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Business Blasphemy
Sarah Khan, Business Advisor and Leadership Consultant, is calling B.S. on the hustle-focused status quo of business and entrepreneurship, and getting real about what it takes to grow a business or career and NOT become a statistic. In each episode, Sarah helps navigate the rampant B.S. that permeates business strategy, marketing, operations, and mindset that has business owners hustling and pivoting themselves into burnout. She cuts through the noise and gives you guidance on how to view the status quo with a more discerning eye. If you're ready for success without the B.S., buckle up for hard truths, fun rants, terrible puns and (more than) the occasional curse word.
Business Blasphemy
EP116: Your Business Ain’t Christmas Lights, Stop Pulling Random Bulbs
This week I dive deep into the deceptive evolution of modern marketing -- from nostalgic infomercials (my fave) to today's online schemes and shenanigans. I break down how the industry doesn't solve real problems anymore, but instead creates them in order to sell you a solution you didn't ask for.
You'll learn why business ecosystems matter more than trendy frameworks, why most "fixes" don't stick, and how to audit your OWN business with brutal clarity so you stop wasting time on bullsh*t bandaids.
If you're tired of playing whack-a-mole with your business issues, buckle up.
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The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello blasphemers, welcome back.
Speaker 1:You know I remember in the 90s I used to spend quite a lot of time really watching my Saturday morning cartoons, you know, watching all of the things that kids watched in the 90s. But I also spent a lot of time watching infomercials. Now, if you are too young to know what an infomercial is, let me tell you. An infomercial was basically an information commercial. You know, the company would buy a time slot on the television and it was sometimes 30 minutes, it was sometimes 50 minutes, but it was basically a long-ass commercial about a particular product. Now, what I really, really enjoyed about these infomercials was how entertaining they were. A couple of them really kind of stick out in my mind, right, because they were always selling like some really weirdly absurd product that somebody had invented to solve a problem. So some of the things that come to mind there was the Ronco Ronco was a company that did a lot of these that I remember.
Speaker 1:The Ronco food dehydrator Now this was a little contraption that you could put like slices of fruit into or small pieces of meat and you could basically create dried fruit or jerky or whatever, and it was, I just remember it was like a tower. It had different trays on it and you could plug it in and dehydrate your stuff. And then there was Ronco spray on hair. Now this was basically a can of spray paint. That's what it looked like and what came out of it was a weird cross between spray paint and silly string and you would spray it like on a bald spot, and I remember they had a guy demonstrate and they would just spray it on the back of his head and oh, look, you've got no bald spot anymore and it was just ridiculous things like that, one of the ones that comes to mind most clearly that I always use as an example, and I used this when I was teaching marketing at business school and it was the milk spout and I don't know if that's what it was called, but I remember very clearly the host of this infomercial show and he always wore these really colorful sweaters and he would always overly exaggerate when he was demonstrating the need for this product.
Speaker 1:So the guy brought out a milk carton and basically he was demonstrating how difficult it is to open the milk carton right, to like fold the tabs back and then push it, and you know how a milk carton works, right. So you know what I'm talking about. And he like was struggling with it so hard and then he opened it but it splashed the milk everywhere and it was a disaster. They were basically selling this spout, which I don't know if you've ever watched the Hunger Games or if you're a nature enthusiast, but a spile right, it was kind of like a spile. A spile is like this spout that you can hammer into a tree and it brings the water out of the tree, and spout that you can like hammer into a tree and it like brings the water out of the tree and you can drink it. It was kind of that. You basically jabbed this plastic spout into the top of the milk carton and you were able to pour the milk and voila right.
Speaker 1:So the entire job of the infomercial was to sell you these products. But the thing was they were having to spend that first 20 minutes of a 30-minute infomercial explaining to you why you had this problem that until you saw the infomercial you had never even considered. You didn't realize you had the problem until they told you you had the problem. And then, oh my gosh, well, they have the solution. So I must absolutely buy this product now. And any Gen Xer worth their salt probably has a basement or a garage or an attic with at least a few boxes filled with purchases from these infomercials. Whether they were on the Saturday morning slot or like three in the morning, it doesn't matter. But I'm guaranteeing you that most of us probably have an infomercial graveyard somewhere in our home.
