ads to a job ad with a picture of me, you know, the typical digital nomad picture with me with a laptop, at a beach, it was me working at one of our clients surf resort.

And it was funny that didn’t result in some job applications. But that also resulted in some leads to. But I think that was more just indirect and walk that someone looked at the picture and then kind of click through to our website and and awfully but… so we put Facebook ads on hold for a couple of years. And we didn’t really feel like it was working for us.

And we had our limited budget that we were directing into content marketing. We’ve started Facebook ads again recently. And the method is we’ve created eight videos that talk about different elements of financial literacy or address a specific financial problem, like preparing for tax time, or a cash flow challenge.

And the call to action with those videos is to join the five day challenge. And so we’ve been running that for a short amount of time. And again, I don’t feel like I’ve got enough data to know whether it’s working well yet.

But we’re still gonna we’re going to try the same strategy for the next the upcoming five day challenge.

So we’re not putting a ton of money into it at the moment, we’re really still pretty early with learning about Facebook ads and figuring out our audience and, and yeah, tweaking different things cut up, the intention is that once we figure it out, then I’d like to spend more money on.

Ilana:
Yeah, and I think that’s some very wise to spend a little bit of money and test it first before, you know splashing out a huge amount of cash for an unknown.

It I’m assuming you’ll be promoting that those videos and your video will have as you said that call to action at the end. But then you’ll probably create a retargeting audience of the people who’ve watched the video and then show them an ad for that challenge. Is that right?

Meryl Johnstone:
Correct.

Ilana:
Yeah, I can see that working. I don’t see why not. Just make sure you put, you know, time sensitive stuff in the red. But anyway, we can probably talk offline about that. Are there any other strategies that you found were successful in growing your business generating traffic to your site and targeted traffic?

The Role of SEO in their Marketing

Meryl Johnstone:
Well, we’ve talked about content marketing, in the sense of bringing customers and also just increasing or building relationships with people. I haven’t really talked about it from an SEO point of view.

And we weren’t really thinking much about SEO in the first couple of years. But then we did kind of double down on that probably 12 months ago. And it’s taken about 12 months to really save, I think traffic doubled over over a period of 12 months when we really focused on SEO and and just tweaked a lot of things in the back end.

And as well as being more intentional about the content that we were creating. So now we get so we track where our leads are coming from, and the percentage of leads that are coming from SEO, it used to be zero at the beginning.

So someone that’s found that five Google search, and now that percentage is gradually increasing as the week’s Go on, which is great.

Ilana:
Yeah, definitely. Do you did you have some kind of targeted SEO strategy?

I mean, I know a little bit about SEO, I usually say to people, I know enough to be dangerous.

I’m certainly no no SEO expert. So I’m just curious as to what kind of SEO strategy you took.

Ilana:
We spent a lot of time reworking our site structure. So we looked at what our objective, what what is the goal of this, and it’s to have to increase traffic and increased conversions.

And then also, we looked at the countries we were in, and there was some things we needed to do to this little things like having our addresses verified in the different countries that we operate in.

So there were things like that we spent a lot of time and outside structure, and then we redid our website. So we started with SEO, and this site structure recommended, and then kind of built it up from there with copy and then design. And then we would more specific about keywords, the keywords we wanted to target.

Ilana:
from memory site structure is a huge component to SEO and I usually direct people to there’s a really in depth article by a guy called Bruce clay. You heard of him?

Meryl Johnstone:
Yeah, I’ll check it out.

Ilana:
Check it out. So he, I mean, I can put a link in the show notes to this article. I’ve directed so many people to this article. But basically, Bruce sort of explains the ideal structure of your website, as always being like 80% of its ranking.

Google’s the way Google ranks sites. And it’s got to be callable, so he uses the concept of different colored balls. So a bad website structure would be one where the different colored balls are in the same jar together.

So for example, you might have an inner page linking to a different part of your website. content, I’m probably butchering this explanation. But this is the theory that you have silos on your site.

So for example, for my website, for example, where I’ve got kind of two main parts to my business, I’ve got my agency, and I’ve got my training stuff. So would never link an article that’s in the training silo to something that talking about my agency, for example.

And so it’s very distinct branches of a tree when the branches don’t cross over. But Bruce clay explained it in a much more elegant manner that I have. But yet, you should definitely check it out.

And the times that I’ve done these two websites that I’ve owned, it’s made a massive difference to SEO.

Meryl Johnstone:
Yeah, I need to go and do some reading on that article. And it’s funny in my calendar, I have it like in my gmail account, I use Boomerang to send things back to myself.

I’ve got some training from AHREF that I’ve been wanting to do, but I’ve had to, I’ve had other things I needed to work on. So I’m kept on Boomerang and get, but this conversation is inspired me to sit down and do that training.

Ilana:
Nice. Yeah, you definitely should also put a link to this article in the show notes and I’ll send it into you too Meryl. And its really, really helpful and needs to he explains it in a very clear and concise manner, of course.

And it kind of makes sense how Google just basically makes your site really, really readable to google google upset, is how I understand it.

Obviously, there’s a whole linking strategy to SEO, which I know nothing about. And I don’t claim to know anything about. But really often for many kinds of local businesses that are not in a super competitive industry. Often, this is actually all you need to do.

And you can rank really quite easily, which is pretty cool. Okay, so if you were starting out, again, let’s say, you know, you as you were reading this seven day startup by Dan Norris, today, what’s something that you would maybe do differently if you were starting now, as opposed to when you started four years ago, because I think internet user like dog years, so four years is really a long time in the internet space, and things have changed. So what’s something that you would do differently now?

Things that Meryl Would Do Differently

Meryl Johnstone:
Well, I think I would want to, I think I know more now about how to grow an email list. And we were really slow with that, even though we were trying.

So I would still want to grow an email list. But I’d be putting more resources into that. And I think if I was to grow business now and have a bit more capital behind me, and so we could move faster, I did find that frustrating the first time around, you know, putting $500 in and then having to wait for turn every dollar, it just made that everything was so slow.

So next time, I’d put more money up front, so that we could actually.

Ilana:
I think you pay with money your with time.

Meryl Johnstone:
Yeah, spot on. And so we were doing everything ourselves, but also kind of scrimping and saving on what software we’re buying, or everything.

So next time, I’d hire people much faster, and also just invest in the infrastructure faster. But I suppose you can do that.

Yeah, back then we didn’t really have an option. Yeah. In terms of strategies, I mean, there’s lots of different digital marketing techniques.

