Not-So Kind Regards
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Not-So Kind Regards
Break the Rules and Build a Business You Love – A Birdcage Keynote
Today’s episode is a little different but one worth tuning into. In this keynote delivered at Melbourne Crown Casino, Maddy Birdcage takes you behind the scenes to show how breaking the rules can revolutionise your business and marketing strategy. From mindset shifts to leveraging marketing psychology, this episode is packed with practical insights to help you show up authentically, find your ideal audience, and build a business you love. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling up, this keynote is your blueprint for success.
Episode Highlights:
- Mindset Over Marketing: Why limiting beliefs might be sabotaging your results.
- Breaking Rules for Success: The power of ditching traditional marketing norms.
- The Birdcage Certified Method: A funnel framework that transforms followers into superfans.
- Building Your Authentic Brand: How to attract the right clients by being unapologetically you.
- Marketing Psychology in Action: Using human behavior to connect and convert.
- Love or Hate – Indifference is the Real Enemy: Why your audience’s strong reactions (positive or negative) are crucial for success, and how to foster meaningful engagement.
Next Steps:
Experience a new era of business coaching with Birdcage School’s Coaching Unlimited™ program. Unlock unlimited one-on-one coaching sessions over six months, designed to give you the clarity, confidence, and strategies to scale your brand and achieve your biggest goals.
Explore the details and see how Coaching Unlimited™ can transform your business at:
- International: https://birdcageschool.com/coaching-unlimited/
- Australia: https://birdcageschool.com.au/coaching-unlimited/
Connect with us:
Not-So Kind Regards Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notsokindregards_podcast/
Birdcage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/birdcage_school/
Maddy Birdcage TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maddybirdcage
Maddy Birdcage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maddybirdcage/
Birdcage LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/7600856
Caroline Moss Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caro__moss/
Caroline Moss TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@caro_moss
To work with us, book your discovery call at https://www.birdcagemarketing.com.au/start-here
To discover the school, visit https://birdcagemarketing.com.au/
Mindset affects marketing more than you'll ever believe. If you're not getting results in your marketing and yet you're doing all of the right things, it's because there's something going on up here. There's limiting beliefs happening. It's holding you back. It's holding you back from being who you authentically are, and your people can feel that in your content. Welcome to the Not so Kind Regards Podcast. I'm Maddie Birdcage and I'm Caroline Moss. We are done with the digital fluff and pleasantries and we're here to talk straight about brand building, digital marketing and personal growth.
Speaker 1:In this week's episode of the Not so Kind Regards podcast, I am taking you inside a recent keynote speech that I gave at a conference at Melbourne Crown Casino in front of hundreds of business owners. In this presentation, I take you deep into not just what a marketing funnel is and why you need one, but the mindset shifts that you need to take in order to show up as your most authentic self. This is the marketing, mindset and business framework that I use to take my own business from crashing and burning to being a highly profitable brand, and it's what new businesses and established businesses alike can use for their own marketing and mindset and business growth. The information that I share is worth tens of thousands of dollars, and you're going to be getting it all for free, listening to this podcast episode. So I'm so excited to be sharing with you. Make sure you share your you, make sure you share your reviews, make sure you share your feedback with us in our DMs. You can even text us with the link in the show notes and tell me what breakthroughs, what realization, what aha moments you have from listening to this speech.
Speaker 1:Today, I want to share with you the magic marketing cure, because I want to share how to use marketing psychology to break the internet as well as breaking all of the rules. So I want to ask you, first of all, how does your marketing currently feel? Do you feel like you have the power of the universe in your little hands, which, if you think about our smartphones and the fact that we have social media and the internet, that is literally what we have. We have the power to talk to the entire world from our little phones. Does it feel like, when you create your marketing campaigns, everything you touch turns to gold? Do you feel like you know exactly what buttons to push in order to get the results you want?
