Season 3. Episode 5. We learn how Donna Price helps small businesses market their services more effectively
Aug 31, 2023Season 3Episode 5
Donna Price is with our BW NICE Sussex Chapter. Her business, Compass Rose Consulting, helps people market their services and grow their businesses. She shares her tips and valuable information with us and there is so much to learn!
Donna breaks it down and makes it manageable. She explains how you build email lists, and what tools to use to make responses automatic. Also that different types of business need to have a presence on different types of social media.
She makes it easy to understand and helps people figure out how to increase their business.
The Adventures of Matilda and LuciLu -- this is a young reader that she wrote under a pen name during COVID-19. It is also on the same book page as the link above.
Donna Price is with our BW NICE Sussex Chapter. Her business, Compass Rose Consulting, helps people market their services and grow their businesses. She shares her tips and valuable information with us and there is so much to learn!
Donna breaks it down and makes it manageable. She explains how you build email lists, and what tools to use to make responses automatic. Also that different types of business need to have a presence on different types of social media.
She makes it easy to understand and helps people figure out how to increase their business.
The Adventures of Matilda and LuciLu -- this is a young reader that she wrote under a pen name during COVID-19. It is also on the same book page as the link above.
Hi everyone, and welcome to the BW. Nice Voice Podcast. I'm Debbie Weiss and I'm here with my Co-host host, Lynne Thompson, who is going to introduce our guest for today. Well everybody, we're really happy today we have the President of the Sussex County Chapter, Donna Price. Our guest today is very busy. She's a business and marketing coach who helps small businesses unravel the marketing puzzle to develop effective sales and marketing systems to grow their businesses and their revenue. She runs Compass Rose consulting, and has written a book, which we'd love to hear more about, called launching your dreams making a making wild, our calves wild ideas happen. So welcome, Donna. How are you? Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. Yeah, we're really happy to have you. Well, thank you. So did you have another life so far? You had your business coaching business? I had. I had several. You want to tell us how you got to that point? I just always find it really interesting. You know what, what people were doing before they decided to start a business? Yeah, definitely. Right out of college I worked in with people with developmental disabilities, managing group homes and apartment programs, and did a midlife career change. And decided I wanted to learn how to facilitate team building through adventure education. So I learned how to climb trees and do high ropes courses and low ropes courses, got a second master's degree in Outdoor Recreation Administration, and moved to Jersey to be closer to my mom, and was the director at a camp and Outdoor Center here in Northwest New Jersey for five years. Then we adopted children. And I decided that I wanted my kids to be my priority. And I didn't want to spend 14 hours, 16 hours a day, making sure that things were going well for other people's kids. But if I send my kids to camp, I want somebody doing that very well for my kids. So I resigned that position and started my business compasses consulting. And it has evolved over the years from an initial focus on leadership development and team building, to now more of a focus on small business development and marketing strategies. So wow, what an interesting story. I've known him for years. And I did not know that. That's the question. Yeah. Wow. So let's talk a little bit about marketing. Because before we pressed play, and even before you hopped on, I think Linda and I were both like, oh, gosh, we could use the help with that. And I feel, I feel like no matter where you are in your business or your career, it feels like that marketing is just always the biggest challenge. So where do you even start done? I mean, there's so many options. And I just wonder, is it different depending upon what your profession is, or your you know, what you're selling? Well, I think, I think different is important piece, like I think that everyone's marketing strategy needs to be customized to their business. And what I'm seeing in the market right now is a lot of solutions that are like I have the perfect solution for everyone. And it's like a one strategy solution. And people are being told that this solution, whether it's having a podcast or writing a book, or running a Facebook group, is the end all be all solution, and it's going to work no matter what your business is. And I don't think that's true. I think every business needs to look at their business, what they're selling what they're offering, and what's going to be the best fit for them in a line that with their vision, their values. And the the owners feelings like not everybody wants to run a podcast or feels comfortable doing that. So that's not a good solution. Right off the bat. Not everybody wants to be a speaker and and go out and get clients through speaking, some people are great at it. And so that could be a good solution for them. But it's not the solution for everyone. And so I believe that we need to look at the business and figure out the best solution