Speaker 1:Now infomercials really pioneered. As far as I'm concerned, this idea of we're going to create the problem so we can sell you the solution Now, prior to that, marketing was really about I know people have this problem. I'm going to come up with an innovative solution. But now marketing is all about let's invent the problem first, convince people they have it and then sell them the solution. But now marketing is all about. Let's invent the problem first, convince people they have it and then sell them the solution.
Speaker 1:It's nuanced, but it's definitely prevalent, particularly in the online business space, where every program, every course, every, everything is designed to solve a problem you didn't realize you had, but this person is the ultimate solution for it. Their program, their product, their course, their whatever, is the solution for this problem. Now, on the face of it, that's not really a bad thing, because I'm sure there are a lot of professionals out there who are like you know what? You probably don't realize that this is your problem because you don't have the breadth of experience or the knowledge or whatever, and in those cases, that's fine, right, they can explain to you. Here's why this is probably the problem, this is likely what's happening and here's the solution that I have to help you with that problem. That's totally fine.
Speaker 1:What I have an issue with is when it is marketed as the solution to fix everything. You have to be really careful with that. Let me give you an example. There are a lot of and I'm just going to say marketing, because we're talking about marketing. There are a lot of marketing programs that are out there to say that you know what this program is going to solve all your problems. You take this program, you implement my framework or my method, and you're now going to have endless leads, endless clients. You're going to be able to make money, money, money hand over fist, and that's great.
Speaker 1:But what a lot of people are not thinking about is how that marketing system integrates with the rest of their business ecosystem. There is no part of your business that stands alone. There is no part of your business that exists in a silo, not a single freaking one. So you have to be very, very discerning when you are taking into consideration what to invest in, because, let's say, you buy this program and you fix whatever marketing issue you didn't realize you had by implementing their system into your marketing system. Well, how does that marketing system now interact with or integrate with the rest of your business? Does it account for the fact that there is also a sales process, that there is a lead generation process, that there is a lead generation process, that there is a delivery process, that there is operations to take care of, any number of other things that have to be considered in order for that one marketing system to actually be effective.
Speaker 1:So we take the marketing course, we implement that system into our business and things don't change overnight. Huh, okay, maybe that marketing system wasn't the best, I'm going to find a different one. You invest in that same thing, you. You pull out the marketing function of your business, you fix it up and then you plug it back in and then you hope that everything else will light up as a result of that. It's kind of like a string of Christmas lights. Right, you got to find that one bad bulb that doesn't light up, because that one, once you fix it, everything else will light up. I'm sorry, business doesn't work that way. Business does not work that way. Business is not a string of Christmas lights. Business is, yes, absolutely. All of the systems are integrated, they're interactive, they intersect with each other, so you can't just pull out one piece without at least considering everything else.
Speaker 1:There are seven distinct areas of business that you have to consider when you are looking at changing or implementing something in one place. Right, you've got your operations. Obviously, that is the sort of how all of the things work together as the infrastructure of your business. There is your sales and your marketing. You can count those as two separate things or you can put them together, but they're two distinct functions. Let's be clear about that. There is financial implications to take consideration of. There is delivery of your actual product or service. There is how you are going to innovate on that product and what the customer experience is going to be like. There is team development and HR and all of that stuff, right, and there are like subcategories under each of those, but those are, as a general kind of rule, the main categories of your business that all interact with each other, that you need to think about when you're making changes in one place or another.
Speaker 1:And we don't really do that and this is not me trying to blame or shame anybody, because not everyone has the breadth of experience, the knowledge, the education to understand all of this stuff. So this is why I really really feel like when you have a problem in your business, when something is not working, when you are trying to achieve a goal and it's not happening, or you're struggling or there's a bottleneck or there's just something not working, the worst thing you can do is to listen to an ad tell you that this is probably your problem, because they haven't looked at your entire ecosystem. They haven't looked at everything from start to finish to identify the gaps. There are very few people who can do that effectively and those are people who have strategy experience, like hands-on actual development, like business development experience, people who can audit the entire business and not just from a marketing lens, not just from a sales lens, but from the lens of all of these functions are distinct but interconnected, and let's see how they're interacting with each other so that we can determine where the gap is and what to do about it. Interacting with each other, so that we can determine where the gap is and what to do about it, then you can go and seek out the things that are required to fill those gaps. You can't do it the other way around.
