The Most Undervalued Strategy in Business Is the One You're Probably Dismissing

Intro/Outro: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Kathryn Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, 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.

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.

Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson. 

Kathryn Thompson: Hey. Hey, super snowed that you're tuning this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive in today's [00:01:00] topic because I wanna share with you one of the most undervalued and overlooked strategies in business when it comes to growing your business, attracting clients, selling what you have to offer and how for many business owners, it's actually.

Something they feel like isn't a measurement of success and it's something they often will look at as not good enough. And I know that I've been in this camp at one point in my journey, specifically in the online space and how I had a seven figure brand O owner completely humble me when he asked me to actually teach this strategy.

'cause it's a strategy that I use. And a strategy I have used and a strategy that I was very successful using. And a strategy that I felt like, why would anybody wanna learn this? Because it's so simple. It's so easy, and it's not like the flashy, complicated [00:02:00] funnels that we often see out there. And so therefore it must not be of value.

And when he asked me to teach it, I responded saying, well, do your seven figure and eight figure brands that you work with actually wanna learn something like this. Like it's just so simple. There isn't really much here to teach. He responded saying it was one of the smartest strategies that somebody could learn and that most people actually don't use it.

And I was completely humbled in that moment because I felt like my inner subconscious was coming through wholeheartedly in that conversation, and I was downplaying something that had supported me in creating a lot of success in my business, and I just overlooked it as. Too simple, too easy, and also not a value.

And I think the reason I felt like it wasn't a value was because. A lot of the feedback or comments that I [00:03:00] get from people was my launch didn't do as good as it should have done because only people who know me bought, or they were all referrals that came, and therefore it wasn't that great. And it was almost like the referrals or the people that they knew.

Was kind of like a snub. It wasn't good enough, right? It had to be people they didn't know. It had to be people that they had never talked to before in order for it to be measured up as a successful launch or whatnot. And the strategy is, is building relationships with people and strategic partnerships with people, and leveraging other people's audiences in order to grow your business.

That's the strategy that this particular seven figure brand asked me to teach. It was that [00:04:00] strategy that I felt like wasn't good enough to teach in his community because it was too simple, too easy, and seven and eight figure brands wouldn't want to hear it. They would want to hear something more complicated, more flashy, something that was gonna guarantee they were gonna take someone from cold to sold in two weeks, and that their messaging was gonna convert just in stories and they wouldn't have to do sales calls and yada, yada, yada.

All the things, all the stories that we like to tell ourselves. And it was in that humbling moment that I realized, no, wait a minute. Like actually this is a really smart strategy and I knew it, but I had also been getting, like I said, that feedback from people that were often kind of snubbing it as I just got people that knew me by, or I just got.

Referrals, or it was somebody I had a call with years ago or whatever it was. It doesn't quite measure up. And it's interesting that there's this level of superiority that happens, particularly in the online space [00:05:00] between like a cold audience buying from you and a more warmer audience buying from you that it's like somehow more superior if you can get this cold audience to convert quicker.

And I will say that a colder audience. Is a different audience than a warmer audience. Like there's a different way in which we need to sell in order to, to get people to buy. But if you're just starting out in business, having a warm audience. Or having a leveraged audience, somebody else's audience that knows you and it's coming via referral is quite literally one of the smartest ways that you can sell.

But it's also a really beautiful way to sell organically without a big audience on social media without having to spend a. All of that time cultivating that audience. It is one of the most streamlined ways, and it's interesting because when we had our brick and mortar, that is quite literally how we kept the lights on, was through family and friends.

And then what ended up being sort of referrals or recommendations or word of mouth was the thing that got people [00:06:00] into our store. And one of the biggest challenges I had coming in the online space was how do I take that offline magic, that word of mouth and referral and bring it into the online space?

And one of the easiest ways that you can do this obviously, is if you teach in somebody else's community, like I was teaching in this seven figure brand community. I am in front of that audience and I am coming into that audience. From the person running it, and therefore they're gonna trust me inherently in a lot of ways because they trust that person.