and the best fit for that business. And then when we look at, like social media platforms, Facebook is a great platform for some businesses in some industries. LinkedIn is the best platform for other businesses and other industries. And so figuring out what that right fit is for each individual business, I think is important. And and again, it comes back to that comfort. And like you said, marketing is the hardest. So part of part of it is we do have to step out of our comfort zone a little bit. So you do have to get comfortable promoting yourself and promoting your business. And I'm kind of standing on a rooftop saying, you know, I'm good at what I do. And that's uncomfortable for a lot of us to do. Yeah, definitely. So does it also depend on your customers, because I think they really differ, right? Places to business. And the way they get their information differs. And I'm having a hard time with that myself, they always say identify your customer, know your customer. And I think that's harder than it sounds. Definitely. So if your customer hangs out on Facebook, even if you don't like Facebook, you need to be hanging out there. Because that's where a customer is. But if your customer is over on LinkedIn, hanging out on Facebook isn't helping you because they're not. They're not there. So definitely knowing your target market, knowing where they where they are, and speaking their language is critical. So how do you help people understand those? How do you help people answer those questions, and figure out their strategy? Yeah, definitely. So we want to start with like an assessment of the business, like, what is the business? What is it that you're selling? How do you sell it? And start looking at that, and then identify that target market? And start looking at where that target markets gonna? We're gonna find them in? In good numbers? You know, and, and it depends, is it an online business or an offline business? You know, it might be if you're an offline business, then, you know, going out and networking is a great strategy for you. So we just need to do that initial assessment. First. Are some of the old time marketing tools now obsolete? I mean, there's still billboards out there. And, you know, what about ads and print? Publications? Is that a waste of time? Or is it still pertinent depending upon, you know, what, your businesses? Yeah, I think it can still work. But I think that there's fundamentals on how you put it together. So I think that no matter what marketing you're doing, your goal is to build your list. And you want to own the list. So when we build a following on Instagram, we don't own that list. Instagram can choose to kick us off for whatever reason, they don't even have to tell us why. And I just could be gone. So you could have 1000s of followers there that you lose. So if you watch what people do, they're trying to move people from the platform, to their list, and most often an email list. And so that involves having a landing page, like a one page, like, here's, like, come on my mailing list is basically what you're doing. So if you're doing a billboard, or a print ad, you can do the same thing. I always say like when your print ad is saying call me. Like if we think of ourselves I'm how many of us like cold calling potential clients, nobody likes you. I said the other day, I would rather clean a dirty toilet like a really dirty toilet than cold. So I think of like when we have an ad that says Call me it's kind of like asking, asking the customer to cold call us. Because they know when they call, we're going to try and sell them something and they're not ready to buy. We're just starting a relationship. So we need to like shake hands and build the relationship before we're ready. They're ready to engage in that sales call or finding out more about what we have to offer. So moving people from the platform to your list is a way of doing that because then you can introduce yourself you can In essence, virtually shake their hand and say, This is who I am. This is what it's all about. And give them the information because we're trying to move them through the buyers journey of, you know, they're researching, they're getting to know us because we, we all hear that people buy from people they know like trust. Right? So do that have that relationship? That's so I think that the the ad can work if there's a call to action that sends them to our landing page. Can you still have your phone number? Yeah, definitely, if somebody like needs what you have right now, and they want to call you have the phone number there. But I had a client that was doing a paper insert into the newspaper. And it was a call me for more information, or call me for a free consults kind of thing. And he was excited, because he would get two clients out of it. But he was spending 1000s of dollars to insert the ad. And I was like, Well, what if we change it to keep the konsult but call me for this free? Like report, it was a chiropractor. So you could do a free like how to end your back pain 10 steps to ending back pain or, you know, whatever the call to action is, what if you get 100 People that download your report that now you can build that relationship with? They're all local, it's a local paper, you know, so you're starting to tell them who you are, you know, you can include some testimonials of how you've solved that for other people. And you can increase that conversion from the two clients. Even if you have 100 people downloaded out of your 5000 inserts, like