How to Stop Speaking into the Void

[00:00:00] INTRO: After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Katherine Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen her and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

[00:00:26] Be The Sought After Entrepreneur podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less. Time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

[00:00:46] Welcome to Be the Sought After Entrepreneur podcast, and here's your host, Katherine Thompson. 

[00:00:55] Kathryn Thompson: Hey. Hey, super Stok that you're tuning into this week's episode, and I cannot wait to dive in today's [00:01:00] topic. But before we do, I need to acknowledge and celebrate something really special. This is officially our hundredth episode at Be the Sought After Entrepreneur podcast.

[00:01:10] Which is absolutely crazy in my opinion. When I started this podcast just under two years ago, I don't really think I had any expectation other than the fact that I wanted to use this outlet as a way to drop into your ears every single week in a way that helped reshape how we do marketing and sales to help you.

[00:01:32] Look at marketing and sales in a very different way than how it was traditionally taught. Very analytical, logical, psychological. I wanted to offer insight into how you can bring the heart back into marketing and sales and how you can do it in an ethical and transparent way. And I don't think I really realized, again, the ripple effect that it was gonna have, but also I don't think I really.

[00:01:56] Had the grasp of the people that were gonna come into my world as a [00:02:00] result of that, the guests that I've been able to interview, Emmy Award-winning journalists, people that have been on the Dragons Den, you know, lead singers of rock bands, like, it's just been absolutely phenomenal. And I'm so freaking grateful to each and every one of you that tunes in every week to listen to this podcast or binges it over a period of time, because without you, This podcast wouldn't exist, and so I just wanna take this opportunity to thank you and express my gratitude and appreciation to each and every one of you.

[00:02:30] I absolutely love hearing from you. When people email me about the podcast or they drop into my dms and tell me how valuable it is or how much insight that they've received, or how liberated they. Feel that they get to do marketing and sales in a way that actually feels good for them. It literally moves me.

[00:02:49] It's like why I do what I do. And so I want to keep hearing from you. Please keep shooting me those emails, dropping into my dms at Creatively own because I love hearing from you. [00:03:00] Now I'm really excited for this episode because if you listen to last week's episode, I shared about why you're likely feeling friend zoned in your business and some practical ways to overcome that being friend zone.

[00:03:14] And on this week's episode, I want to talk about speaking to the void, which is something that I hear often from y'all is that Catherine, I feel like I'm speaking to the void. I'm creating this content, I'm putting this content out into the world. But it's like crickets, right? I'm not really getting a ton of engagement.

[00:03:32] I'm not getting a lot of inquiries. It just feels like I'm broadcasting this message out into the world, and I don't know how to overcome that. Now I wanna share with you practical ways on how to do that, but first I wanna share why this is likely happening. So if you feel like you're speaking to the void, keep listening cuz I'm gonna.

[00:03:52] Share this with you right now. The reason why this often happens where you feel like you're speaking into the void is because you're [00:04:00] literally broadcasting this message out into the ethers with no real strategy, let's call it, right? So think about it in your business, when you show up to post on social media, you're posting a post today, tomorrow, the next day.

[00:04:15] But it's all done from a place of, let's just say, winging it. Or maybe you're. Classifying it as inspiration, which is great. I'm not saying that we don't wanna be inspired when we're posting our content, but if you're winging your content in any way, shape, or form, It's likely gonna result in you speaking to the void.

[00:04:34] Because if you've been following me for a while, you've likely heard me say, in order to really move someone down that customer buying journey with you and to be interested in what you're doing, then you have to take them on that customer buying journey. Right? And taking someone on that customer drive buying journey is about putting the right message in front of the right people.

[00:04:56] At the right time. Now, you might be thinking, but isn't that what I'm doing, [00:05:00] Catherine? I'm creating content weekly, 3, 5, 7 days a week. Sure. Maybe I'm winging it. Maybe I'm creating content spontaneously with no real plan, but I'm showing up all the time speaking specifically to the people that I wanna attract, for example.

[00:05:16] Women struggling with fertility or women who want support with their style, or people that want help rewiring their subconscious beliefs, or entrepreneurs that want to attract more clients like I'm doing that. Isn't that what that means By putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time.

[00:05:32] And the short answer is no. Here's why I want you to think about social media like a concert. I don't know. You're going to your favorite band or you're going to watch your favorite musician play, and maybe you're showing up to a stadium, an amphitheater, or maybe it's an outdoor festival, and you're showing up and there's thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and the common reason those thousands of people are there.