So I would like to learn more about and this might come back to a philosophy of mine, where I think it’s important to learn enough so that you can hire the right people. But you don’t necessarily need to go into super detail, you just need to know that you’re hiring the right people to help you.

And then enough to keep them accountable, or to guide them with what the vision is, and apply that same theory to accounting, I teach a lot of financial literacy. And I think it’s really important for every business owner to know that.

But that doesn’t mean they have to be doing it all themselves, they can be if I know enough, and they can hire the right people to help them. And so that would be my philosophy, if I were starting a business, again, would be to be really clear about what the vision is.

And our target market, I mean, again, would probably adapt and either right, if we grew, and then I’d be hiring much earlier, the right digital marketing experts to come in and help with whatever strategy, we’re going to use it and that would probably depend industry and the audience that I was going after, in terms of what strategy, what kind of tactics we would use?

Ilana:
Yeah, what would you say would be the first thing that you would hire someone to do in the digital marketing space, what’s been them move the needle the most for you?

Meryl Johnstone:
Well, Ryan, content is a huge time suck. So it just takes so long. But let me think about how I build teams. So previous, when I was starting out, I would build a team by hiring someone Junior, to, to do to take a little bit off my plate.

But my hiring philosophy now is to hire someone really experienced who can build a team around them. So if I was hiring someone here, I’d probably engage a strategist post, who’s really experienced to help set the strategy but probably paid consultant to do that.

And then I’d want to hire someone that’s good at project management, who can juggle the different contractors that we would use across the different audience specialists that we would use that I think is important in house to have someone who’s good at Project Management with a with a marketing mindset to because my mistake in trying to hire a full time marketing person in house is you can’t expect them to be an SEO specialist, PPC, copywriting design, you know, you can’t expect that only one person.

So I think is more important if it’s a small business to have someone that’s got broad skills, and is good at project management, to get other people to do that work. And they might even not be the strategist because you might not be able to expect them to have that skill set.

Traffic Generating Strategies in Her Business Going Forward

Ilana:
Interesting. It’s hard, isn’t it? So going forward, what? What are you going to be focusing on to grow your business like what, what traffic generating strategy.

Meryl Johnstone:
So I see the financial literacy course that I’m working on, as it’s a revenue stream, and it’s a way of diversifying the business.

But I also see it as a lead generator. And we’ve seen that have to close is that I’ve already run, where we teach a lot of skills around how to do bookkeeping and how to interpret financial reports.

But then once we’ve taught it, then someone knows best practice and realizes it’s time consuming or need expertise. And so then there’s been changes can can look after this for me. So I’ll be focused on making sure that the content is really great, and that everyone going through the courses, getting a really good experience and getting results.

And then a step back from that is looking at how do we scale the sales behind selling the course that then leads into our recurring or done for you service?

And ideally, I’m hoping that we can find a paid traffic model that works, we’re still experimenting with that. Because once we figured that out, and streaming we do, then we can put more money behind that and digital courses or a more scalable model.

So we can, when we won’t have the service delivery challenges that we’ve had previously in trying to scale a down volume tennis. Yeah.

Ilana:
Yep, that makes total sense. Yeah. If I guess if you can find a way that your ads can pay for themselves, then you can grow and scale at a much faster, right.

So I find so many business owners are so focused on their ads returning a certain amount of profit, where they probably don’t realize that actually, if they can make their money back, so they’re not losing money there.

There are such additional benefits to that, you know, you’re growing your customers, like for example, like I personally, any day of the week take buying 10,000 customers and breaking Gavan versus buying 100 customers and making a huge profit on it.

Because 10,000 customers, even though I’ve broken even and I haven’t actually made money, I’ve got suddenly this huge customer base, I’ve got a referral network, I’ve got a database and all this kind of stuff.

There’s opportunities to grow my business beyond that. So great compared to, you know, the short term aspect of hundred customers that I bought profitably. So it makes sense.

Meryl Johnstone:
It does. And I would choose the same option as new. And I think something to think about there is the customer lifetime value, because this particular product that they bought through the ad, my breakeven.

But if you can work out what your customer lifetime value is, which is much easier with a subscription model, or recurring billing type business, if you know they’d stayed with you on average for a year, then it really makes sense to invest in that or they might buy different products.

And so getting clear around what what your customer lifetime value is, I think would be helpful in knowing Well, how much is it okay to spend on acquiring that customer?

Ilana:
True, I think the risk with the lifetime value as the main metric that you’re going by is you want cash flow issues, and I guess no one would know better than you.

So I mean, I’m not a big fan of managing ad accounts to a lifetime value, because of that customer. Because of that cash flow issue.

You know, I want to get it depends how long the customer is like, if you’ve got to wait five years to get that full lifetime customer value. That’s a problem as opposed to three months.

Maybe it’s not, you know, but yeah, I guess it’s sort of the the gray area and it depends on different business models and different businesses, how aggressive you want to be in growing your business.

Meryl Johnstone:
Yeah, I think there’s probably a number of things to look at. I normally give that explanation if someone’s resistant to spending any money to acquire a customer or Yes, well, they don’t want to then having that conversation about well, how much you expect them with customer to spend with you can then change their perspective on not wanting to spend anything, but yeah, there’s a number of factors to consider.

Ilana:
Yeah, definitely. Well, we’ll will thank you so much Meryl for coming on today show sharing your strategies that you’ve managed to grow your awesome business? Where can people find out a bit more information about you and what you do

Meryl Johnstone:
Bean Ninjas, which is BeanNinjas.com has, that’s where we we post a lot of content. And I’m also quite active on LinkedIn. And that’s just my full name, which is Meryl Johnston and I can provide a link to that as well and and happy to connect with anyone that’s interested over on LinkedIn too.

Ilana:
Awesome. Too easy. We will make some resources available in these show notes on today’s episode, you can head on over to TeachTraffic.com and find it there. Thank you so much, Meryl, for coming on today’s episode. It’s been a real pleasure of mine to have you on.

Meryl Johnstone:
Thanks so much for having me.

01:17 – Episode Overview
03:22 – Guest Introduction
06:40 – Why Someone Needs to be a Tribal Business Leader
08:01 – What is a Tribal Business Leader vs. Influencers
17:42 – What it Takes to be Tribal Business Leader
40:10 – How Long it Takes to For Her Market to Start Using her Message
46:45 – Steps to Do if You’re Going in to Tribal Business Leader Route
48:29 – What Would Janet do if She’s Starting Out All Over Again
50:49 – Concept of Scare Sighted

Janet Beckers and I discuss what the difference is between being an Influencer vs a tribal business leader. It is an interesting distinction which has a big impact on how you go about your marketing. Janel is the founder of Romance Your Tribe, which helps business owners become a tribal leader so they create raving fans that love your business and brand.