So that's one key way that you can do it, is you can quite literally just go and teach what you know in somebody else's community and leverage that audience. You can go on podcasts, right? You can speak on podcasts, you can. If you have people that, if you're in [00:07:00] other people's communities, if you've paid for coaching or mentorship and you're in a community, can you offer value If someone asks a question and not to pitch or anything like that, but can you just offer value?

Can you just answer their question without pitching or anything like that? But just answer it based on your expertise. Of course. It's a really great way to. Again, leverage that audience and show people what you know, speaking on podcasts, speaking on stages, speaking at summits, and can you maybe reach out to your network?

Are you part of other networks? Are you part of book clubs? Are you part of, what are your connections in the offline world? Can you start to leverage things there? And do you know people that have an audience that. Would benefit from what you have to share. And could you reach out to them and say, Hey, I'd love if you could share this to your community, your email list, whatever it might be.

There's so many ways that we can [00:08:00] do this that make this such a simple strategy and. It's really not a lot of work on your part in that. Again, you're not paying for ads, you're not having to set up ads, none of that. And I just wanna share a couple stories with you because I have two clients that just wrapped up launches here in September and they both had really amazing epic launches and they were simple.

One of them had done launches before, and we had built out funnels before and all of that jazz. Another one was completely brand new. Had never done a launch before. Hadn't run ads, anything like that. And one of the things that I had recommended off the get go was like, do you know people? Do you have a network of people that you can invite into your world?

And of course she did and had an epic turnout on her live event, which is often unheard of, but it's unheard of if the people don't know you in a lot of ways. And there needs to be that nurturing, but really great turnout. She had [00:09:00] over 10 people sign up to work with her. My other client had six people sign up to work with her.

Again, a newer offer that we're testing and they, a lot of people came via word of mouth or referral. We did run some ads. I will say that we did run some ads so that my clients have the infrastructure set up for when we, our work is complete. They'll have the infrastructure there because the setup of it is probably one of the most frustrating and hardest parts of all of it.

But the long story short is. Both of the funnels, we did this in a way that was truly aligned with who they are. We taught in a way that was aligned with who they are, and we structured it in a way that was truly aligned and authentic with them and, and how they are in the world. And a lot of the clients that bought from them are people that they know or came via referral.

And I think it's easy to then chalk up the quote unquote launch as maybe not successful. And not that they're saying this, but I think it's [00:10:00] an easy mental thing to say is like, well, only people that know me bought, or they all came via referral and. That is a common thing that often people will say and it's almost like it makes that launch less valuable or less successful because it was referrals and whatnot.

And sure one could say it's easier for a warmer audience convert, and it is. It quite literally is. But isn't that what we want? Isn't ease what we want? Isn't effortless what we want. Like to me, that's what I want. And I think for a lot of people, if marketing isn't your gig and sales isn't your thing and tech isn't your thing, and building out customer journeys and funnels aren't your thing, and it's something that you're launching for the first time, second time, third time, who knows?

Why wouldn't you wanna make this as simple as [00:11:00] possible? Why wouldn't you want to take the path that. Has the least amount of friction to it. And if you're trying to master skills like creating a slide deck or a workshop or writing a sales page, or creating a landing page or whatever the things are that you need for people to opt into what you're doing, or setting up calendar invites or zoom links and you're a one man show and you don't have the support, like wouldn't you want this to be easy and simple?

And this strategy just isn't easy and simple. Like what the seven Figure brand owner so beautifully did for me and humble me and put me in my place was it's one of the smartest strategies you can use. And even at a seven figure, eight figure level, it's, it is one of the smartest strategies you can use.

Who are your strategic partners? Who are these relationships that you want to cultivate? And if you're thinking what I thought when I came into the online space, and that is, but I don't know how to do [00:12:00] that. I don't know even where to look. I don't know what communities to look for. I'm gonna call you on that because I had the same mindset.

I had the same thought process was like, well, who would I even. Who would I even approach, or who would I even consider a strategic partner? And I'm going to call you on that because it doesn't have to be this mass audience. It could be literally one person. I have a past client of mine who quite literally is fully booked out in her business from one strategic partner, and how she met that person was through a network that she's part of.

