Hey there. Welcome to the coming home to joy business podcast. I'm your host, Tina Joy Cochran, and I am so happy that you are here. There is no need to stop your busy life right now. Let's just hang out together as we discover more joy in business. Just drop me into your pocket and keep on going. Can't wait to share this episode with you. All right, here we go. I am over the moon grateful and happy that you have committed to yourself and to your business and to this process. If you haven't figured it out already, this is a journey and a process, and that's okay because you're building a lifestyle business. So you're going to be living your life anyway. So you can work through this process at the pace that works best for you. So we're going to jump in to how to find customers without hustle and grind and struggle. So let's go ahead and pray. Father, you are amazing. And we thank you so much that you have been part of this process, that you are with us in it, that you understand where we're coming from, that you understand where the tough stuff is. You understand our heart for wanting to Make this easier, wanting to have more fun in our lives that you actually designed us that way and that you want this business just as much as we do, if not more, help us to see that in this in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. So we defined marketing as the process of helping people become aware of what you offer and then guiding them to make a decision and take action. Remember our job as people who do marketing is not to convince people to buy something they don't want. Please do not think you have to do that. Your job is, to be clear about what you offer and how people get it. So they can make a decision. We're not in charge of their decision. They're in charge of their decision. And we learned that a secret power that we can tap into is joy. And how did we define joy? We define joy as a state of being a state of being settled in the clarity of what we're called to do and the confidence of who we are and we're committed so that we then can walk through each day in peace and strength. Couple of. Things to remember, what is the most effective marketing strategy? Do you remember the most effective marketing strategy is the one that you will do We're going to talk a little more about strategies, but it doesn't matter what you pick if you don't do it. So if you're going to commit to marketing, you're going to commit to what you can and what you will do. We learned. When we talked about joy that you are the number one asset in your business. As you build a lifestyle business, it isn't about my business is over here. My life is over here. And the two do not intersect. Our job is to walk through our life. Remember, Jesus just went about doing his life, doing his purpose, and that changed everything. So remember the most effective marketing strategy is the one that you will do. And. You are the number one asset in your business. So today we're going to talk about customers and how, once we've got that clear message, once we're starting to walk in joy, how do we find people to talk to? This is usually where hustle shows up. This is usually where we start to get ourselves frantically running in circles. And why? Because of fear. Fear starts to show up. Fear of rejection, fear of success, all of those things. Remember your business only grows to the level that you do. before we dig into the steps to find customers, we need to address fear. So let's address fear. Second Timothy one seven says for God did not give us a spirit of fear. He gave us a spirit of power and of love and of good There are some other translations of this verse that talk about power and love and self discipline. Essentially fear does not have a place in growing your business. Please do not hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying don't be afraid because fear is. A feeling, and we learned when we talked about joy, that feelings ebb and flow feelings are not something that we get to necessarily control. I'm not saying you won't feel afraid. I'm saying we're going to choose not to let fear run the show because God did not give us that spirit of fear. He gave us joy and power and a sound mind. And we're going to step into that. So if we're clearing the deck now and saying, okay, I'm going to commit to marketing. I'm going to commit to marketing from a place of joy now, how do I find customers? Here's some steps. Step number one is to build a sandbox. And we're going to talk about what that means and how you build a sandbox. Building a sandbox is essentially the core principle of how I've built my business and how I help other people build their businesses. The next step is to pick your strategies that you're going to use. What tools and techniques will you use? And then we design a plan and we take action. So we start with building a sandbox. We pick some marketing strategies. We design a plan and we take action. Let's dig a little bit deeper into each one of those. So building a sandbox. What is a sandbox? When you are creative, we like to change things. And I had a conversation years ago with a fellow coach who coaches creatives. And she says, you know, I just like to help them build a sandbox big enough for them to create in. Wouldn't it be fun to be in a place where creativity doesn't make your business stall. It actually improves your business. And that's what we're trying to do. What does a sandbox do? Sandbox gives you clarity. It keeps you focused and it protects you from overwhelm. We don't want to be overwhelmed in our business. The next thing that we do is decide which strategies that you're going to use. When you're marketing, there are certain strategies that you can use. You can use social media, you can use email marketing, you can use direct contact. The idea behind deciding