The Harsh Truth About Content, Burnout, and Staying in the Game

I’m opening the doors soon to my 7-figure mastermind. Find out more and join the waitlist here so you’re first to know when applications open: https://JasmineStar.com/mastermind <<

Let’s talk about the F-word… and no, not that one. I’m talking about Feast, Famine, Funnels, and Fatigue (okay, maybe that’s four F-words 😅).

In this solo episode, I’m bringing you into a raw, unfiltered conversation I had inside my mastermind for 7-figure founders. This isn’t a polished keynote. This is scrappy, honest truth-telling about why content is still king, why marketing is exhausting (and that’s normal), and what it really takes to stay relevant in a market that moves faster than ever.

We’re diving into:

• Why content is your business moat and your growth multiplier
• How the marketing game changes daily (and how to keep up)
• What it means to lead a team without abdicating responsibility
• The burnout that happens when you expect your team to be as hungry as you are
• The behind-the-scenes of working with a corporate CMO trying to “think like a startup”
• A crazy story of an $18M marketing budget slashed to $3M and what they did next
• Why the best-performing ad had nothing to do with fancy production (spoiler: it was men's underwear and Canva)

If you’ve ever felt tired, unsure, or tempted to “set it and forget it” with your content or funnels… this episode is the wake-up call you didn’t know you needed.

It’s gritty, it’s real, and it’s straight from the trenches of conversations I’m having with powerhouse entrepreneurs every single day.

Let’s get our hands dirty, let’s create the content inventory, and let’s stay at the table—because marketing doesn’t slow down, and neither should we.

Click >>PLAY<< to hear all of this and:

[00:01] Why content is the moat of your business—and your fast track to growth [00:58] Raw insights from a mastermind with 7-figure founders: why evergreen funnels aren’t enough [02:24] Why marketing feels exhausting: the buffet is always moving [03:30] Hard truths: You haven’t earned the right to abdicate your marketing responsibility [04:39] What a corporate CMO learned after an $18M budget got slashed: Think like a startup [05:39] The Canva ad that beat every fancy reel: why scrappy wins [06:45] Reassessing your funnel? Start here, not at the top

For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode540

Transcript

Jasmine Star 00:00:00  Content. You love it. You hate it. You need it. I am so fired up about this topic. But first, let me just make you welcome here. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show where we talk about business, we talk about growth, we talk about marketing and times. We talk about mindset. But the mindset specifically set to content, which is like a love hate relationship with a lot of entrepreneurs. In fact, I get so fired up about this topic, and I think it is absolutely so important that what somebody once told me, Jasmine, you hold a hammer and according to you, everything is a nail. Yeah. If that nail can be made into content. Listen, I know I am biased, but I will say that content is a driver. Content is a moat to your business. Content is a fast track to growth. However, I understand how difficult it can be. So I want to have a conversation now. But I think that, you know, as I show up to my podcast, well, we have it on video and we have it on audio, and I'm going to show up and I have my notes here.

Jasmine Star 00:00:58  But what I really want to do is show a very scrappy, real, raw conversation that I had with my group of seven figure founders in my mastermind. Let me roll that clip now. I'm just going to repeat what we all know. I'm going to repeat what we all know. We cannot do the same thing in the same way and expect it to grow and or not change. The reason why marketing industry has the highest turnover is because, unlike being a CEO or a CFO, a CTO optimization for marketing is a moving target. Every single day the target moves. So what we want and aspire for is an evergreen model. And I believe that Paige and Kara are set up for the evergreen model. But let us not forget that the deal flow to that evergreen model will never be the same. And so on. The days that it is a feast, bring out the fork and get fat. That because the days of famine are coming. That is the nature of marketing. Now the people who take the best, the people who are constantly with the fork at the table, are the people who are the crappiest, trying the newest things, never resting on a laurel, taking their wins and saying, how do I triple down? How do I start something new? That is exhausting.

Jasmine Star 00:02:24  The reason we get most burnt out is because the people who we want to bring into our orbit, we want them to think like us and have the same hunger to stay satiated at a table with a buffet that is always moving. That's hard. And we also need to hold this person accountable to know enough about the game to be a little bit dangerous. And that's exhausting because quite honestly, you don't care anymore. You don't care. You're an CEO. I needed to go. But many of us in this stage of business that we're in, we haven't earned the right to abdicate our responsibility. I'll say that right here, myself included. We haven't earned the right to abdicate ourselves from the responsibility of knowing what marketing works. I had a glorious opportunity. Fortuitous opportunity to sit with. And we'll keep this here on the call. I know the CMO of had started an inbound company called, and their big objective in 2024 was to take market share from. They had a marketing budget of $18 million. And the marketing director for last December got word that they missed their marks, and their marketing budget was dropped to 3 million from 18.

Jasmine Star 00:03:30  This guy comes to the traditional corporate world. The CMO of reached out to me and she said, our new CEO went to the director of marketing and said, you need to market this business like it's a startup. And she's like, you're the only person who I know who can do this. She's like, can you meet with him? I met with him, and I was so taken aback by the lack of knowledge of how much inventory is required to take market share. But I say the same thing to us here, that we need to have so much inventory that we understand the cost of ads and or acquisition. And just because you had ads that worked a month ago or a year ago means nothing to you today. So how much inventory can we create in order for us to keep that ad spend low? And so my advice to Kara, my advice to page, would be the same advice that I'm sitting there for the director of marketing and saying, how much inventory can we get in the shortest amount of time possible? And then because he immediately went to, well, we have to get our our stand up ads and our brand ambassadors, we need to do this.