Episode Overview

Welcome back to another episode of Teach Traffic. I’m your host, Ilana Wechsler. And in today’s episode, I’m talking to a really interesting person. Her name is Janet Beckers. And if you’ve been in the online space, especially in Australia, you have most likely heard of Janet. She’s had a few different businesses. And now she has a business called Romance Your Tribe , where she helps business owners create a tribe of loyal fans online.

And I invited Janet to talk with me today about the difference between being an influencer and being a tribal leader, and importantly, how that affects you your marketing. And what we covered today is some really interesting points that you can apply to your business regardless of what you’re selling. If you’re selling a product or service.

Or regardless, if you’re a small business or whatever really industry you are in, Janet brings up some really interesting points and distinctions in how you can do your marketing online, obviously, and how you can really create a tribe of people around you who love your brand and love your products, etc.

So, really excited about this episode for information and show notes on today’s episode, you can head on over to TeachTraffic.com which is our brand new website, which should be launched by the time this episode goes live.

And obviously, if you’re not new to this podcast, but haven’t been listening for a little while, you will notice that it is now called Teach Traffic. It used to be called Talking Web Marketing. And we’ve renamed it to be Teach Traffic in line with our brand new website called TeachTraffic.com.

Now we cant wait any longer Let’s get stuck in today’s episode.

Guest Introduction

Ilana:
So welcome to today’s episode of Teach Traffic. I am interviewing a wonderful guest called Janet Beckers. Janet, thank you so much for coming and agreeing to come on today’s episode.

Janet Beckers:
Oh, I’m excited to be here. And hello, everybody whose listening?

Ilana:
Hello, everyone out there in the world. (laughs). So I’ve invited Janet today because I wanted to talk to you about something which I know, you talk about a lot. And you are, I’m interested in your thoughts on the whole concept of being an influencer in your market, versus being what you call to be a tribal leader.

And I guess the nuances and the distinctions between the both, both of those roles. And ultimately, what that means for your marketing. And everything really, this applies to any kind of business owner, actually, when you putting a stake in the ground and how you do it, how it affects your marketing.

So I thought no better person than to talk about this, then you Janet. So thank you so much for coming on up. Before we kind of get stuck into what we were going to talk about today. Do you mind giving people a bit of a quick five minute intro about who you are and what you do?

Janet Beckers:
Yeah, sure. So I’ve, interestingly, I have had a huge pivot in my business in the last 18 months. And we may cover a little bit on that in the call about why that happened, because it is relevant to what we’re going to be talking about. But my business is called Romance Your Tribe. So that’s my business name Previous to that.

I for 10 years had a company called or business which was wonderful with women, which started out as a search for role models with me being like the passionate reporter. And over the years of, you know, you know, working with so many successful women around the world, you know, interviewing them and creating content from what they’ve done building and my own tribe around that. It only took a little while.

And then my clients, you know, started saying, Look enough with the whole passionate reporter thing, like we see you as the expert here, we want you to teach us the way that you do things. And so I started evolving, you know, the way that I have done things, and though and my processes, the way that I get results for people, and now, you know, sort of like 10,11,12 years later, I have a very, very different system that I use to help them people, you know, who people who help people, you know, so like service providers, coaches, consultants, helping them to really step up and be seen as a tribal business leader, the kind of people, you know, the people that people see is like really being a leader that they can follow, and they want to do business with them.

So I really, over those years, perfected that hands. Now, I’m just I just absolutely adore seeing the results that I’m getting with people in such a wide range of industries, and just really seeing them step up and attract people to them rather than and this constant chasing.

Why Someone Needs to be a Tribal Leader

Ilana:
Okay, so before we get into your system, and how you really, I guess, educate people in becoming that tribal leader? Before we do that, why do you think someone needs to be a tribal leader? And do they need to be one?

Janet Beckers:
Well, the reality is, if you may, a lot of times people may not see themselves as a tribal business leader, and we can break that down into, you know, tribal and laid out like what the different you know what those components mean.

But a lot of times, you may not realize that you actually are that you’ve got a lot of those components in place. And the reality is, if you don’t actually own it, and step up, and you do it strategically, you kind of fade into that whole vanilla marketing thing where you’re always struggling to stand out because you’re not really visible and recognizable, and people don’t get you. So yes, if you’re intending to be able to really create a brand as a service provider, rather than, you know, selling widgets.

You really, it’s just making it hard work for yourself if you did.

Ilana:
You referring to like even a personal brand?

What is a Tribal Business Leader vs. Influencers

Janet Beckers:
Yes, yes. So probably the best way to do that is if I describe what a tribal business leader is. And we could probably then talk about how that’s different to an influencer. Because this is where people get mixed up a lot.

They will see, you know, it creating a tribe, they’ll say is stepping up as a leader, being very much the same as being like a social media media influencer. And I see them as really quite different.

And I see people getting it mixed up. And really doing unnecessary marketing, that is doing stuff that is really uncomfortable for them that they don’t need to be doing. So. And that’s probably a good way for, for me to be able to really describe what a tribal business leader is. So people can see how that actually fits in with what you’re doing is. Does that make sense? If we approach it in that way?

Ilana:
Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s do that.

Janet Beckers:
Okay, cool. Well, the thing was, if you think about influences, because quite often when I talk about, you know, do you need to be a tribal business leader? And that’s a good question is, because a lot of times people are seeing that as that very, very visible, personal brand, that really sort of out there all the time. And if you think about influences, like it, you know, you will be following people who are especially on Instagram, you’ll see it a lot. But also on Facebook, where you’ll have the people that have got 10s of thousands, hundreds of thousands or more followers, and they’re very, very much, you know, putting really inspirational quotes, they’re putting very aspirational photos, they’ve, they’re sharing a lot about their lives.

And that’s something that a lot of times people will see as well, that’s what I’ve got to do to to build a tribe. But in fact, it’s quite different to be a tribal business leader. Now you can they can be influencers, who are tribal business leaders, and vice versa. But this is the main difference. Like when it comes to business models, the influencer very often their business model is to be getting sponsored gears.