which strategies you use is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you pick. It matters that you pick. Makes sense. So what we're trying to do is pick something and then put together a plan of action. And when I talk about a plan of action, and when I work with clients in Golden Heartland, what we work with is a 12 week plan. We don't plan For ever, mainly because we're creatives. And if I have to do the same thing over and over and over again, forever, guess what? I won't do it. And guess what? Now I don't have the most effective marketing strategy, right? So we put together a plan for 12 weeks for the next 12 weeks. I will commit to doing these actions every week, every day for 12 weeks. And then we do them. Last step, we take action. We start working on them. So to find customers, build a sandbox, pick your strategies. Design a plan and take action. Just start habakkuk 2, 2 says, write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. Notice there's two parts to this. It's not just write the vision and then hope God shows up and delivers it. It's right. The vision, make it plain that you may run and take action. And that's what we want to do. So how do we get this great vision. There are four key questions that you must answer in order to build a sandbox. And I guarantee you that if you will address these questions in your business, You will find that you can create a business that you absolutely love sharing with people. Number one question is, what are you trying to sell? What do I mean by that? if I pay you money, what do I get? I'll give you an example. So as I've mentioned, I run a business community for women called golden Heartland. Golden Heartland is a business community for women. What am I trying to sell? When I am talking about my business, I sell memberships in my community. They range from 47 a month to 197 a month what am I trying to sell? Memberships. One of the things that we get tangled in sometimes with this what question is we start a business, but we're not Crystal clear on what we are trying to sell and so we start asking people What would you like me to make for you? Wouldn't it be terrible to have a business where the business is huge? But you're having to make the same thing over and over again. That's called manufacturing and most of the people I work with You That's not what they're trying to do. Remember, it doesn't matter what you pick. Just that you pick. So what are you trying to sell? Next question, who is your ideal customer? Essentially, who is it for? So to come back to the example of golden heartland, golden heartland, what do I sell? I sell memberships. Question number two, who is it for? It is for creative women of faith who want to build a lifestyle business. Essentially. Women who are trying to earn a living so they can live in a certain way by using the things that they can create. That's who it's for. So when you are thinking about your business, who is it for? You will hear this referred to as niche. You will hear it referred to as ideal customer. You will hear it referred to as avatar, but the question is, who's your who? It makes it a lot easier to market. It makes it a lot easier to invite people when you know who you're trying to invite. Makes sense? Question number three, why are you in business? Now let's be honest. A lot of times we don't even think about why we're in business. Business showed up by accident. You created something and next thing you know, you're popping up at a craft show because five of your friends bought it from you. And they said, you should make a business out of it. And you never signed up to be a business owner in the first place. If this is you, you are in the right place. You weren't planning to do marketing. You weren't planning to do sales. All you wanted to do was live a certain way and create some stuff. And hope there was some money in between there. So take some time. And as you sift through those questions of why are you in business at all? Why is it not a hobby? If it's a hobby, fine. Own that it's a hobby, but business, own that it's a business. Okay. Question number four. And this is one, a lot of people don't ask, how big do you want to be here on that? Are you wanting to be bigger? What does that mean? If you're producing hand knitted sweaters, how many of them do you want to make in a year? That how big informs a lot of other decisions. It informs how much you're going to charge for it. It informs how many people that you are looking for and who are they. Take some time to be honest with yourself on how big do you really want to be. It's not so much about, do you want to be small? It's about making sure the business doesn't start to run you. Does this make sense? What we're trying to do with how big do you want to be is put a framework, put a box around your creativity so that you can create to your heart's content. And you're not. Running down a rabbit trail of basically you built yourself a job, not a business. Does that make sense? If you wanted to run a catering business how big do you want that business to be? How many events a year do you want to do? You could do hundreds of events a year, but is that really what you want? Is that really going to give you the lifestyle that you want? These are the questions that we address. I designed in golden heartland, a online course that really helps to dig into this. And a couple of times a year, what we do is we do an accelerator that guides you through it. And then I work with you as a coach Don't want to waste our time on that right now, but I just want you to know that if you don't have. Immediate answers to this. Understand this is a process. That's why it's a sandbox. As you ask these questions, all of this, what we call rocks and poo start to show up all of these things, because remember you're the number one