that's a really low conversion rate. You know, and, and then if you convert 1% of that, it's more than you had. Yeah. And that's a, that's a super low conversion rate to like, you're gonna get more than that. I find personally, one of the hardest things is to come up with those free offers that are going to interest people enough to give you their email address. And maybe I have something I mean, I don't know, if you have something of interest? Well, where are you putting it so that it's seen? You know, and I think for me, personally, anyway, building the list and finding those people or at least finding something that they'll want or motivated to want. It's been really difficult. Yeah, definitely challenging. So part of what we need to do, and that is really to speak to their pain, right. So that's what we're trying to solve is the pain that the person has, whether it's, I don't know how to market, or my back hurts, like, depending on, you know, the issue is getting like dry and old looking like, what's the pain that the person has? And then you're offering a solution that is fast and easy. So, you know, the three steps, five steps, 10 steps is kind of a, a, it sounds fast, like I'm not going to have to spend a lot of time figuring it out. You're going to tell me really fast, and it's going to help me. Yeah. And what about when you have a list? Sorry, Lynn? No, go ahead. When you have that list, then is there a secret formula of how often you should be reaching out to them to make sure that you know, they stay in your sphere? Great question. Well, I think when we first get somebody on on the list, we're going to email him right away to confirm that they want it on the list, right? And if we're doing a double opt in, they've got to click that link to say, yeah, it was me that asked for that, then we're immediately sending them the free whatever we offered them. So they're getting, you know, a couple of emails right away. If they don't click the link, we've got a little bit of time to remind, remind them to click that link. So we're gonna do that. If they do click the link, we're going to email him again the next day saying, hope you got the download. Here's the link again. We're trying to very quickly get them used to seeing our name in their inbox. So if you have somebody that comes on your list and you're doing a monthly newsletter, and they don't get that for a month, they don't remember who you are. And when we can all think of our own email box. And you're like, Who is that? No clue who that is. Like I'm seeing a lot of cold email coming through. Things I know I didn't ask for Yeah, right. So yeah, we're all seeing that. And if we become that cold email, it's we're getting deleted really quickly. So, in that first, like 10 days, we're going to email them probably six times six or seven times just to nurture that relationship, we're going to tell them what was in the report, we're going to highlight some some of the points that we gave them, maybe tell a story with it, but just nurture that. And then you can move into not as frequent an email sequence. If we look at what email like internet marketers, do, they email us every day. Some of them email us more than once a day. For me, that feels like too much. But I know that they do it because it works. Yep. So I shoot for two to three times a week for my own business. And honestly, not always successful at that, like sometimes it's less. So where do you come up with the content? I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So some of the things I do is I listen to what people are asking. So if I hear questions that are coming up, at meetings, or through clients that I'm doing that I'm posting that right now, AI is a great source to generate some ideas, and to even draft some of those emails for you. And once you learn how to prompt, you know, chat, GPT, or whatever app you're using, you can do a lot of that, but but also just using your own material, depending on your industry. You know, I think of like Mary Kay, kind of, like, if we looked at that industry, there's a lot that they can talk about, about skincare and makeup, and sustainability, and just all sorts of things that can be helpful to somebody. And again, we're trying to be helpful, and build credibility expertise, and continue moving them through that buyers journey so that when we have an offer, they're ready to buy. It sounds like when you share concerns that you've heard from others, you're starting to build some community too. And that's really good. I like when I feel part of something, you know, and I see what other people are doing. Also, somebody just recently sent me some emails that really engaged me and I was like, really surprised that there was a different way to do it. He really is casual is trying to convince me to buy some kind of service to increase my podcast, listeners. But I'm very intrigued by how some people do this. Because he chats and he he's very familiar. Like, I don't want to bother you letting you know. But do you? Did you ever think of it? It's so much it's so refreshing, because we get so many emails, right? So I'm kind of like, in awe of how he does that. And it's, it's kind of hard not to answer someone when they ask you a question. And when they feel friendly, you want to answer them. Definitely, I would say one of the important things about email is that you use a an email service that includes an autoresponder. So you're not building a list in your Gmail account and emailing 200 people or 