Speaker 1:One congratulate couple, congratulations, well, done well, the next slide was meant to be who feels really fucking shit about their marketing and feels like I don't know what I'm doing? I feel like I'm trying everything and nothing seems to work. I don't understand why I'm doing all the things people are telling me to do. I'm posting all the content calendars, I'm educating, I'm adding value, and yet I'm still not getting the results that I want. Or who's just ignoring the whole marketing thing in the sales place? Come on, guys, hands up, like up, please. Yes, because that is the honest truth and that is usually how most business owners content creators do feel.
Speaker 1:So I want to just introduce myself a little bit more. So, stage name Maddie Birdcage, but I am the founder of Birdcage Group. We have an agency, an online school, we have studios and we have a top charting business podcast, as well as my personal brand, and we're launching our social club next year. I am the creator of the Birdcage Certified Method, which is what I'm going to be introducing you to in this preso, and I'm obsessed with marketing psychology. What I cannot understand is why we are not using more psychology in marketing. Marketing is about connecting with humans. Psychology is about understanding the human brain. Why the hell. Are we not using more psychology in order to make our lives easier as business owners, as marketers? That is what I do not understand. That is what I've become obsessed with, and really I have nothing else to add to conversations except this I'm a speaker. I also lecture at universities, based on what I'm going to teach you guys here today. I'm also a government business growth mentor.
Speaker 1:But something that I'm most proud of myself for is the fact I like to break rules, and it's what I expect you guys to do as well, because this bitch here who was me up until about two years ago, she did not break any rules. She followed all the rules because she wasn't believing in her own abilities and she didn't believe that she had the answers. So if you are that type of person my I used to be where you doubt yourself, you feel as though you were looking external to yourself. You feel like, who am I to act on my own intuition? And instead, instead, I'm just going to look and download some 30-day content calendar, or I'm going to be like, oh okay, let's post educational content because that's what I'm supposed to post. Or if you've ever been that type of person who's just hired someone to come and fix your shit and then it hasn't actually worked and you still blame yourself for it. That is who I used to be lost a slide again, but elwoods is making it. Come that puppy's sleep with all these perverts.
Speaker 1:What happened I? When I was this person here? I was able to build a successful marketing agency. We scaled to seven figures. We had a big team, all the outward signs of success, but I was so miserable. I was working 60 hour weeks and the content and what we were doing for our clients like it, didn't light me up. And because of that, that successful business ended up plummeting into six figures of debt, which made me get my act together. And so if you're ever in a place where your business is not where you want it to be, it was maybe going well, now it's going shit or you're stuck or you're just not scaling as quickly as you want to. I guarantee it's because you are not listening to yourself enough, you are not trusting your own intuition enough and you are not breaking the rules enough.
Speaker 1:Because if you look like these women here, so the Sarah Blakely she founded Specs right, she literally redefined what it meant to be a CEO back in the day when every CEO was an old white dude. This was before social media. She went door to door, door knocking, to sell her products. And you know what she decided to do as well. She just decided to mail Oprah one of her products, and the rest is history. Now she's like best bitch ever. Kim K she tried to leak sex tape into a family dynasty worth billions of dollars and she goes direct to her audiences. She doesn't. I mean, I'm sure she has marketing advisors, but really her social media, their show, is what has grown their entire brands. And then Elle Woods, the queen, who already made an appearance here today, inspired a whole generation of women to not listen to the motherfuckers that tell us not to be who we want to be, and she killed it. I know it's fictional, but like she's perfect, right.
Speaker 1:So what do all of these women, including myself and what many of you in the room, have the potential to do? We are making our own rules in business, we are being unapologetic with ourselves and, most importantly, we are connecting with our people. So today I'm not going to teach you how to do marketing. I'm not going to give you some 30-day contact calendar. I'm not going to tell you to go and use some shiny tactics that change every few months. I'm going to teach you how to think differently about your marketing so you can do it your way, and the way I'm going to do that, some of you in this room well, maybe a lot of you are going to be like you're the fluffiest sheik and she is. I really don't like this person, but even if 10 of you in this room walk away loving me, I prefer you to love me or hate me rather than think of me not at all, rather than me just being some vanilla bitch. Okay, and so I want you to keep this in mind when I'm talking to you about how to think about your marketing. You want people to love you or hate you. The worst thing you can do is have people not care about you at all, not think about you at all.