asset and your business only grows to the level that you do. So as you start to ask questions, things start to show up fear, what you believe. And guess what? As you walk in joy, you get the power. to answer those questions with clarity that then gives you confidence. And now the business is not only easy to do, but it's fun because it's like hanging out with some of your friends. It's having a dinner party on a regular basis with people that you love to work with. And that's what building a sandbox does for you. And that's why these four questions are the key questions to understanding what to do next in your business. Ephesians 3 20 in the passions translation is just, I just love this because here's what happens when we walk and embrace this process. We can rest on this promise. Never doubt God's mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve. infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination. He will outdo them all for his miraculous power constantly energizes you. Doesn't that sound amazing? I love that verse. And that's what we're talking about when we talk about a joy led business, a joy led life. Leads to a joy led business, leads to joy led marketing, leads to being able to build sandbox and answer these questions, which then makes the rest of it easy. Just a matter of pick, which tool you're going to use and go. You think about when you're creating something, you pick tools and then you use them and you go. That's what we're talking about. Same thing applies in business. This process changes everything. That life that you're dreaming about. That's right on the other side of change and God's going to give it to you and he wants it for you too. But there's one final decision I want you to think about. That final decision, it comes from a concept by one of my favorite thought leaders in the marketing space, Seth Godin So Seth Godin. Has developed a concept called the smallest viable audience or SVA. What does a smallest viable audience mean? It means when you are marketing, when you are building your business, when you're thinking about who your client is. How you get the message out instead of thinking about how can I get it out to everybody? We lean into the smallest number of customers or sales That we need to earn the money needed to support the lifestyle we want. So what does that mean? What that means is that? You are focused on the smallest number of people that you need to find. For example, if you make and knitted custom sweaters and you know, you are only going to be able to make say 50 of them in a year and you know, you want to make 50, 000 when you do the math, 50 sweaters have to be sold at a thousand dollars a piece. In order for you to make 50, 000. Does this make sense? You're not looking for 500 people to say yes, you are only looking for 50 people to say yes. Make sense? So how do we do this? First, we figure out who we're looking for. Then we figure out how much income, and then we figure out what our capacity is. And this helps you back into the price. Start with the smallest. Not what is scalable. You can grow, enjoy, and let God do the rest. Often we plan for scalable. We plan for a great big business and then it scares us. And then we back off and we back off. And next thing you know, we're doing nothing and we're blaming ourselves that we're not a business owner. And that's not the truth. Start with the smallest viable audience and move on from there. You ready for some assignments? I know this sounds overwhelming, but trust me, it is not. If you think about anything that you've learned to do,, when you first started to learn the tools and techniques, how to do it, there was a lot to learn, but over time it built a rhythm and you just kept moving forward. That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to put you in a place where you have a sandbox blueprint. You have a scaffolding and a structure that allows you to grow and ebb and flow and not chase your business. Your business comes out from the inside and overflows onto everyone rather than you're chasing people to buy from you. If that sounds good for you, you're in the right place. All right, here's your assignment. Answer these questions. What are you trying to sell? Who is your ideal customer? Start there and then ask yourself. Will you commit to finding your smallest viable audience or SVA? Okay. Are you willing to kind of dig in and find the smallest viable audience? Once you understand that, then it's just take action, pick a, pick a tool, take action, pick a tool, take action. At the end of 12 weeks, see where you're at, see where you need to adjust and tweak and go and keep on going. I know that I know that I know that I know that what you're dreaming about and what you want is possible as you grow in joy, as you learn what you need to learn. And as you step into making marketing your friend, father, thank you. Thank you that you never give up on us. Thank you that you have already provided, that you've already placed things out into our future, that we can. We can't even imagine help us to just exhale into the joy that you have created for us and walk in a level of confidence and clarity and commit to showing up for you, with you, for the people you have called us to serve in Jesus name. Amen. Talk to you soon. You've been listening to the Coming Home to Joy business podcast. For more joy and business, check out our website at goldenheartland. com. You might find something perfect just for you. This is Tina Joy Cochran. Your host, coach, and the founder of the Golden Heartland business community for women. Thanks for being here. And don't forget to subscribe and share this with your friends. Remember, everything you're dreaming of is just on the other side of change. Being joy led in your business will get you there. We'll see you next time.