And so like I mentioned, if you've invested in coaches and you're part of a community, are there people within that community that you could befriend and form a relationship with? Can you answer questions in that community that highlight that you have a skill and value that you can offer? Are there people that you know, local chamber of [00:13:00] commerce that you could go talk at?

I think that when we try to limit ourselves in that thought process of, well, I don't even know where to start, I call you on it, because the, the opportunities are endless. They're endless in the fact that you could go to a local chamber of Commerce, you could go to your local library. You could call up friends and ask them like there's, I mean, there's so many ways that you can do it.

There's so many ways that you can do it. There's communities, I'm sure many of you are part of, and I'm not talking about the free ones on Facebook where people are posting those links. I don't even know if those things work anymore, but I'm talking about like ones that you've actually paid to be part of.

Like the community that I'm in right now, this seven figure brand is part of that community and I'm paying to be in that community and. That is and can be part of the strategy. What communities do I need to pay to be part of and not a. [00:14:00] Like, someone might challenge that and say, well, like, why should I have to pay to be part of communities to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's, it's not that. It's, I'm being, I'm paying to be part of the community because I wanna learn in that community. That's the first thing. I'm in that community because I want to learn from this community of people. It's not so that I can find strategic partnerships. The strategic partnerships are. A byproduct of me learning and acquiring a skill that I want to acquire.

And so that's how I look at it. I'm looking at what are the skills I wanna acquire, and then when I'm in those communities, are there people that I can partner with? And usually it's not, I'm not pitching them, it's usually it comes up in conversation. So I'm forming. Relationships through conversation in a very genuine way.

And I think that's where we get sideways with this, is that we make it awkward. It's like, oh, I have to leverage somebody [00:15:00] else's community. Oh, okay, so I have to find this strategic partnership. Well, how do I do that and how do I pitch them? And it's, it's not, it's just conversational. A lot of my clients initially in the early days came from a community I paid to be part of and I never pitched once.

People just ask questions about copywriting and marketing and I genuinely just answered and gave value, and then I would piece out and go on my day. I didn't DM them. I didn't slip into the back door and try to like carry on the conversation I just answered out of goodwill. And from that, it was rarely the person I commented on that reached out.

It was usually somebody else that read the comment, if I'm being honest. And then I landed like my first client out of that group. And then that client, I delivered such exceptional service and value to them that they recommended me in that group all the time when someone was looking for a copywriter.[00:16:00] 

Like I didn't have to then go and promote myself in that group. 'cause she would quite literally tag me in any post that came up that she saw somebody looking for a copywriter or whatever. And then that recommendation ended up landing me a bunch of clients out of that community. And the community I was in was not for copywriters, it was for building business systems.

So it was a complimentary service. The person that led that group was not teaching copywriting in any way, shape, or form. And their offer had nothing to do with copywriting. And so this is one of the biggest mistakes I think people make is that they. Go into groups that are identical to what they do or very closely aligned with what they do, and then they wonder why people aren't jumping at the bit to work with them when they start to give value.

Because they're like, well, I invested in Jill's program and Jill teaches me exactly this, and I'm just asking a question to get further support within this community. And. You're [00:17:00] jumping in and, and answering, which is great and amazing and I love it, but why would I go invest in you who has the same offer and service to some degree?

Right? It's about finding complimentary groups and that's, again, it's not about going out and finding these complimentary groups for the sake of pitching. It's what are your complimentary skills that you're acquiring that you need in your business that could potentially benefit? Other people in that community, right?

So I didn't, I don't want this podcast to be about like the ins and outs of the strategy. What I wanted to share was that this is a very overlooked strategy, and it's often overlooked because we undervalue a warm audience. We undervalue friends and family. We undervalue people that we know and referrals.

Yet, I'm here to tell you that it's one of the best ways you can grow your business, especially [00:18:00] in the early days, and if you wanna see success in your launches and all of that. You know, pushing a message out onto social media, pushing messages out, cold on ads like they can work, but you also have to develop the marketing and sales skills in order to really make them work.