Speaker 1:Now, the Birdcage Certified Method that we have. It follows a funnel structure. The reason why it's a marketing funnel and this trips people up all the time why have a funnel? It's because at the top of funnel, you have the most amount of people that you're meant to bring into your world. Right, you cast a broad net. Then, if you're doing it right, you are narrowing that audience down. So by the end of it, you have this really potent audience of people who are obsessed with you, who will pay you whatever you ask, who will refer your name and who just will build your business for you. Because who here has had some nightmare clients before? Yeah, fuck me mate. Before? Yeah, fuck me mate.
Speaker 1:When I started trying up authentically and being very purposeful about purposely pissing off the people through my content that I actually didn't want in my business, I now have a multi-million dollar business and zero client problems, zero pseudo problems. Everyone who is in my business, in my universe, they love being there and they're obsessed with what we do, and that's what each and every one of you need to be achieving for your content and also leading through to your business. So in the Gold Coast, I got kicked off stage because I went too long, so I don't want to do this again. So what I want you to do? I've got a whole worksheet. It's going to help you write a marketing strategy. Head over to the Birdcage School Instagram. Feel free to do it right now. Dm us the word Frontal Cheat Sheet and you're going to get this worksheet that's going to explain everything that I've talked about in way more detail and it's going to give you literally questions and answers that you need to do and by the end of it, you'll have perfectly fine fun. So do that.
Speaker 1:But we're going to break some rules today. Who thinks that business marketing should be about her business? Only about your business? New rule I want you to attract people into your business by not talking about your business. By not talking about your business, there is a reason for this. Social media is a swamp Like it is a big, fat swamp of so much noise and I want you to be the red life raft that gets found. So you need to do what you need to do to get attention. But in order to do that, I don't want you to make it about you. I want you to make it about your audience, and the best way to do that is to share content where people see the best version of themselves in it.
Speaker 1:Audiences do not want a hard sell. If you're getting on your socials and being like, buy my lashes, come and book in, that's a hard sell. It's like trying to propose to someone on a first date. No one's going to say yes, unless they want, like, a visa or something, but don't be a stage five clinger. Don't come on too strong by making your content about your audience and not about you. People will listen because we are all just obsessed with ourselves and we are thinking about ourselves most of the time. They don't give a fuck about your guys until you make them care, and so I want you to use platforms and channels that are show to fresh eyes. Use platforms to their advantages. Tiktok's good for that. Instagram Reels are good for that. Meta ads are good for that.
Speaker 1:Old rule make storytelling content. Who's heard the advice? Make storytelling content. Who actually knows what that means? Great One. Two.
Speaker 1:The problem I have with storytelling content is like okay, I meant to make a 60-second video, but I meant to tell a story, and when I tell a story, no one fucking cares. So what actually are we meant to be saying in these stories? The whole point of Storytelling, cop 10, this generic advice that you'll give it, is because you're trying to build trust. Humans understand, humans connect more with stories. That's how we pass down knowledge. For hundreds of thousands of years have we been around? Yes, this is the second stage of the funnel. We want you to be found by using attention-grabbing content, then I want you to build trust, and you do that with trust-building content, which is telling stories. Now, this is the way I want you to tell your stories you have to think about it as writing the next chapter in the book that your audience is already with you. So let's just say you want to write a sci-fi novel, but your audience is over here reading a romance novel. They're not going to connect with the sci-fi story that you're telling, but if you start writing a romance piece chapter and you eventually bring it into a spaceship and it becomes a sci-fi novel, that is how it works. So I want to give you a more tangible example that might relate more to what you guys are doing. What I'm trying to say is you need to meet your audiences where they're at and take them where you want to go. That is how you create entire new customers.