Speaker 1:Now, my friend Nikki McKnight was on the show a few weeks back and she talked about and I love the way she described this, but putting the hypothesis in with the question right, and it's this idea of I need to be on social media more so that I can get more clients. Well, how do you know that social media is the problem or the solution? We don't know that, because maybe that doesn't work for your particular goals, maybe that doesn't work for the kinds of things you're trying to achieve. So it's really important to go right back to the beginning and go okay, here's what the outcome is that we're looking for. Here's what we're trying to actually accomplish with this business. Okay, what does that look like? What does that look like in terms of where you should be showing up and how you should be showing up and what your messaging is supposed to look like?
Speaker 1:And then, when you actually engage those people, how do you nurture them? How do you bring them into your ecosystem? What does your ecosystem even look like? Where are you going to take these people? What's the journey look like? And what does that infrastructure, the operational piece, what does that look like to support that journey and to make sure that you are not the one doing everything and all the things, and sometimes even things you don't need to be doing at all? And when they're in your ecosystem and now they want to buy, what does the sales process look like and what's the infrastructure that's supporting that? And then what's the follow-up, care and what's happening during delivery and what's going to happen when they leave. What are you doing about retention? What are you doing about all of these things.
Speaker 1:So it's never just a simple single solution Ever, ever, ever. Now I'm not saying you have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in every single aspect of your business right off the hop, but you definitely need to think about the entire ecosystem. So look for someone who can help you sit down and map out not in any great detail, because obviously you're going to require experts in those different fields to help you with that part but understanding at the very minimum what is the outcome you're actually looking for, and not just from a business perspective. Don't tell me well, the outcome I'm looking for is 10k a month, or the outcome I'm looking for is seven figures in my business, because that doesn't mean shit. Do you know what it takes to get there? Do you know what it takes to sustain it long term? Does that actually jive with your lifestyle, not the one that you want to have one day, but the one you currently have.
Speaker 1:Are you supporting it with the capacities that you have available? Go back and listen to the episode on capacities if you don't know what I'm talking about. Do you have everything that you need to have to get to that outcome? And why that particular outcome? What is it about that number or that outcome that is so important? What is that going to allow you to do?
Speaker 1:We don't think about these things, because all of the marketing says 10K months, 20k months, six figures, seven figures, but nobody talks about all of the shit that comes before that, because they're just trying to sell you their program. Before that, because they're just trying to sell you their program, they don't care if it actually works for you. It might work for the 1%, you know, the two people who can give them a fantastic testimonial and somehow represent the other 98%. That's not how it works. So all of this to say be very careful when you are investing in things or considering investing in things, because you have to remember that the job of marketing today is to tell you what the problem is and convince you that you have it so that they can sell you their solution. You have to be discerning enough to actually know whether or not that is actually the problem. And if you can't tell, if you don't know how to figure that part out, don't ask the person who's trying to sell you the program. Talk to someone else, talk to a strategist, talk to a business development advisor, go to your local chamber of commerce and ask them for recommendations. Advisor, go to your local chamber of commerce and ask them for recommendations.
Speaker 1:Figure out what the gaps are first, and then make the investments you need to make. Don't do it backwards, because that is why there are so many businesses that are still stuck where they are today, which is the same place they were five years ago or six years ago or three years ago doesn't matter, and I know this because I've been in this space long enough to have seen the development of so many businesses. It is not your fault. Marketing is predicated on the idea of selling you a problem first, so they can then sell you the solution. If you're wanting to do an audit for yourself very quickly first, before you invest anywhere else, let me tell you how to do that.
Speaker 1:The very first thing you should do sit down right, take an hour, go somewhere quiet, get your beverage of choice not alcohol, because you want to have a clear brain. As you do this, you don't want to get emotional, and I want you to sit down and actually reconnect with you. What is it that you started this business for in the first place? Because I'll tell you a lot of the conversations I've been having lately, and certainly even for my own self. If you've been in business for two, three, four, five years, odds are you are in a very different place today than you were when you started your business. Some of it has been growth and some of it has been evolution, but I'm going to hazard a guess that a lot of it, too, is just noise All of the shoulds and the coulds.