And to be a speaker, you know, so they’re looking for keynotes they’re looking for the people will want to give them money, because they have a big following, and they inspire and influence. So that’s quite often their business model.

And a lot of a lot of influences that will just stay as that as the main business model, some will eventually evolve over into a business leader and and that business model is more, you know, you’ve got a process, you’ve got a way of getting results for your clients, you’ve got a way to take them from point A to point B.

And you know, that if you get the right people that you can help them get results, and I’m sure a lot of people who are listening here today will go well, yeah, I get results for my clients. So you’re not, you’ve big focus is not necessarily just on inspiring, it’s on getting those results. So that’s a big difference in the business model.

Now, when it comes to the way that you market them, and you know, this could be for people who are listening here that are you know, that your specialty being paid traffic is, is again, you know, you could be using the same for your paid traffic, but this is also going to help you with your more organic reach is the kind of so an influencer is looking at really doing a lot of their posts and things very often is about them.

Because they are the product really, they are it’s going to be a very, sometimes very, very transparent or, you know, sort of like constructed transparency, it’s very much about them, whereas a tribal business leader is your marketing is going to be more about your clients, and the results that they can get and shining the light on them.

Not Of course, everything is on them. But it’s more about how you work with your clients. So it doesn’t mean that you can also be sharing more personal stories, but it doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be to that extent, which is nice, it takes that whole pressure off you to feel as if you have to be, you know, looking perfect all the time.

And all these you know, well, kind of the perfect life, you know, which is total bullshit. I mean, I’m really, really everybody who seems to have that as they can’t. Surely not….

Ilana:
They got young children.

Janet Beckers:
Oh, of course. I know that mean, really, you know that those backdrops, we know that you don’t live like that. So, you know, that’s as the tribal business really takes that pressure off with your branding to have that perfection and and also to be so incredibly, what can almost feel invasive, because it’s not so much about you.

And the other part that comes with the marketing is with an influencer, it’s that there’s also the very often marketing a lot, like they’re in your face at least daily, with their, with their social media content. And a lot of what they’re doing is inspirational and aspirational.

With as a tribal business leader, you don’t have to be in their face as much because your business model is different, you know, you only need to have the perfect clients who can be following you, you don’t need to be having 10s and 10s and hundreds of thousands of them following you if you’ve got the right ones. So your message is a lot more around.

Not just “How To” but “Why”. “why would you do?” you know? What sort of mindset things do your customers have to get over to feel that they can actually get the results. And it also around really, like you’re doing here through your podcasting, you know, you’re putting out content there, that’s helpful for people that is not just rah rah rah a dose of motivation, it’s, you know, really practical stuff.

And so if you stick with that, as a tribal business leader, and we’ll talk more about, you know, what does it take to have that tribe and, and be the leader, those simple those simple distinctions can mean you the things that you could be feeling that you need to be doing with your social media marketing, for you to get that traffic? You know, there’s a lot of stuff you don’t need to do anymore. Because honestly, it’s not necessarily going to make you the money.

Ilana:
Yes, that’s interesting. And I think it’s a very subtle distinction, but a very important distinction of where you’re turning the camera lens, really do you turning the camera camera lens on to yourself, or you turning the camera around, and facing and outwards towards who it is that you serve, which is ultimately, like, that’s just infinitely better.

And it’s what people are thinking is all How can this help me rather than being so interested in the particular person? It’s interesting, because we live in such a world where influences are getting the accolades, and are always treated as many celebrities.

And there’s a lot of, I guess, pressure on people to that that’s what you have to do in order to be that go get that level of success. But based on what you’re saying, and I agree with you is actually you don’t you know?

Janet Beckers:
Oh, absolutely, because you’ve got to come back to like you’re running a business, okay. And if your business model is getting keynote gigs, and and you know, sponsorship deals, well then follow the influence model.

But if your business model is going to be serving clients, where you’re going to be working with people to take them from point A to point B, to get them results to get them outcomes, well, you don’t you don’t need to be doing this, you know, it’s a different model.

So really, the whole you know, there’s no us having this whole sense of I got this great following who are all inspired and follow you know, what I know what I’m having for breakfast, is it’s not going to put the money in the in the bank, because it’s not necessarily going to be the people who are needing your services and then going to be paying for it. So you can stand back and go, I don’t need to do that.

Ilana:
Wasn’t there some famous case study recently? I’m probably going to butcher this a little bit. But the crux of it is this that there’s there was a influencer, and I’m doing air quotes. Now the this is just audio, an influencer had you know, millions and millions of followers, and he or she couldn’t even sell 36 t shirts or something.

So yeah, like, it’s not like you can go to the grocery store and pay for your groceries and redeem yourfollowers that way. It certainly doesn’t mean money in your in your business bank account by any means. Okay, so now that we understand the distinction, and I think it’s an important one, do you want to maybe touch on what you said we were going to touch on, which is what does it take to be a business or a tribal leader?

What it Takes to be Tribal Business Leader

Janet Beckers:
Yeah, sure. So the concept of a tribal business leader is something that’s I’ve kind of, it’s been evolving for me for a few years. And that’s obviously like with a business called Romance Your Tribe, obviously, tribe is an important part of that.

So as you know, as part of the country, kind of really, I guess, reverse engineering, the way that I’ve created success, is I started, you know, thinking about the idea of tribes and started doing a little bit of research on there, and really getting to understand how they work and a really great person, for people to follow likely Seth Godin, because, I mean, he’s done a lot of work on tribes, and I really liked his definition of tribes.

So if we start with that, then you can, like I can show you like, really, how does that leader fit in. And so I love this definition that he’s got, you know, a tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea. And they only need two things to be a tribe.

So this is the important part, a shared interest and a way to communicate. Now, the thing here is, if you, you know, a lot of people will not see themselves as a leader. But if you can clearly articulate who it is that you serve, what your idea is, like, what do you believe? What do you stand for?

And what do we believe around here in a way to help people, then you will create a tribe, and they will naturally see you as the leader, because you can articulate that very, very well for them. So if if we go, I can go over, like, you know, those three things, which were, which are really important to actually create, you know, to create that tribe that will position you as a leader.

So there’s sort of three main things that you need. And, and it’ll be really interesting, as people are listening to think, you know, have I got that because you may be very close to being able to easily step up to the tribal business leader, which means that people are going to be attracted to you, you don’t have to be working so hard to win them over.

You might have these three things in place and not even recognize it. So own it, baby. Or you might just, there’s quite often one or two things that people aren’t doing properly. And there’s one in particular that I know a lot of people struggle with. So if I go over those three….