And that's a skill. I've been practicing this skill for 25 years. 25 years I've been practicing this skill and mastering this skill, and it's not something I woke up with one day. And that's why I'm successful in business. Like I'm trained in this academically and then have spent 25 years in this field.

I share that because as a business owner, if you're in business and marketing and sales is not, your zone of genius is not your gift, which for many people it's not. Which is okay. It's gonna be a skill that you need to acquire. Especially if you're a solopreneur and or you hire for that, but there's a [00:19:00] fee for that.

If you're gonna hire an expert at what they do, someone with 25 years of experience, you're gonna pay for that. And in the early days, many people don't have the budget to do that. And so for me, I'm looking at what is the easiest. Most effortless and also beautiful ways that I can cultivate a business, and that is through relationship.

I think it's so important to cultivate relationships, which brings me back to my journey on this is that when I came into the online world, I. I often talk about walking through this vortex of like forgetting who I was and forgetting how I had created success in most of my life, which was through relationships, because I was looking at these like fancy funnels and fancy sales systems and you gotta do this and this is what works, and you fall down that rabbit hole of a, of doing all these things.

And I'm not saying that funnels are bad or whatever ads are bad or anything like that, that's not the message. What I'm trying to say is, is that. If I was to start over again from scratch, [00:20:00] I would 100% focus on slow growth. I think that's a big one. So the slow growth, meaning I think a lot of us chase the 10 K, 50 K, a hundred K months.

And if we're not chasing the value number, we're chasing the volume, or we're building systems in our business that are designed for the volume, which again, isn't a a bad thing. It's just that if I was to start from scratch again, I would build for slow growth that revolved around excellence and mastery first and foremost, and delivering exceptional quality.

To fewer number of people and then watch the wildfire erupt. And I say that truly, if you truly focus on that on one person and you're patient in that growth, then that one person's gonna go tell another person and another person and another person. And then before you know it, [00:21:00] you've grown via word of mouth and referral and you're booked out solid because.

You're actually delivering exceptional service and results. And I'm not saying I didn't do that in the early days, but I was so preoccupied with the fact that if I, if this business is gonna be successful, I need to drive thousands of people through this funnel for 1% of the people to buy, which. It can be true initially in the early days when you're, when you're literally going for volume to a audience of people that don't know you, versus focusing on transforming one person's life and patiently building that ascension from there and delivering that quality.

Then watching the growth happen from that perspective, if I was starting over from scratch again, I would've focused less on volume and [00:22:00] more on the quality and the excellence of what I'm delivering now. Like I said, my heart and what I deliver in the surface I provide has always been an amazing service and I, and I say that and.

I also think that I was chasing the volume and I was building for volume and driving large volumes of traffic through my business in order to attract clients, and therefore didn't skimp on the service. But I think I would've got very meticulous with who I served and how I served them. And not that I didn't do that in the early days, but like I said.

I think that the desire to wanna scale quickly and to build this big business and to get to this place that the level of success that was out there and and measurable by people, the a hundred K months, the 10 K months, whatever it was that I. Was [00:23:00] driving volume versus really focusing on how can I really impact one human's life to then transform two and three and four, and five.

I was like, how do I transform these 20 people sitting in front of me now? And I worked at that, but again. I'm coming back to sort of that referral model and how to, how to really build that. I think I would've got a lot more clear on my level of mastery and excellence and how to do that and really work with people on that.

I think it's hard when you have 50 people sitting in front of you to truly, truly, truly understand how maybe your teaching isn't conducive for them or the way in which you structured the business. Or the teachings or the modules don't really make sense to them, or how your level of expertise is so far beyond theirs that you're missing three steps in the middle [00:24:00] that, that are really pertinent to their transformation.

That's what I'm talking about is. When you focus on smaller, intimate numbers, you have the ability to have that like one-to-one with them. When you're scaling for volume straight outta the gate and you've got 50 people sitting in front of you, you can't give them all one-to-one support. I mean, that's just not possible.