[00:05:55] Is because they're coming to watch their favorite band play, [00:06:00] or maybe they're on their first date and they don't even know who's playing. Or maybe they won concert tickets and they have no clue who these people are that they're showing up to see in concert. But they won the tickets and they couldn't turn them down.

[00:06:10] So here they are. We have no idea what brought all these people to the concert. We just know that they're at the concert and they want to watch whoever's playing. Right? So there's a commonality here of that. They're here for the concert. The same is for social media, right? People join Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn for maybe a variety of different reasons, and they're likely not all the same reasons, but the commonality is.

[00:06:38] Social media, they're on the platform. You know, I often hear people say, well, I'm only on Facebook to stay in touch with close family and friends, or, I only joined Instagram because I was traveling and wanted to share my travel pictures so my family and friends could see it. Like, we have no idea why people joined the app in the first place.

[00:06:56] Right? They're on those apps, but the common thread [00:07:00] is social media. So similarly to the concert, the common thing is that they came to watch whoever was playing, let's just say, right? But there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Now, I want you to imagine that you're in this amphitheater and everybody's talking.

[00:07:16] And it's super loud in there and people are talking and sharing and all these sorts of things, and you can barely hear yourself think social media is the exact same way, which is why it can feel like you're speaking into the void it, which is why it can feel like you're creating content and you're putting it out there and nobody's really hearing you.

[00:07:34] Because if you've ever been to a concert or you've ever been to a party or you've ever been in a room of people and hundreds and thousands of people are talking, you can barely hear your yourself think, let alone hear what anybody else is saying, right? It's like, what did you just say? It's so loud in here.

[00:07:49] The same is with social media. And so if you were just showing up, On social media with the hope that you can create content and pump it out weekly, and that [00:08:00] you are going to attract tons of people into your business all the time, that is going to cause you to speak into the void because there needs to be a clear pathway of where people are going, right?

[00:08:13] You need to have a clear pathway of like, okay, now that I've got your attention, What do I want to do with that attention? Right? And if you're just winging it and just putting out content with no real sort of direction or plan around what that even looks like. And by plan, I mean what's your offers? By plan, I mean is like, do you want to take them off the app and and have them sign into an email?

[00:08:37] Do you want them to go into your dms and have conversations there? That's what I mean by a plan. You can still follow your intuition and let that guide you in the content creation process. But you need a plan of where people are going to go. Do you want them to get on a call with you? Do you want them to buy straight off your website?

[00:08:56] Like what does that look like? And oftentimes when [00:09:00] I'm working with clients who feel like they're speaking into the void, one of the very first things that I notice is, is that it's just a matter of broadcasting their message out onto social media with no real end. Plan and play, right? It's like, well, you just want people to randomly DM you that they wanna work with you.

[00:09:19] That might happen from time to time, but if you are not directing people where you want people to ultimately go or end up, or if you are not supporting the conversation and guiding it to where you want it to go, and you're just hoping that you can broadcast a message out and you're going to have thousands of people opt in, it's like standing in the middle of that concert yelling.

[00:09:42] Buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing, and everyone's looking around you going, I don't even want your thing, or, Who do you think you are? I came to watch a concert. Or what the heck's going on? Or, I can't even hear you cuz it's so loud in here. Right? You have to think about putting that message in front of the [00:10:00] right people, but also at the right time.

[00:10:02] There's a whole timing factor, right? It's like, If you were to just start selling your offer on the very first date to somebody or the very first meeting, people are often gonna be turned off by it. It's the same thing, right? So if you're showing up daily on social with the intention and the hope that you're gonna make sales every day from your content, and there's no real other planner intention around that of like, what am I actually offering people from a place of.

[00:10:30] Reciprocity value and generosity, right? If it's just to make sales very much, you're gonna feel like you're speaking into the void because nobody wants to be sold to, which is why I look at social media in a very different way. I. And I support my clients to look at it in a different way as well, so that they can move beyond speaking to the void.

[00:10:53] They can move beyond the friend zone and they can create really great connections with their audience [00:11:00] and also sell their amazing offers that they have. And the way in which I look at social media is, is I don't look at it primarily as the sales machine in my business, even though. 95% of my clients come via social media, but I'm not blasting sales content every single day on social media, which is one of the biggest mistakes I see that contributes to being friend zoned or speaking to the void, but more predominantly speaking to the void.