Ilana:

The suspense is killing me. (laughs)

Janet Beckers:
Funny, okay, so we think about this way. So the very first one is when you think about, like it talked about, you know, they have a shared interest. Now, when it comes to business, as a tribal business leader, that shared interest is the transformational journey that you take your clients on, or that your clients go on.

So if you’re in a business, where you’re actually helping people to get from point A to point B, that journey that they go on, is their transformational journey. Now, you may have one, we’ll talk a little bit later about how you can help them to be able to see how you can take them.

But that’s that’s the first one to know, like, do you know the steps? Like if you’re going to client, there’s trying to go from point A to point B, do you know the different steps where they get frustration points all the way along? Do you know what their outcome is that they’re aiming for? Can you clearly articulate that? So that’s your first thing that you really, really need to do.

And I find a lot of people, especially when they businesses fairly new… They haven’t done that work. Like they haven’t actually talked to enough people who are their potential clients to really get a good understanding of what is the journey, the different steps and the transformation that takes place.

So that’s number one, that becomes you know, the thing that we that we have in common that shared interest, is that transformational journey, and you’ve also got your, you know, what is it about your own journey in business or in life that makes you uniquely qualified to be able to guide them to help them to do that.

So be clear on that as well. Because if you’ve got to have it, if you if part of being a tribe is a shared interest, they not only want to know, okay, I can help you get this outcome. They want to know why you liked it, because you’ve been on a similar journey, or is it been because you’ve helped clients? Like just like them to get there?

So what’s unique? So that’s number one. Oh, and a lot of people have rushed through that they have a superficial understanding of all those steps. But really, they can’t communicate very well, to people.

Ilana:
I guess this is where the real insights and depth of knowledge comes from. Simply just talking to your existing customers.

Janet Beckers:
Oh, look, honestly, you know, I always find, you know, even people who their business has been going for a while, but they kind of struggling to get the sales is when we start talking about you know, what, okay, well, you know, there’s lots of different ways that we can get insights.

So you know, there’s the, you know, when I started out in my first business, Wonderful Web Women is, so we didn’t have Facebook, so I couldn’t go like stalking different Facebook groups and finding out what my target market was actually talking about.

I went a lot I was, I was at internet marketing events. And I wanted to know about what frustrations women had building their businesses online.

I went along in the toilet, that’s where they’re all hanging out at lunchtime at these internet marketing events. I went along the queue. All these wasn’t lining up. Well, I will was I going to know, like, my first business that I did, I, you know, it was hard work. Because I never did that research. I thought I did. But I really, I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

So after about four different events in a row where I turned up, and but you know, kind of weird going up and down the line of women who were lining up, you know, chatting to each other.

And I went up with a with an mp3 recorder, asking me, you know, if I can find the most successful women online, what you want me to ask them, what’s your frustrations. And by the time I had finished doing that, like I knew my market inside out, I knew their frustrations, I knew the language that they used. And so now when I say to people, look, you got to find these people, but you don’t have to go and hang out in the lose anymore. You know? (laughs)

You can you can contact different people didn’t want if I just asked you a few questions, so I’m doing market research on just want to understand, can we hop on Skype, and I’ll talk to you.

You know, it’s been a lot of people won’t do that. They just don’t want to do that.

That adds a fear of rejection. They just think that people are going to say, No, I don’t want to talk to you. As I do you move on to the next one. I don’t think every single woman who I kind of really, really went up to with an mp3 recorder in the lineup to the toilets, hideous.

But um, yeah. So, you know, that’s, that’s number one is, you know, do you know, like, how will you know them, and, importantly, focusing on the transformational journey that you take them on?

Now, number two is, you know, you have an idea and a common language. Have you ever noticed, like, you know, when you get parts of different tribes, so groups, communities online, the really successful ones, people start using, like in house language, definitely.

And you know, that you can do that in a way that is really, you know, strategic without it being manipulative. And there’s some speak ways that you can do that, if we start off with first the idea. So we talked about an idea in a common language, ID, this is where I find a lot of people go wrong, they just don’t step up. And this makes the difference between you if you’re not necessarily, if people aren’t seeing you as the leader that they want that they get attracted to.

It’s a bit that this is one of the things you’re not doing. And I want you to think of it in this way, like, people who and this is actually a girlfriend of mine, you know, just sort of said this, quote years ago, and I just fell apart laughing.

And then I thought, you know what, that’s, that’s true, which is people who sit on the fence, they get splinters in their ass. And so you want to get off the fence, get the splinters out of your butt because if people want to know that they belong in your tribe, they also need to know if they don’t belong in that tribe.

So for you, yeah, like for you, you’re a great example, you’re, you know, you’re very, very clear with people that you know what, you know, if you’re going to be using paid traffic, you don’t want to complicate things, you really simplify them.

And, you know, if you’re really, really smart, you know, you’ll be using a combo of Facebook ads and Google ads, like you’ll do the really clever things that you do, but that are actually quite simplified.

So you’re, you know, you’re very, very clear on that sort of stuff. Whereas some other people will be really quite different. They’ll be talking about how, you know, are much more complicated at all, you absolutely must be doing Google ads. And if you’re not over there mastering that everybody should be doing it. I mean, I’m probably not sighing very well, he what your point of differences but you know…

Ilana:
I think, for for me, yes, I’m an advocate of definitely using both platforms, but not equally, like, there are some businesses that are very, they have great success on Facebook. And that’s amazing.

But it doesn’t mean that they should completely ignore Google, they can have like a tiny presence on Google, you know, maybe they just do retargeting on Google. So they’ve got a leg in one camp and a toe in another camp rather than but equally.

And also, I think the misconception is, is that you need a massive budget, you don’t need a massive budget to have success with online ads. But anyway, we’re digressing a little bit?

Janet Beckers:
Well, we’re not really actually because that is an important thing to it’s like getting off the tribe where you can be saying, you know what, all these people that keep on saying, you’ve got to have a huge budget.

And if you’re not willing to spend the money, you’re not really a player, with you saying something like that, and you saying, you know what I’m calling bs on that. That’s you getting off the fence.

And so a lot of people won’t say those things, because they they’re worried about criticism. They worried about offending people. But if you don’t, then people will not really know, like, what you stand for. So they don’t know if they want to be part of your tribe.

Ilana:
Yeah, I mean, I only know that because I’ve done so many. I’ve looked after so many accounts, with a small budget. And we did. Yeah, we did lots of small things worked on tiny audiences that work really well, you know, yeah.