Jasmine Star 00:04:39  And I was like, no, absolutely not. I need to know what can you give me in 24 hours to start testing? Period. Then I had a conversation with the CEO of it's a high end men's outdoor brand, and they had a budget of $1 million to create collateral. And they hired models. They did the reels, they did the beautiful cinematic and the best performing ad with an eight Roas, eight x Roas for them was huge, for them is huge, and eight x Roas is huge. Was a pair of men's underwear and two words on top. It took that team in Canva less than a minute to create, and he says, we can't put enough money behind this ad. So the game is always changing. It is exhausting. The winners are the people who gorge the most and quickly move on to the next table, never resting on what used to work. So if you have a funnel ladies travel job well done. Go back to the blackboard and blackboard. What is this, 1981? The blackboard.

Jasmine Star 00:05:39  Go back to the digital tablet and figure out what do we need to do to create the inventory that we need. Let's go back to the question and the order of operations for GRI. I put at the frickin very bottom your social media and podcast. That's a top five initiative. No it's not. We ain't got the funnel yet. We don't have the sales team yet. We don't have the value proposition yet. We don't have time on the calendar yet. Know down, up. Execute. then earn the right to put money behind it. This gentleman that I was speaking to was saying, okay, well, we want to put ads. And I said, no, no money towards no ads until we get data and analytics. No money on no ads until we have all organic. We see what's an organic and then we double down and then we get users. And so I immediately think to both Page and Kara, who within your community would be able to create UGC user generated content that might add to your inventory to take you out of it, highlight the community, see who's doing the best, and then put behind money behind that and give them a kickback for every person that buys from their ad.

Jasmine Star 00:06:40  You know those girls on Instagram that are in the hair, the teeth and all that other stuff. They need it organic. The company saw it, said, can we use your name and likeness? Some ladies are letting them do it for free. God bless them. Bless their heart. Let me talk to them for a little bit. Others are getting a portion of every ad that worked towards it. Not as much as a standard affiliate, but a fractional cost of it because that ad is actually working. Good job, good job. We can't earn the right to get UGC until we start understanding what is this? How do we do this? Who's understanding it? What are we running against? And so I just wanted to start there. And if there's other ideas for lead gen. But let us keep the truth. The truth. Okay, so did I sound angry? No, I'm not angry. Then go. Passion. I am passionate about this topic, so sometimes it comes across as like, all sharp edges.

Jasmine Star 00:07:28  But let me just tell you, the sharp edges meet at the bottom of a heart that have the rounded edges on top. I really care about your business and I want you to win. So because we are all about taking action here at the Jazmin Starr Show, we just don't listen and we just don't watch. We take action with a little bit of homework and know if you made it to this point, you cannot pause this podcast, you cannot turn away. You can't find a new YouTube video to consume. No, this is it. It's too late. There's no going back now. So this is going to be a homework assignment and is going to be really easy. And it's going to be a great way to get engagement. It is going to be a great way to build real relationships. And it's going to be a great way to get hot leads. Have I convinced you? Are you on that content train yet? Choo choo! Get on board, y'all. Let's go. Now what I want you to do.

Jasmine Star 00:08:16  This is your homework assignment. You're going to ask a yes or no question. You're going to use the pole feature on an Instagram story. So what you will do is you will get a short video or you will get a photo. You will post it as a story. And then in the upper right hand corner you're going to see this little kind of like smiley face square. You're going to click on that square, and then you're going to find in one of those features you're going to click on the pole. You're going to click on a pole and you're going to ask a yes or no pole. We're going to make it easy. We're going to make it dumb proof yes or no. Now however, people answer yes or no to whatever it is you ask. You're going to send them a message. I am going to send a stranger a message. Yes, absolutely. Honey, this is how we get them hot leads. Now here's why. There was a point in time where if somebody had a private account, you could not send them a message that still exists today, but I recently found a workaround.

Jasmine Star 00:09:15  If you have a poll and somebody answers the poll, you can go and see the results of the poll. You can click on that person's profile. And there it will give you a way to message them, even if they have a private account. If they responded or reacted to a poll, you can send them a one time message. Oh, we. Let's go. You want to start talking to people? Start knocking on doors. Guess what? I'm going to make it so easy. You don't have to put flyers on people's cars. You don't have to do door knocking. You don't have to send cold emails and have real relationships with people who've already engaged in your account. Boom. Punto final, lets go. So if you ask a yes or no and they agree affirmatively, then you want to send a message and be like, hey, this is so interesting, I found insightful. Thanks for voting, whatever the case may be. And then what I want you to do is ask a question.

Jasmine Star 00:10:03  Why? Because the minute they respond to you, their DMs are open to you. Boom! That's it. That's your homework assignment. It cannot be hard. And let me tell you. People have been saying, Jasmine, sometimes you just speak a little too rough. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to say what I mean. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say it real nice, and I'm gonna say it with a smile. Okay, here we go. If you don't want to post this very easy and engaging poll on Instagram, I'm going to probably guess you don't want it bad enough. Ding! If I said it nice, but I really mean it is that there are people out there who are going to do scrappy action, and they're going to do things that you're not willing to do because how it makes you feel, and they're going to do the engagement and they're going to do the slow roll, and they're going to build those things, and they're going to get the results that you really want, but you're not willing to do the things that make you a little bit uncomfortable.

Jasmine Star 00:10:49  Ooh, did she come in sideways? Maybe this is probably the wrong or maybe the right time to tell you that we are not opening enrollment for the mastermind at this point in time, but if you want to be on the waitlist, if you want to get on these insider calls, you can go to Jasmine star.com/mastermind. If I haven't scared you away by now, you might just be welcomed on into the fold. Thank you for watching and listening to The Jasmine Star Show.