That's what I mean. It's just, it's just not possible based on time, based on all of it. You just wouldn't be able to give them the one-to-one support, which then what ends up happening is it ends up being a lot more surface level. At the beginning, and therefore you're not really getting the juicy nuggets that potentially that you need in order to really, really, really master what it is that you're teaching and what it is that you're delivering.

And again, I come back to that whole piece of relationships and cultivating those relationships within your business and how to grow in that way. And if I was starting again from scratch, I'm talking scratch, and I was [00:25:00] like, okay, I want to grow this business. Very genuinely, organically. Without a lot of overhead on on ads, what would I do?

And it would be leveraging other people's audiences and or cultivating these relationships for myself so that I have this sort of repeatable business model going on because people are either referring or they're coming back for more. So. That is what I wanted to sort of share with you here today because I do think, and maybe you, you think this too, is that you're overlooking this and that you're, you're snubbing the whole idea that people that buy from you or people that know you and or came via referral.

And so for some way reason it's not like good enough, you haven't quite made it because you haven't converted that like cold audience into sales. And I think in the early days of business. I would focus less on converting that cold audience and focus way more on really cultivating a [00:26:00] warm network of people and then focus on the colder audience later for scale.

That's what I would do, and I'm hoping that this episode is sort of maybe humble Jew in a way that that seven figure mentor humbled me and showed me that, you know, simple. Isn't less superior. In fact, it's likely more strategic and smarter and more intelligent when we approach things in that sort of simple matter.

And for many of us, we're probably overthinking all of this anyways. We're trying to make this more complicated than it needs to be. We're trying to think about how to articulate what we do in a, in a way more complicated way than we need to be. And that in fact, simplicity. And keeping things simple is a faster way to growth and to achieving the goals.

It's when we [00:27:00] overcomplicate, when we convolute, when we dilute, because we're just trying to grow too fast, too quick scale when we're not even at a level of scaling. When we're putting systems in our business that are designed for companies in scale, when we actually don't need those systems in place, that we can actually build a very simple customer journey that turns people into customers in a very simple way.

That doesn't leave us going, man, I never wanna do that again. That was, I'm burnt out from that. Or, that was too hard, or, or whatever. And too hard can be a mindset glitch too. Right? I'm I, I will say that, but I just mean that for many of us we're overcomplicating it. And I will say this, like I've had clients recently tell me, they're like, I am so glad you structured what we've done [00:28:00] the way we've done it, because it was very simple, but also.

It wasn't everything. 'cause I think anything is possible. We can try all the strategies, we can do all the things, but a big part of my gift is constraint and limitation. And if you're listening, you might think, but anything's possible and I don't like limitation and blah, blah, blah. I think that for things to really thrive, we do need constraint, limitation.

We do need some form of structure. We do need a holding container. And I had a client recently say to me, she said, Catherine, if you would've told me that at the beginning, I would've been so depleted, I would've been so let down and deflated. And I said to her. Yeah, I'm telling you this now because, because it's the point of the journey to tell you this, and those that thrive working with me, trust the process because I do not paint out this big long out, drawn process for them.

I'm delivering things in sort of. [00:29:00] Bite-size Mor souls. But I can also tell what people can handle, what they can't handle, where they're sort of at in the journey. And I'm, I'm creating this constraint and limitation in what we deliver based on certain timeframes. And this particular client said to me, I'm so glad that you didn't tell me this before I did this, because if I would've known this before and it wasn't a.

Like malicious or anything like that. It was just, it wasn't necessary for her to know at at the forefront of this, because I know it's something that blocks people and that had to do with the way in which we feel post. Live launch, which I've, if you've been in my world for a while, you've heard me talk about it.

It's called the launch free fall when we're ramping up and we're using that like excited energy to deliver a live training or whatnot. You might have felt this, if you've spoken on stages or a summit, you come off that stage coming [00:30:00] off the high of it, there's an adrenaline that's required. To get ready for performance, to get ready for the big show, the game, whatever.

Right. There's that adrenaline. And then usually what happens is once the lights go out, once the game is over, we hit this sort of free fall and it's, and it happens all the time, and it's like, what do I do in the silence? Well, what's interesting about that is, is that what happens in the silence is actually the key.