So I mean, it’s hard, because I think in the market, and especially in my market, there’s all these amazing screenshots of spending huge amounts of money. And it’s almost like an entirely and it is an entirely different skill set, actually, of managing that amount of money profitably.

But the reality is that lots of business owners don’t have a kind of business actually, that supports that level of marketing, you know, they don’t have a whole sales staff team to manage all the inbound leads, and they don’t have a CRM system, and they don’t, what comes with managing 100 grand a month on ads, let’s say, is a completely different type of business and managing $1,000 a month on ads.

Janet Beckers:
Yeah, and you know what, that’s the kind of thing that then people can go like, if you’re really vocal about that. And if you’re getting off the fence, and using that a lot, then that means all those those people who are out there going, I am so intimidated by this whole huge budget thing.

And there’s no way I can ever do this. So I’m not even going to start. They can go, Oh, this is somebody who are, you know, this is where I belong, somebody who gets me, who gets me that, you know, I can be really successful with a small budget on this.

And that’s different. So you can just, I mean, just this example of, you know, what makes you different, and which what attracts people to you, like, that’s just, it doesn’t have to be the kind of thing where, you know, you’re being ridiculously controversial.

But it does mean going, you know, what, this is something I believe strongly in, if you can go like, I could just hear your voice when you talked about Well, yeah, you know, I’ve worked on these, like, it was that incredible, sort of, like, Well, I know this to be true, like, you know, it’s just dirt for a lot of people that I didn’t even you know, recognize it.

So it’s those are the things that for people who are listening, when you’re thinking, Well, what do I get off the fence about? That’s kind of the sign when you when you can hear yourself going like, Well, yeah, this is obvious, that’s you’ve got to really amplify that amplify that message.

Because that’s how people know that you’re the leader that they can trust you that this is what you stand for. So you that’s a really important part about your idea. So yeah, get the splinters out of your butts.

Ilana:

Okay, so there’s a common language. And I totally agree with you on that. What’s the third element?

Janet Beckers:
So this other one here falls in with, it’s the last one, which is the common language, but it also fits in with what your business model is. And this is what makes it so that you have a tribal business leader that is, you know, it takes it to that next level, which makes it so that you can really simplify your business profitably with this message.

Now, this is where it comes down to creating a trade marketable language or trademark herbal framework that you take people on. So it might be called a signature system, it might be called your, you know, your, know, your actual, just your steps that you work people through it, you know, but if you think in terms of Okay, if I take people on a transformational journey, and so for example, you know, it doesn’t really matter what industry you’re in, it’s not as it’s very rare that somebody will come in, and they have an absolutely completely different way of getting results for people, you know, everybody will say they do.

But when you think about it, you know, it says people who will listening here, who may be, say, business coaches, you know, regardless of who you’re working with, you’re probably going to take them on similar paths, you know, you’re going to be able to find out, you know, where they what position that they’re at now, like, what’s the problems, you’re going to find out, you know, what their market is, what their message, you know, how they what’s, what are they selling, you know, you’re going to be taking people through similar steps, of course, you have your unique way of doing that.

And the way that you differentiate yourself from everybody else is, sure you identify those steps, and sometimes it can be very difficult to stand out, you know, you’ve got, you know, comparing apples to apples, for you to becoming something far more exotic, like a pomegranate, or whatever, is, you create your own language around this.

Now, an example is I’ve gone to the extremes, and you know, so I have a Romance Your Tribe, I have, I break those steps down into, you know, the different parts that you know, like that go, you know, I can talk for ages about, you know, flirting, inviting you back to my place, you know, getting commitments, romance, all of those sorts of things.

And how that I that ties in. You know, you may be having parts of what you do, that you can somehow tie in doesn’t have to be a same such as mine has been around romance, yours doesn’t have to be a theme, it can simply be called welcome method, you know, if we just picked your name out of, but actually creating your own language, your own way of this is what we call them here. So for example, I’ve used, you’ve heard me using a few he’s day, you’ve heard me talking about a transformational framework.

We’ve talked about a transformational journey, we talked about tribal business, those are just different languages that you start using now, by using that it makes us so people can’t compare you so easily. And you’ve actually got something that allows you to start developing your own language that people will start to use when they’ve been following you.

So it sounds sometimes, you know, you’ll be going well, you know, I don’t necessarily have a system, if you get results for people you do. Okay, so start thinking about what parts of that can I be creating my own language around, that are unique steps that I take people so that they’re going All right, well, I need those steps, and nobody else has talked about it in that way.

Therefore, you’ve got your showing leadership, you’ve got something nobody else’s had, and you can trade market. So that also it brings you up to that next level, where you’re protecting your intellectual property that your own brand, it becomes far more than you having to rely on your personality, your charisma, your you know, referrals, it actually positions you as somebody with a solution that is unique.

Ilana:
Like it, how long do you reckon it takes for that to distill and filter out into the market?

Janet Beckers:
Oh, well, I mean, if you’re as long as it takes you to create, you know, to be clear on what your idea is, and make sure that your marketing has uses that language and explains that, right from the very beginning. Actually, this is another thing where I find that people miss an opportunity with this.

So and I, you know, and I can give you an example, through my own business, so people can go and have a look, you know, and that’s, you know, if you’ve got your end result is your service or your program that you’ve got, and the way that you sell that in the way that you’re structuring, the delivery of it will be with your unique languages.

So you know, it might be you know, there’s the, the Atlanta five step method, and we know will give them some kind of name. So that’s the end result, what you want to be able to do is right from the very beginning with your opt ins, is you want to start using that language, you want people to, to know that, you know, this is the kind of language we use right at the beginning.

And so it may very well be a simple introduction to what are the five steps that people need to get their results? And it’s using that language

Ilana:
Is educating your potential customers of your language?

Janet Beckers:
Absolutely, absolutely. And you’re doing it right from the beginning. So as an example, here we go segue over to how you can get to see what I do. Yeah, is so I’m just as we’re recording this, putting the finishing touches.

And so you know, when you whenever you listen to hopefully it will, it will all be there. So if you go to run it to tribe, com, you’ll find it anywhere on the website.

But it’s also if you go forward slash success maps, what I’ve done there is I’ve got four or five I can segment This is another thing is really getting clear on segmenting your, your mailing lists, so that people who come onto your mailing list, you can be speaking to the stage on the transformational journey that they are at.