Speaker 1:Let's just say, someone feels insecure about some beautiful chubby cheeks that they have and they think that they need to go get Botox or some other invasive process in order to slim their face or something. Now you the way you actually got into lashing was because you had that same insecurity about yourself. And then, when you got a set of lash extensions, you realized that it just made such an emphasis on your eyes and it just I don't know about you guys, but I feel like when I get my lashes done, it completely changes the shape of my face. It, I mean, it doesn't really, but it gives the illusion. And so what you should be talking about in your content is not just, hey, look at these before and afters, look at these lashes that I do. You should be saying, hey, if you have, once upon a time, I was insecure about my face shade, my chubby cheeks, and then I got lashes and it completely transformed my face. And so, if that is also, you, try and get lash extensions. You've just been vulnerable by talking about the insecurity that you've had Number one, tick, big tick. But you've also just created a whole new audience, because, instead of just talking about lashes, you've actually gone back and addressed some other problem that they're already having, because most people don't know. We don't know what you know, I don't know what you know. I don't know what you know, you don't know what I know.
Speaker 1:A lot of people come to us thinking I just need to know how to use Instagram. No, you don't. You actually need a strategy first, but I'm not going to lead in my content saying you need strategy because everyone's like, no, I don't. I just need help with content. You have to meet them where they're at and take them where you know they need to go where they're at and take them where you know they need to go. Middle of funnel content works because you need to let audiences see themselves in your brand story and in your customer stories. When you are posting before and afters, just start with the like pictures before and after.
Speaker 1:I want you to tell us why did this client come to you? What problems was this client facing before they came to you and how do they feel after? Tell the stories around your transformations that you're delivering and let them see inside what you do and how that is special. What process do you do that's different to everyone else? What do you focus on that's different to everyone else I want you to be sharing. Show us what's different. Don't show us what is the same just because that feels safe and that's what everyone else is doing. That's boring. I want you to show me why you're different.
Speaker 1:Another old rule that I feel like we're getting past this, but it's still a mindset that a lot of us have selling is sleazy and desperate, and so the new rule that we are going to be making is that you need to make sales, that you need to give people a good reason to buy from you. This is the bottom of the funnel, this is the final stage. This is how you make money, and I don't want you to be ashamed of selling because as a business, you cannot help people for free or for very long anyway. But the problem that we have humans, we have a caveman brain. Our brain's job is to keep us safe. Do you know how it keeps us safe? By keeping us in the familiar, where I can predict what's going to happen next. Even if that situation is shit and we hate being in that bad situation, it is still safer for our brain to keep us in because we can predict what's going to happen next by going and trying something new. The brain is like hello, I can't predict what's about to happen. This is unsafe for us. Don't do the thing.
Speaker 1:So, for example, the first time someone might get lash extensions like I'm going to give you some insight. Before I got extensions, I was like, oh, is it going to be? Is it going to ruin my lashes? Am I going to get annoyed that I can't rub my eyes, that I can't like wash my face promptly, like all of these questions come up which you guys all have the answers for. You guys all have the solutions for that.
Speaker 1:So you need to make sure that, first of all, you are overcoming the objections so your content can literally be my client thought that she couldn't go swimming after getting lash extensions, but if you use this product or you do the XYZ, that's actually not true. So, overcoming objections number one. But also you need to be using marketing, psychology, scarcity, urgency, future visioning. You only have so many appointments available in the week. Make sure your audience knows this. Make sure they're going to miss out. Make sure they know they're going to miss out unless they book the appointment right now. Urgency is special that you have. It only lasts for a certain amount of time. Make sure you tell them that Don't just launch an offer and it's there forever, because humans are innately lazy and we just need to make sure we give them a reason to buy now, not later. I want you to use platforms and channels that are shown to these hot audiences, so use them to your advantage Instagram stories, dms, email marketing, retargeting, meta ads Okay, the funnel that I've shown you here.