[00:11:35] Because when you're selling, selling, selling, selling, selling people, They just tune you out. They're just, they start to tune you out, even though they might've come to your space going, oh, this person has something of value that I want. But I can see that every post that they're making is all about sales and buying my thing.

[00:11:53] There's no other depth or value or insight into who this person is. [00:12:00] Right? Which is what social media's about. It's like your storefront, it's like your website. It's like, Showing people a collection of what you have. You also have to think about where people are coming from when they show up, they might see that first snippet of content that's posted or shared or whatever, and they land on your feed and they've only read that one caption.

[00:12:20] They're like, heck yeah, I like that caption. Now what do you got from me? And if they landed there and they were, all they saw was like, buy my offers. They would go, but I don't know who you are and I don't know if you're even credible to be teaching the thing that you say you're teaching. Right? They need to get an insight, which is what your social media in my opinion is for.

[00:12:40] It's to create a body or a collection of work in a lot of ways, in snippets of ways. It's there to add inspiration. It's there to. Create awareness. It's there to add value from a place of generosity and reciprocity. It's not there, in my opinion, to be selling [00:13:00] every single day and every single post. That's where your engagement's gonna go down.

[00:13:05] That's where. People are gonna tune you out for sure, because when they land on your feed for the first time, they might not even know who you are. Similarly, if you were to go to a concert and then just start blasting your message to the world on a soapbox, people would be like, I don't even know who you are, and like, why are you preaching at me?

[00:13:21] You know what I mean? It's like they, people have gotta get to know who you are, and then they also have to see the value in what you do. And so it's about creating what I call that ecosystem more than anything. That one will help you to stop speaking to the void. And two, move you beyond that friend zone place because there is this beautiful, clear customer journey that you're taking people on and they can see that.

[00:13:45] Which brings me to my next point, which is one of the other big reasons why people feel like they're speaking to the void, and it's usually lack of clarity on who they're ultimately speaking to or changing who they're speaking to frequently, [00:14:00] which to me will end up. In you speaking to the void because people don't really know who you're speaking to, right?

[00:14:08] So if you're changing your niche, let's just call it all the time, or you're changing who you wanna talk to all the time, or you're evolving your message. That's gonna take some time for that message to start to land with the new people that you're wanting to connect with. For example, if you started working with, um, people who want to rewire the subconscious beliefs, and now you're shifting into the entrepreneurial space and you want to help business owners do that, there's gonna be a transitional period where it's gonna feel like you're speaking to the void when you make that transition.

[00:14:40] So I'm not saying that you can evolve who you talk to. I cannot say. I'm not saying you can evolve your niche, but I want you to know from a perspective that there, that that's gonna take time, right? To create the traction and momentum. And I often say like 30 to 60 days, give yourself that time to consistently speak to the people that you wanna [00:15:00] speak to, um, in order to create that.

[00:15:03] You know, traction or momentum in your business. But like I said, if you're speaking to the void, these are one of the two reasons, biggest reasons I see that contributes to that void speaking. And the other big one is, is not clarity on your offer. If you don't have clarity on your offer that you're selling or offers, or your offers are continually changing, again, that's gonna contribute to the void, right?

[00:15:27] Because. There is no clear pathway of where your people are going. And so you can show up and create content. And I hear this often, you know, I hear this so often from people and I think I did it when I first came in the online space, but I was coming into the online space to build an audience and I didn't really have an offer at the time cuz I had my brick and mortar.

[00:15:47] And so I was just, you know, starting to build this audience and the. Problem with that is, is that when you don't have an offer in mind even, and you're building this audience of people based on you winging it, or what's [00:16:00] coming up for you from an inspiration perspective, but there's no real direction on where you want them to go, is you build this audience potentially of.

[00:16:09] Not the right people. Which brings me to my other big point is that putting the right message in front of the right people. If you created an Instagram account and you were a holistic healer and then you started to sell a product, you might have this big audience of people that you've built that aren't the right people.

[00:16:27] Right? And so that is the other big piece of this is that oftentimes people will say to me, well, I have an email list of 3000 and. I'm getting really low open rates or people aren't buying the offer I'm putting in front of them, or I've got this, you know, big, huge social media following. And I used to be a fitness coach and now I'm transitioning into holistic healing and I don't see this audience really converting.

[00:16:51] And that's because the audience is made up of not the right people. It's like putting the message. It's like trying to sell wine to people who don't drink wine. I use [00:17:00] that analogy a lot, right? It's like, well, you could have built a whole audience, let's just say around, I don't know, alcohol in general, you know, maybe beer or spirits or whatever.