Speaker 1:So sit down with yourself and remind yourself of what you actually started this for yourself, of what you actually started this for. Was it to spend time with your kids? Was it to leave your full-time job? Was it to have extra income to help pay down your mortgage faster? Maybe take your family on holiday once or twice a year? Was it to have financial security? You've got to sit down and ask yourself that question and be really, really honest with yourself about whether that is still what you're working towards. And if you're like, yeah, I'm still working towards that, fantastic. And if you're like, no, I think I've lost my way a little bit. That's okay, that's okay. The machine is designed that way. So this is the perfect opportunity to sit down and be like you know what. So this is the perfect opportunity to sit down and be like you know what I need to refocus.
Speaker 1:Be very clear with yourself about the outcome you're trying to achieve by having a business. What is the purpose of this business for you? For you, not your clients, not your prospects. You what is this business going to make possible for you? What is it supposed to make possible for you? And once you've done that, I want you to walk away. I want you to walk away and let it percolate in your head. Does it feel good? Does it still taste good? Because if it does now you can ask yourself if that's the outcome that that I want, what do I have to actually do to get it?
Speaker 1:And this may be where you ask somebody who has no stake in your business, somebody who's not trying to sell you anything, somebody who just can help you understand business development, can help you break down your goals, can help you understand how things intersect. Hint, hint people like me who are not going to pitch, slap you after a conversation. You get someone like that to help you if you need or you know what you can figure that out for yourself to help. Pop it into chat GPT. Pop it into Claude, pop it into Gemini, whatever. Don't take it you know 100% as gospel, but use it as a brainstorming tool. Do not ask it to do strategy for you. Please, please, don't, please, don't.
Speaker 1:Ideally, ask a human being but this is where you sit down and you go okay, what do I actually need to do to get to that outcome, to that goal? Reverse engineer it, figure out what the steps are, figure out what the milestones are. And then the third step look at your day-to-day, look at your week. Are you actually doing any of those things with any great consistency? Because if you're not and you're mired in busy work or you're doing things that don't really make sense, but somebody else is doing it, or a coach told you to do it, or I'm not really sure why I'm supposed to be doing this, but I've been doing it for so long. It's second nature. It doesn't matter. We're not here to judge.
Speaker 1:Figure out whether what you're supposed to be doing or what you should be doing to get to your outcome and what you actually are doing, whether they're miles apart, whether they're just a few feet apart, or whether they're working well together. That is how you figure out where your gaps are. Now you can go out and look for the right supports to help you get there. Marketing is always going to do what marketing does. We're never going to change that. But you, as an autonomous business owner, get to be more discerning about how you look at marketing, how you understand it and how you internalize it. Remember that it is there to create the problem first, so it can sell you the solution. And, like I alluded to before, if you want someone to bounce ideas off of hit me up, I'm not going to pitch you. I don't have any offers happening right now. I am genuinely in a place in my own life and business where I just want to help people get to where they're trying to go.
Speaker 1:The way things are in the world right now, we need to focus particularly us women, particularly us women of color. We need to focus on actually getting that financial security and autonomy that most of us started these businesses for in the first place, but we need to do it in a way that does not require 80 to 90% of what we make to be reinvested back in a coach or in a program or whatever. We need the capacity to be able to put it aside, and so my whole ethos is let's build these businesses as lean as we can, because your budget is not the flex. Hitting your goals is the flex, and doing it in a way that doesn't require you to sell out or sacrifice your sanity or your stability or your life right now. That's what we're looking for, right? Maybe I'll do more early morning shops, because they're so quiet and my brain loves to come up with things when things are quiet.
Speaker 1:And I got to say, when you're walking around the grocery store at like seven, eight o'clock in the morning and every song that comes over the speakers is like a banger from your youth, you realize how old you actually are. That's a story for another day. Like I always say, my friends, you can have success without the BS and it's fucking time we did it. I'll talk to you soon. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and if you're feeling extra sassy rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.