Speaker 1:It's generated over $3 million in sales from my brands in under two years and it has done tens of millions more for all of our clients and our students. Money is great, it's wonderful, but, most importantly the thing I have to say I found my people. By showing up authentically as myself, I was able to find my people and I'm now making a real impact on my business. I'm literally transforming lives, not just because they're making more money in their business, but because they're attracting the right people, the right staff, the right clients, and they're just happier people overall and I mean that was my slide from Girl Post Happy people don't treat their husbands overall and I mean that was my slide from Girlpost Happy people don't treat their husbands. Happy people are better in business and better in life, and we want a world of happy business owners, right?
Speaker 1:The other thing is, I get to be free. I get to be free to be myself. I don't have to show up as some girl, bossy, shiny person. I don't have to show up as some marketing growth hacker bro. I can show up authentically as me and say what I want to say, and so I want you guys to make the decision now Are you going to step up and be brave and show who you really are on your social media, or do you want to stay stuck? Because if you want to create more authentic, effective marketing in less time, that is our specialty, that is what we do, because we will make you love your marketing and, in the process, we make you love yourself through our self-discovery and our final framework. So, jo, I'm going to take you through what the next steps would look like if we were going to work together, because I want to give you some deeper insights as to what happens now. Is that cool if I take you guys through it? Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So, through our school, we teach you things like our content persona. What I want you to notice, though, we're using things like audience schemas. These are psychological frameworks that we've created which help you understand what was the childhood like of the person that you'll try to talk to. This is important because, based on what they were raised as children, what they went through, what their parents told them, any experiences they had, it's going to make a difference as to whether you need to show that you are like a very trustworthy, transparent, safe brand. Or are you more of a boundary pushing, rule breaking brand? And then that's going to affect the archetype that you use. Who's heard of brand amortize? Not many of you, guys. We've got to get onto this shit. It literally writes your marketing for you. There are 12 brand archetypes, again based on psychology, and it will literally tell you what your goals are, what the values are, how you should show up in your marketing. It makes it so clear.
Speaker 1:By doing all of this pre-work, you get to avoid all of the questions that come up. It's like should I share my personal life? Should I share stuff about what's going on at home? Should I only talk about my business? Should I share? Do I sweat? Do I not sweat? What do I wear? All of these questions that come up.
Speaker 1:For all of you perfectionists sitting in this room and I guarantee a lot of you are perfectionists because the time it spends to put those lashes on. You have to be a perfectionist in order to do that. It also will help you understand the transformed identity of who you are trying to market to. This is a game changer. I want you to realize you are not just applying lashes or you're not just selling beauty products. That's not what you do. What you are actually doing, you are changing how people see themselves. That new mom who feels like shit and who's given her whole life away to raise her baby, that two hours that she comes to you in your salon to get lash extensions that is her asserting her self-worth. That is her telling herself I deserve to spend this time and this money on myself to make myself feel better. That entrepreneur who comes in and gets her lashes and walks away feeling a million bucks. You are actually helping her grow her business because of how confident she can then feel to meet clients, to get on social media.
Speaker 1:Think bigger than what you were just doing. You are actually transforming the lives of the people that you are working with and through our methods, we help you articulate exactly what that transformed identity is, and then that helps you create your content persona, because then you should be showing up in your content as that ideal version of your audiences and that is how they fall in love with you. We take you through not just a marketing funnel in one platform, but across all of the platforms. We completely debunk all of the social media myths. We teach you how to take the right action. Now.
Speaker 1:I became obsessed with the 80 20 rule at the beginning of last year, where 20 of what you do drives 80 of the results. And I'm like I'm only going to do the 20 because I want to go to europe, right? So what I do? I teach you how to do social media, iphone websites, emails and pay ads, but only doing the shit that actually will get you the results. And, of course, the mindset work. Mindset affects marketing more than you'll ever believe. If you're not getting results in your marketing and yet you're doing all the right things, it's because there's something going on up here. There's limiting beliefs happening. It's holding you back. It's holding you back from being who you authentically are and your people can feel letting your content. So you need to work on yourself in order to get through to your audiences and so that they feel magnetized to you.