[00:17:11] And you've got this big audience. You started talking about alcohol in general and making cocktails and different things like that. And then you got really hyper focused into selling wine, and what ended up happening is that audience that you had built is literally, An entire audience of beer drinkers and spirit drinkers, and, and now you're trying to sell wine to them.

[00:17:30] And they're like, well, I don't want it. Right. And it can feel like you're speaking into the void for those reasons, because it's the wrong audience. So there's ver, there's a lot of different factors that play into. Feeling like you're speaking into the void. And what ends up happening is oftentimes entrepreneurs will get really discouraged cuz they're like, I'm putting out content, I'm creating content, I'm emailing my list, and I get opens.

[00:17:54] But I don't get, you know, people really buying the offers that I'm putting in front of them. And that's [00:18:00] because of all of these variables that I shared today. Maybe you're just broadcasting on hope and prayer on social media, hoping that message lands on the right people, or you've got this beautiful audience that you built.

[00:18:13] In a time when you were selling something totally different and now you're transitioning and you're trying to put a new offer in front of this audience that is not the right audience, or you've changed your your offers multiple times and you think that the people that are in your world will want these new offers that you're creating.

[00:18:32] And in reality, again, you're putting the wrong offer in front of the right, wrong people. And so these are all things that you have to consider when you're selling. Your offers. It's about putting the right offer and message in front of the right people at the right time. And there's a lot of different variables that play into that, which is why you have to take that holistic view of things and that big picture of like, okay, what's going on here?

[00:18:57] Um, and how to really sort of assess that because. [00:19:00] You could get really discouraged, and I know a lot of people do get discouraged with that, speaking into the void. Um, but when you get that clarity on one, what the offers are, who are the people you ultimately want to connect with? And are those people in front of me right now?

[00:19:14] And if they're not in front of me, how do I, what do I need to do in order to put my message in front of them? And that might be not just posting on social media, right? That might be actually going into somebody else's. You know, Facebook group or going, you know, teaching or speaking at summits where your audience is.

[00:19:33] So that message gets out to them in a more directed way to then build up more of your audience on social. I. Or to build up more of your audience in email, which is why building out a funnel is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to do that. And oftentimes people go, oh, funnel, it's so complicating, but really it's one of the most direct, clear pathways you could possibly create that will ensure that when you go to deliver [00:20:00] your offer to people, that it's the right audience.

[00:20:02] You're putting in that offer in front of them. In front of, because if you're just blasting it on social again, you're hoping that it's landing in front of the right people and it might not necessarily. Whereas when you are actually attracting people in that top end of your funnel, whether it be an opt-in, they opted into, like I have my quiz right, which shows people what their elevated edge is.

[00:20:23] So I know people coming through that quiz are gonna be entrepreneurs in some form. But the thing is, and I wanna share this with you cuz it's really important, is that. It's entre. It's for entrepreneurs. It's not necessarily for coaches and consultants, right? So I get a lot of entrepreneurs that opt in, brick and mortar, product base, e-commerce, a combination of the two coaches, consultants, service providers, right?

[00:20:50] I get a lot of entrepreneurs that come through there. Now, imagine if I went to turn around and sell them on how to start a coaching business. They'd be like, This offer isn't [00:21:00] for me. I'm a product-based business, E-commerce, right? It's the same thing, and this quiz that I've created is not designed to sell.

[00:21:10] Just one particular offer to it's, it allows me to segment my audience to know who's in my audience, right? Which is really important. If you don't know who's in your audience and you're just blasting out a message, it's gonna feel like you're speaking into the void. You've gotta know who your audience is and who's within your audience, and the best way to do that one is obviously take inventory of your Instagram, right?

[00:21:33] Or. Facebook or LinkedIn and to really know who's in your audience. But another beautiful way is to build an email list, but not just any old email list where you're like, join my email list. It's like a very specific pathway where you can start to identify who's coming into your audience. Quizzes are great ways to do that.

[00:21:51] A lead magnet of some sort is a really great way to do that. As long as the lead magnet isn't like, here are five meditations to help you calm your day. [00:22:00] Sure, that's great, but you'll never really understand who's coming through. It could be anybody, right? You, you want to understand who's in your audience so that you can, one, deliver offers to them that is really gonna support them, but you know that when you go to make an offer that you're speaking to the right people.