1000 people through your Gmail or any personal email account, you want to be using email marketing company, a Weber eye contact, Active Campaign, any of those companies that also have an auto responder built in. So an auto responder allows you to set up a sequence of emails, you can have an auto responder set up for the whole year that sends people information for a whole year. And I've had people that enter my autoresponder sequence, and then they'll email me kind of like what you're sailing about what I just sent them. And I'm like, I don't know where they are. And they'll say, Oh, thanks. That was just what I needed today. And I'm thinking, Wow, I wonder what that was. I mean, you can respond. I can go in and I can look it up. Yeah, you know, I can figure it out. But I can also respond like, that's great. What was it about that that was so helpful to you, without even knowing what the article was or, you know, that I had sent them. So automating your email No is really helpful in decreasing the amount of work. So we're not physically, like creating emails every day to send to people. It's all preloaded in, in our email marketing. Wow, that's great. Some great because every week, I think I don't know, what am I going to say? But you're right about the chat GBT. I, I've used it and I feel like I'm cheating. But the rest of the world is using it. So I've got to get get over that scenario, you got to just kind of take what they say and make it your own, I think, right? Yeah. Right. It's a great idea generator. I saw that there was a blog expert that I took a little class with. And she said, Put, put your subject matter on a calendar way ahead. So that you don't say, What am I going to blog about this week? Oh, my gosh, that you have it preset that you know what you're going to blog about? Now? I thought that was it's so simple, right. But you need people to remind you how to make this a little more efficient. Yep. And definitely, like, I have some calendars on my site. That I mean, there's holidays that happen and there's, you know, this is, you know, something Awareness month or, you know, it's Donut Day, or there's all these kind of special days that you could do something on that can generate an idea, you know, again, based on your industry, you know, weight loss should use, how do you celebrate Donut Day? You know, maybe it's not buying a dozen Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, you know, Donut Day, not Donut Day. Yeah, so there's definitely other calendars that you can pull into your marketing campaigns. And there's some that you use some holidays that you should have included in your marketing campaign. It makes it fun and lighter, too. Yeah. Yeah. For the audience. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, at first, I thought, Oh, my goodness, who came up with these days? I mean, if you'd look at some of these calendars every single day, every single day has five different things that it's the National Day of. Yeah. But it kind of doesn't matter. Yeah, right. There's different versions of those calendars to think that those days. There's not a consistent day. Donna, what what do you find people struggle with the most your clients? Like what, what's the toughest thing for them? Ah, great question. Um, I think like, my business shifted into more marketing focus, one, because I had never marketed before I was in nonprofits, and clients were just there, we had waiting lists, and we didn't really have to mark it. So I had to learn it. But it was also the biggest problem that I heard from people was like, How do I do this marketing and an uncomfortableness with marketing? I think we've all been taught at very young ages that we don't brag about ourselves, and we don't boast and that's rude. And now we're in business, and we have to. And so it feels very uncomfortable for a lot of people. Yeah, it's easier in a passive way to put out an ad or newsletter or something like that. But when you actually have to be face to face or even online, talking yourself up. Yeah. Yeah. Comfortable for I know, for me, and like, for a lot of people. But I think it depends on how I think it depends on how you deliver the message, right? Because I, I listened to other people, and sometimes I just, I'm turned off because I do feel that they're bragging, right, in an uncomfortable way, versus just kind of being honest. And matter of fact, about it and being yourself. I think, for me makes all the difference in the world as a as a listener. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, there's some people that can definitely turn you off pretty quickly. Yeah, I think that building that relationship first, you know that I'm not I don't want to be sold to, right. I want to know who you are. And I want to know, I want to feel like I know you. And when people are genuine and I gotta say Debbie won't toot our own horn but she's great. She's totally genuine on Instagram. And she does live Instagrams and you just feel like you're walking with her and her dog. But that's really what you have to do. It's not about you know, always selling it's about here I am and if it's genuine people will align with you. They'll they'll resonate with what you're putting Now like authenticity, I had a podcasting class. And a very famous person taught us that. And she said, You know, it's not intuitive, you have to really marketing and all the rules of it are really good, but part of it is being yourself and getting out there. And people will decide if they're where