Because different people will need to hear different messages depending on how far along that journey they are. So on there, I’ve you know, I’ve got success maps for you be able to be positioned yourself as a tribal business leader, each one customized for each of the five tribe, but you know, for the five stages that you’re at, now, when people so they’re already getting that language at the beginning.

Now, when people get this, these rocking reports, these step by step maps, each one is introducing them to the distinct language that I use it for each step that they need to master in order to be there. So it’s right from the very beginning.

So you can see an example there. But the important thing is it’s introducing people to the steps that I help them to do when they work with me, it’s helping them to know, well, this is what you’ve got to have in place, if you can work it out yourself, you know, go on, you’ve got the that’s going to be enough for some people to do it.

And for other people, it’ll make them realize I yeah, this is where I belong, you know, I get this, I understand it, I get the language. So in answer to your question, how long does it take? Well, it takes as long as for you to put together that opt in really that first lead generator and start promoting it?

How Long it Takes to For Her Market to Start Using her Message

Ilana:
Well, I guess part of my question is also so yes, you’ve got to do your opt in. But then, I guess how long did it take for your market and your message to, to really filter through into people so they they start using that language?

So like I’m on your site right now as we’re talking. And I can see your different segments that you’re talking about. So Stargazer, star, blazer superstar shooting stars, that’s your language. And they your segments, obviously. And I always can imagine fast forwarding, if you were to hold an event and people talking to each other.

And they say, so what did you and all I’m a stargazing? Oh, well, I’m a shooting star or whatever. Right? Yeah, it takes time. And that takes time for people to get that message enough. So they self identify, and in turn take on that language. I guess, from your experience? How long does that process take? Is it pretty quick?

Janet Beckers:
Or it is? Yeah, it’s surprisingly quick, especially if you have a way where it’s, it’s got to be about them. So yeah, it’s really got to be about them. Because if if it’s going to be something that’s, you know, that you can identify as unique about them, and I can tell, you know, just between you, me, and all I might see, like, you know, those I’ve actually now there’s a fifth one that’s been added.

So as soon as that, you know, because my business is evolving, there’s a fifth group that I can really help now as well.

But when I first came up with these concepts of, you know, segmenting my list into four different types, and I have a very, very good system as it’s very, very unique on how do you segment in to the four segments and what they are for your marketing.

The profitable avatar quadrants method, which you know, is another podcast on the same but when I first had broken those up into those four groups, the they didn’t start off being called things like stargaze our star blazer, you know, Stargazer, which is a person that really they don’t have a business yet, but they really want one and they quite often might be in corporate, you know, they’ve got they doesn’t mean that they’re newbies in, in, in everything, you know, they’re probably really switched on people what they’re doing, but they don’t know anything about a business yet.

Well, originally in house that was called no business and no idea. You know, so that’s not really going to make people want to use that language. But a Stargazer worked, you know, so that took quite a few bottles of wine and a few girlfriends.

Ilana:
But it’s great, because it’s, it sort of implies the desire and the ease, and the aspiration, but yet, possibly, they get….

Janet Beckers:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And so the more that you can make it about them, that the language relates to them, and it’s something that they can really resonate with, well, then, they that’s that itself also makes it so that people are happy to kind of share, you know, how they identify themselves.

But it also may be, you know, like, even just using the word tribe, I will have people who will message me all the time going, I haven’t got my own tribe, yet, I can’t wait to get a tribe.

So just even using that, rather than saying list or following. Only, you know, that’s for, you know, that can take a week or so. It’s just a matter of you putting it out there.

Yeah, really, it doesn’t have to take forever, you can make yourself stand out far more than you may be doing now, simply by first of all, working through that process to make sure that it doesn’t sound like you know, I’m just coming up with a name that it makes sense, you know, with what your whole brand and your tribe and the people who you help that it will resonate.

But once you’ve got those steps, will then it just becomes very, very quick.

Ilana:
And, I mean, if I think about so many other businesses, you can see how they’ve applied it always, regardless of industry and what you’re selling product services, different industries, I think there’s a real power in in, in doing this, not an easy process coming up with really good names that are as catchy as yours, but still, I’m sure a very worthwhile process.

Janet Beckers:
Oh, absolutely. And you know, what, it doesn’t necessarily have to be them identifying as the segments, because a lot of my clients, I, you know, we always do the, the profitable avatar quadrant exercise, because it’s really powerful.

They may, their clients may and their leads may never know what their segment type is. And that’s but it’s definitely used in house, but you know, your own language, it doesn’t may not have to be in that way.

It may simply be, you know, this is the way that we describe our, you know, my process, you know, it’s got a five step process, or even just choosing certain ways that are, you know, they kind of like disrupt as I suppose so, for example, you know, I talked about, you know, get the splinters out of your butt, or depends in my audiences, you know, a version of but so people will, people will now come back and say that, I talk a lot about scalar cited, you know, that combination of like when you’re really, really scared, but you’re kind of excited.

And so you know, you’re going to, which happens so much to us as we’re growing businesses. I had just started using that in, in all my emails and in my marketing, just because it was a word that I kind of invented and then found out somebody else, you know, it wasn’t that new. But well, I just thought I was so clever coming up with this idea.

I used it everywhere. But now, people started quoting me and tagging me whenever they use the word. So yes, scare cited, the book will be out next year. Cool. But yeah, so there, you know, just keeping in mind, you know, what, what works best for you. But making sure you’re using that language, consistently owners, you own a baby. And that starts to build your tribe as well.

Steps to Do if You’re Going in to Tribal Business Leader Route

Ilana:
Okay, so if I’m listening to this episode, and I’m thinking, yes, this is exactly something that I need to do in my business, what would you say is the first place that I need to do to get started what I need to do?

Janet Beckers:
That very, very first one is getting super duper clear on the transformational journey that your clients Go on, be super clear on what is point A for them, and point the B, what does it feel like for them at point A and point B, and those steps all the way through. do that first, like really take the time, you know, get on the phone, talk to past clients say to them, I’ve really loved working with you like the ones that I fantastic? contact them and say, Look, I just want to clone you.

So can I just have a telephone call with you? Just to find out, you know, what was their pain point being, you know, how does each step feel? And what did you What are your challenges? Like? take that time to have those conversations?

And then I want you to really look at why why you like what’s it about your transformational journey that’s made it that at this particular points in your life in your business? What makes you uniquely qualified?