Of all of this, because it's in the silence that the brain starts to go. And you've probably seen this and probably felt this in your own journey, right? It's like you send that big email, you create and craft a big proposal, and you send it to someone, you pour your heart into it, and then it's silence. Or you apply for a job and then it's silence, and then the brain's like, yeah, that was shitty.

No one's gonna buy. You didn't deliver that really well. Do you remember when you flubbed up on that word? [00:31:00] Do you remember when that person asked that question? You don't really answer it correctly. You remember when you went to share the link to your program and you dropped the wrong link? Like it's all of that noise that starts to happen because you're in the silence of it.

And that can make or break a launch because oftentimes people will pull the trigger on something. I've done it where. I'm like, this launch is, is gonna fail, so I'm not doing this. Or everybody keeps telling me they can't afford it, so I'm gonna create a low ticket membership, mid-launch and, and, and launch that.

People still didn't buy it. Um, so I. If I had told her that before and I had prepped her before that, it probably would've killed the momentum and also the adrenaline and also the excitement because she would be preparing for this free fall. But I know that this happens, and therefore I'm there to hold that space in the free fall.

Why I am sharing this as part of [00:32:00] this leveraging other people's audiences is because this is the journey of entrepreneurship. This is what's required in a lot of ways, is the containers, the limitations. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having limitation and constraint and having structure and a container.

There's nothing wrong with taking bite size steps and creating these micro wins along the way that create the growth and success. I'm not saying fast growth and success is a bad thing either. I'm just saying if I was to do it all over again, I would focus on excellence, quality. And small bite-sized growth, rather than being so preoccupied with volume, I need to drive a thousand people through my funnel.

For 1% of the people. Like I would just not do that. But that was the message at the time. If you want to create these 10, 50, a hundred K months that you need, this is what you need to do. And I [00:33:00] think that messaging in the dilution of it, and also the surface levelness of it is that. It doesn't really paint the nuance and the full picture of everybody's sort of unique journey along this, but oftentimes what I see happen is people create systems or adopt strategies that are not well serving for where they're at in their business and.

Where they want to go. And therefore we end up trying on all of these things. And I've done it right. I'm the one who was posting on social media seven days a week and had like one sale come through in a 12 month period. Like I've been there where it's like, well, you've gotta do this thing and you've gotta sell every dance stories and sell every day in your content.

And I'm quite literally wired. For not that, like I am quite literally wired for the opposite of that and that strategy. That is why I, I truly [00:34:00] believe in the power of astrology and human design and Jen Keys and really knowing who you are in all of this. And then from there, building. To me, that's the foundation.

The more we can understand who we are. The better the foundation will be that we're building off of. But if we don't know who we are and we're questioning that and we're looking outside of ourselves for that, and we're chasing a goalpost, that isn't really our goalpost in the first place. Then the strategies that we adopt in the early days often won't be aligned, of course, which is why for me, if I was starting again from scratch, I would wholeheartedly build from that place of groundedness, of course.

But I would build in a way that I'm focusing on ease and effortlessness, and that to me looks like. Who are the people in my network and close network, and I would be grateful for those wins. If I had two people come through that I knew via referral or people that [00:35:00] were in my network, I would be grateful for that rather than looking through the lens of what's not enough, I didn't hit that target or I'm, I need bigger numbers and better numbers.

I wouldn't be holding a level of superior order to cold audience versus warm audience. I quite literally would be looking through the lens of how can I create easeful effortless growth in a way that's sustainable? And I've tried on many, many hats, and I've built many, many systems and I've gotten it wrong many, many times.

So that's just my perspective. Relationships, strategic partnerships. Leveraging other people's audiences is by far one of the most overlooked and undervalued strategies. And regardless of where you are in your business and where you are in your journey, it's something you could wholeheartedly adopt into your strategy And.

See really amazing results. So with that, I hope you have a five day cheers. 

Intro/Outro: Thanks for [00:36:00] listening. We'll see you right back here next time. 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.