you're at. Right? You're not gonna You're not for everybody. Yep, definitely, that was new to me. I think that for me, that's one of the hardest things is, you know, if you're a person who's a people pleaser, or you want everyone to like you, which is kind of, you know, always had been my MO, and when I see people either unsubscribe, or, or, you know, unclick or send me something, you know, whatever. I'm like, Oh, my goodness, what am I doing this for? But then I've gotten reminded about how there are other people who aren't contacting me, that are being positively impacted. And when I think of myself, I, I, if I'm on social media, and I like something, I rarely, rarely type, our heart. I just don't have whatever reason I don't do it. But that doesn't mean I don't like it. And it's not impacting me. And personally, now, I find when I'm somewhere out in the community, and someone comes up to me and says, Oh, my goodness, I watch your reels all the time, or whatever. I and I had no idea. And I think we have to keep that in mind. Because especially with the social media stuff, and even with the mail, right, you just don't know, because most people are not going to respond to you. Right? Yeah, great. I think with people unsubscribing for your list, you can take it personally. But you just have to like let it go. And figure like they weren't right for me or what I have isn't right for them right now. And that's fine. And you're getting a list more like honed in to the people that want to be there. And that's who you really want there. So Donna, how personally has your consulting company evolved of since you started? Ah, wow. Yeah, it's definitely changed. It started off with more of a focus on leadership and team building, because that's kind of the industry I came out of, and a friend had had also, like, left her job and started a consulting. And she was like, Yeah, people just came. So I was under that illusion that if you build it, they will come. And that does not work. Except I say it does work for ice cream in the right location, ice cream, they will come. I live in a very rural part of New Jersey, and we have this little teeny ice cream place up the mountain is in the middle of nowhere. And oh my gosh, it's thriving. It's it's also self serve. So that helps when you just put your money in the slot. But um, so it's like a farm stamp, but it's ice cream, but ice cream, even not in the right location, and they will come but not with business coaching. Or so I had to learn marketing. So it has evolved. And I've since then written a couple of books. And I've built an Online Learning Center, which right now we're just rebranding to call to be called the women printers Resource Center. And so it's exciting because it's got a whole new look and feel. And it has resources inside it to help people build their business so that people can do like the do it yourself version, or they can pair it with coaching and get help and support and doing that. So congratulations. What a big undertaking, but it's the name to Yeah, yeah. Certainly in the end, I'm sure it will be worth it and, you know, help a lot of people what, what do you find the most rewarding out of this job? Definitely. Well, I think being in business is an incredible personal journey, and the personal development that you go through as a business owner. And the learning that you go through is incredible. And then to be a coach to see other people kind of going through that journey also in succeeding and building success is thrilling. So both personally and professionally, it's just exciting. be able to see people succeeding. And with a focus on women printers, I just think women are changing the world. And I love being involved in that change and in different ways. Couldn't agree more? Yeah, I love this. And I have to say, I have a podcast where people tell me their stories. And I've had some amazing stories that talk about the entrepreneur journey. I mean, it's always a good story. Because there's ups, there's downs, there's pivots, and people do grow. And I love that. And I also love when someone takes what they learned, and helps other people. And that's you. You take what you learned, and now you're helping everybody else do the same thing. That's a recipe for happiness, and fulfillment. Anything else you'd like to add Donna as we? Well, that's just what I was going to say. Great Minds? think alike. Exactly. Now, you have to add two things, Donna? Oh, my goodness. Well, I think that, um, I don't know, if I have anything else to add, I think that, you know, focusing on yourself and doing that personal work so that you feel comfortable in marketing your business is, is essential. And there's lots of people to celebrate every business owner out there. And, and I think also, people genuinely want to help other people. And when you put it out there, then people step up, and they help. I know, it's one of the things I my first book launch in your dreams making wild ideas happen. That's part of what I talked about in the book. When you share your vision, people help you create that vision. And I really believe that's true. We get so protective and kind of quiet. But when you start telling people about it, they step up. And that's pretty cool. Great way to end. I think so too. Thank you so much for sharing. It was like gold. We learned a lot and I bet our listeners will do. Great. Well, it's great to be here. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Thank you and thank you for listening. Definitely