[00:22:17] So I've given a lot of insight into what makes up one. What needs to happen in order for you to ensure that you're putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time. But I've also shared why speaking to the void happens, which there's a bunch of different variables. It's either, I'm just gonna summarize this for you.

[00:22:37] It's either the fact that you're putting your offer in front of people, maybe not at the right time. Number two is that you're trying to broadcast a message and. Literally stand in the middle of a concert hall yelling by my thing, by my thing, by my thing. Or, Hey, I've got something of value, or, Hey, you need to pay attention to me.

[00:22:56] Or, Hey, look over here when everybody's [00:23:00] talking and it's, you know, you're basically speaking into the void. Or you've got an audience built up already and you think they're the right people and you're putting your offer in front of them, and they're not the right people because you've either changed your niche multiple times.

[00:23:14] You've changed your offers multiple times, or your content, you've been winging your content for five months, six months, just to sort of get. You know, used to being on social and there isn't really a specific message there. So you've built this audience who have rallied behind the inspirational posts that's that you've made, but they might not be the right people for your, for your offers that you're putting out, which can then feel like you're speaking into the void.

[00:23:41] So with that, I hope that's given you some insight into one why. You're speaking to the void and to what you need to look at within your business to make sure that you can move past that speaking to the void, it starts with your offer to ensure that you're putting that right [00:24:00] offer in front of the right people.

[00:24:01] And just because you have an audience doesn't mean it's an audience that's made up of the right people. So that's something to really look at. What can I do within my business? To really know who's in my audience, how can I connect with them, right? How can I go in and, and ensure who they are? If people are following you on Instagram, like every follower, you know, instead of.

[00:24:25] Looking at it like, Ooh, I've got 10 new followers. It's like, are all those 10 new followers the type of businesses or people that I can support? Right? If you're looking at these people when they're following you, and then removing anybody that's not the right person, because again, the algorithm. Is based on your following and, and Instagram, Facebook, they're gonna deliver your message to, that plays a factor in who they deliver your message to.

[00:24:52] So if you've got a bunch of bots that are following you, or a bunch of accounts that people that haven't been on Instagram and you know, a year or [00:25:00] two, like, that's gonna play a factor into where your message is being delivered. And so, You've gotta look at your audience makeup, and I'm always super intentional with that.

[00:25:10] And I'm, that's the first thing I'll ask clients is like, one, do you have an audience? And then are you well versed on who's in your audience? Do you know who's and where? Where they've even come from to begin with? Like, where have these followers come from? I had a client. Recently say, well, I was in a bunch of other groups like years ago, and that's what makes up my email list.

[00:25:30] Well, what groups were you in? Well, it was something totally different. In a totally different business, we can put a kick ass offer in front of people and we can write the most phenomenal copy in the entire world. And if you're doing that in front of an audience that doesn't even want the offer to begin with, You're gonna speak to the void.

[00:25:51] And oftentimes what ends up happening is we look at the copy and wanna rewrite it. And I always say, I could rewrite the fricking copy [00:26:00] till the cows come home, but if, if it's not even the right audience that we're speaking to, the audience that's made up in your world, it's not gonna matter. And you're gonna spend a ton of money and a ton of time creating content and writing copy and perfecting it.

[00:26:17] And you have an audience that's not made up of the people that you ultimately wanna sell to for whatever reason. Again, I've given lots of reasons here of why that happens, right? It's like changing niches, changing offers, amalgamating email lists, um, starting one company, transitioning that email list over to a whole other company.

[00:26:36] You know, there's lots of reasons why that happens. Your audience might not be made up of 100% your ideal people. Which will impact you speaking to the void, but ultimately is gonna impact your sales at the end of the day because the right people are not receiving that message from you. Um, so with that, I hope that's giving you a ton of insight.

[00:26:58] Now for next week's [00:27:00] episode, I cannot wait to dive into this one because if you feel like you're drawing a blank when it comes to creating content, like I don't even know what to say, when to say how to say it. Or you just feel like totally creatively constipated with your content. Uh, you're gonna wanna tune into this episode cause I'm gonna share with you why you're experiencing that, drawing a blank, um, and how to move out of it.

[00:27:23] Similarly to how I've shared in the last two episodes here of how to move out of speaking to the void and. Being friend zoned. So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I highly suggest that you do before next week's episode drops. Cheers. 

[00:27:37] OUTRO: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time.

[00:27:41] You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online@creativelyowned.com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.[00:28:00]