Speaker 1:So what we offer through the full library, through birdcage school, it is for business owners. It's also so for professional marketers. The first thing we actually do, we teach you how to write your own life strategy, how to vision board and how to rediscover your authenticity, because I guarantee a lot of you are sitting here right now going. I don't actually, uh, know who I authentically am. I know I felt like that, and so what we're trying to do is figure out what is important to you and what is something that you just told was important to you, right? So we try and figure out what you actually want versus what you just think you want. We then help you craft your plan, which that funnel worksheet that you'll download. That is the start of that, so make sure you grab that. Then we teach you how to execute like a pro, and then we work with you on the mindset work. We cover off all these platforms.
Speaker 1:But I want to tell you guys, something I shouldn't give a fuck about platforms. I don't keep up with what the latest Instagram changes and the rules are. With the TikTok thing, I don't care what platform we're using, because it doesn't really matter. If your content is good, it's going to get the results, regardless of how many hashtags you use or how long it is, or what hook you use. And the same, even if you're doing all the right tactics, stuff that you've been called, if your content's shit, it's not going to help that. So what we need to do is focus on all of this stuff first Understanding what your authentic values are, making sure that flows through to your content and you have an authentic plan so that you can then leverage these platforms here. And we do teach you how to use them, but it's like that's not the focus and that should never be the focus.
Speaker 1:So if you do want to join us and let us help you get to that next level, our program it is a 12 month access to our bestselling program. We get monthly live group coaching calls. We have a 24 seven online community. We have monthly progress check-ins. We make sure you're actually doing the shit that you're doing, because I don't know Like who's bought a course before and hasn't actually finished it Me no, we're obsessed with making you do the thing. It is our reputation on the line as well. To make sure that you get results.
Speaker 1:We also have a rule. Karen is sitting right there. She is our senior marketing strategist and she is the professional stalker. If you give us permission, we will stalk the shit out of you and make sure you do what you actually paid the money to go and do you also have the option to win free coaching sessions. It's where we find our guests for our best-selling top-charting podcast, and there's heaps more benefits as well. So if you do want to join, I have a special offer for you guys.
Speaker 1:Today. Our standard online pricing is $4,660, including GST, for the 12 months, but I'm giving you $1,000 off because something I noticed is that it is more important for me to get the right people into our communities, because I want to create the right vibe. I want the right energy in there. I don't want people who think they're going to get rich quick. I don't want people who are at the victim mentality. I want people who are dedicated and who show up to business events like this, who are ready to better their business, better themselves. That is who we need in our community, because that is how we all benefit and that is how we raise ourselves up together. So if you do want to join us, that is the link to the website Use the code Lashmasters to claim and this is something I want you to realize Based on this discounted rate of only $3,660, including GST, all you need to do depending on how much you charge is get one to two extra appointments a month and you're covering the cost for that.
Speaker 1:If you're anything like the rest of our students, you're going to get shit loads more than one to two new customers a month, so it feels like you're no brainer. Also, if you come and visit our little booth out there, we are giving away a content creator pack with all of our favorite our mics, our lighting, our tripods and pretty bag. So make sure you come and enter that as well. But, all of this aside, I want you guys to be brave, to step up and to break the rules because, remember, you are iconic and the world leads you to be unapologetically yourself. Otherwise, you're just vanilla ice cream tasty cheese and that's not going to change the world at all. We want some stinky black truffle cheese. We want some I don't know what's the stickiest cheese you can imagine. That's what we want, and we want people to love you or hate you, because otherwise you're just like everyone else. Woo, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of the Not so Kind Regards podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. If you did, we would really appreciate if you left a review, on whatever streaming platform you are using. It helps us to grow as a brand new podcast and to help many more business owners and content creators reach their goals, just like we hope this brought you one step closer to your. Remember, connect with us on TikTok at Maddie Birdcage and at Birdcage Marketing, and the same handles on Instagram again, and if you really want to learn how to work with us, make sure you head to our website and book a call. We would love to speak with you.