What’s your story? What’s your transformational journey? Or your businesses transformational journey that that coincides with this? So that there’s looking looking for, you know, why? What makes you qualified to help them on their transformational journey, if you stop there, the other stuff will fall into place so much quicker.

What Would Janet do if She’s Starting Out All Over Again

Ilana:
If you were starting again, is that what you would do from here?

Janet Beckers:
We you know, what’s really interesting, I mentioned that, I think right at the beginning that I’ve had huge changes in my business in the last 18 months, Wonderful Web Women, you know, ran for 10 years, multi award winning really, really strong brand. But I started to outgrow it, I feel that I could do more than I was doing with people and I was no longer just working with women.

And so I didn’t feel congruent. I didn’t feel as if when people went there, it was no longer women helping women, I had kind of become more about the process. So I thought, Well, you know what, I’ve got to make some big decisions here, like, do I, you know, stick with this brand? Do I start a new brand? What is it that I offer people?

So I decided, you know, what, if if I was my own client, what would be the steps that I would make myself go through? So I actually tested my process and streamlined it on my own business. So step number one for me, was really getting clear on what is it that I wanted anyway, like, what was it that was unique about me?

And you know, what, what was Why? You know, what’s the business that I want to create and what lifestyle and then the next one was exactly that step getting super typically are on the transformational journey.

So I actually tested my whole system, refined it. And then as I was doing and I was creating templates, and worksheets and instructions, and you know, Swype files. As I was creating, in my own business, I was creating all of that for the program that I intended to create, which are then launched. So that was exactly was tested on my own business. So when you say what would I do? Why did it?

Ilana:
Yes! I don’t often get that answer.

Janet Beckers:
Yes, I did it and it’s still fresh.

Ilana:
That’s awesome. Wow, that sounds really interesting. Is there something that we have not covered in this episode, that you think is important to mention?

Concept of Scare Sighted

Janet Beckers:
You know, what I probably if we just circle more on to the scare sighted, because this is one of the things that I find is the this challenge, you can be very rationally going through going, Okay, these are the steps that I need to do. Okay, Janet said, do this, do that, you know, Atlanta to do this do that you can work through all those steps.

But at every single point, when it comes to you going well, you know what, this is what gets me off the fence. This is what I believe this is my own, you know, this is my set my trademark herbal framework, this is the kind of language I use. This is me, it’s communicating that to people every time you do those steps, like it brings up, you know, some fear, and it’s just really, really normal.

And I find that a lot of people don’t follow through, because they’re scared. You know, they’re scared of failure. They’re scared of mainly scared of criticism. Yeah, absolutely. You know, because, and a lot of times that scare of success is, you know, there’s a lot of things are, but you know, if I’m successful, then I’m going to be visible, then people are going to realize, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

You know, so a lot of that fits in with there. So don’t that scared feeling is just to know that it’s really, really normal. And, and interestingly, I’ve just been reading this week since I have you heard it here. First, folks, the clear sight, the scare sighted book will be out next year. So as part of that I’ve been researching around the whole idea of fear and excitement.

And what is really interesting is, the exact same chemicals are going into your bloodstream. So all of the adrenaline and the cortisol get released when you’re afraid. They also it’s the same ones that get released when you’re scared.

And it’s actually not too difficult to switch your brain from instead of going, you know, what I’m really scared about this is to be able to switch it just by going, I’m excited about this, this is this is going to happen is it’s exactly the same chemical reaction happening.

So you can switch it around yourself. So you can embrace Scare Sighted and step into it. And it’s not a difficult refrain to do because your body’s already interpreting them as the same thing anyway.

Ilana:
Yeah. Well, I think that’s really interesting. And I can certainly relate firsthand, I’ve definitely some done some things in my career, that I was scared ciders, getting up on stage being one that used to be one of my biggest fears, like standing up on stage in front of two 300 people.

And mix of emotions scared and excited. And of, you know, the unknown of that, but it is the fact that I can do that is a testament that anyone can push through uncomfortable barriers.

Janet Beckers:
Yeah, and you know what, that’s where the next thing that you do in your business becomes easier, because I mean, I’ve seen you present on stage quite a few times. And you have, you know, my overwhelming I guess, emotion, when I’ve seen you present is, oh, she’s just very beautiful, lovely, methodical and calm. And I trust her.

Ilana:
So you knew the the inside?

Janet Beckers:
Well, of course, you would be anybody is like, you know, but you know, it’s not that, you know, a lot of times people think, Oh, you know, I’ve got to be bouncing on stage and tell funny jokes. But yeah, just stepping into it, and being yourself and trusting the process.

Ilana:
It’s true. It’s true. And I have to say that pushing through that barrier. And getting over that hurdle has been an amazing transformation process personally, and in my business. And I’m really grateful that I did that with obviously the help of some mentors behind me getting getting me to the point that I said, I can do that.

But anyway, this not meant to be about me. But I just wanted to Yeah, like, yeah, speak about that from a personal experience. And I’m sure and it’s interesting, I speak also to lots of people because I help people create campaigns and promote their their businesses online.

And many people have similar fears about doing ads, interestingly, with it scared about what’s going to happen if suddenly I get all these orders, and can I fulfill them? Or am I going to spend all this money? Am I going to get nothing in return? And I think that the whole scare sided thing is applicable in so many different ways in so many different businesses. So I think many people can relate to that.

Janet Beckers:
No business development, personal development, same thing is true.

Ilana:
I never would. Before I started my own business, I have to say, I mean, there’s therein lies the naivety of it.

Janet Beckers:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s when you start thinking, Oh, this is hard, but exciting.

Ilana:
Yeah, but 80% mental, which is another thing. But anyway, that’s probably a topic for another discussion. Gentlemen, I could probably talk to you for a long time. But I am mindful of the time and the time that you’ve given me today. And thank you so much for coming and agreeing to talk on our Teach Traffic podcast. Before we wrap up, where can people find out more information about you?

Janet Beckers:
Yeah, sure. So if you go to RomanceYourTribe.com and Hey, there is a very good segmented quiz there that you can do and you can actually see what I’ve been talking about. So you can go to Rome actually tribe calm and you can also come and just stalk me over on Facebook.

You know, I’ve got a free group where little tribe hangs out. Instagram, just put Janet Becker’s JANET because into anything, and you’ll find me, so just come and stalk me in your favorite place.

Ilana:
Sounds Good! Thank you so much, Jenna. It’s a pleasure as always talking to you and I’ll talk to you soon.

Janet Beckers:
Okay, bye, everybody.