THIS is Why Your Business Isn't Growing!

Speaker A: If you've ever wondered why you're great at what you do, but your business still isn't growing the way you expected, this episode is going to help you understand exactly why you might be feeling that way. Welcome to the Faith Led Founders Podcast, the show for Christian entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to grow a successful business without the overwhelm. Um, I'm Lauren, a marketing strategist and business coach with over a decade of experience helping businesses simplify their marketing and build systems that create real growth. So if you're a ready, grab your coffee and let's dive in. So I want to start today's episode by sharing a truth that many business owners feel, uh, at various times throughout their business venture. And it's that you can be amazing at what you do, and you can have an amazing service, an amazing and successful business, but still, at certain times, feel stuck in your business. Now, I've stepped into working on a leadership team with a business owner who was amazing at what he did. He was making $2 million, predictably, year after year. But when I stepped into leadership on his team, he was feeling stuck, defeated, unsure. Um, and so if you're feeling like that, I want you to know that it's okay. Like, there are so many business owners that struggle with this feeling in this sense of being stuck. And it just means that you're ready for growth. It means that there is a hurdle that you need to jump over. And so we're going to kind of dive into that today. I want to talk about something that not a lot of people talk about. And for small business owners, many of us, we build our businesses through referrals, Especially early on in our business, we rely on referrals and word of mouth for growth. And here's the catch. Referrals are fantastic. I mean, they're going to be your easiest, uh, conversion, your, uh, highest return on investment. But referrals are unpredictable. When you grow your business solely on referrals, you are depending on other people talking about your business. Now, I completely understand how this works because years ago, I started to learn the skill of photography. I loved doing photography. And, um, and over time, I started to offer, you know, senior photo shoots or graduation photos. And I was getting business through word of mouth, and it was awesome. I would take photos, um, do the editing, send them over to a client. The client would post them all over Facebook and share them with their family. And people would be talking about my business, and, you know, I would, maybe they would send over their friend or their aunt, um, or their uncle for photos. And it was great because I got another client like, yay, that's a win. But when I take a step back and I know all that, I know right now with business growth, it was so unpredictable. There were some months where I would have a couple of photo shoots and the clients would post their photos and everyone's rah rah ing and sharing my photography link and I'd get maybe one lead or one client and it was great. And then the excitement kind of wore out and my next month I would have no clients. No one was really talking about my business. And so it created this kind of up and down roller coaster ride with business growth. Some months were fantastic, some months weren't. But that's because I was relying on people talking about my business constantly. And that's just unpredictable. It's a roller coaster ride and it becomes a nightmare when you actually are trying to grow a business that puts food on the table or you know that you want to grow and you, you have goals and you want to, you know, hire employees. Um, you cannot rely on just referrals. And so I know this is very, very well. While the referrals are fantastic, what we really need as business owners is to have more predictability and stability in business growth. And so what is going to create that, what do we need is we're trying to grow a business that's predictable and has stability. You know, we're not on that. Three clients one month, none the next month. We need something that we can control a little bit more and that's visibility. Now, as a Christian business owner, I may have just said a word that made you cringe a little bit. Visibility. You need to be visible. And if that made you uncomfortable, I want you to know that it's completely normal for most business owners. See, back in November, I was able to teach and coach a seminar with several business owners and I was coaching them on marketing and talking about all of the things in marketing their own businesses. And I stood up front and my first question that I asked these business owners is, can I see a show of hands? How many of you guys feel uncomfortable when you think of having to do marketing? Every single hand went up in that room except for the other marketing coordinator who that was her job. So she's very comfortable with marketing, obviously. And I want you to know that marketing doesn't need to feel uncomfortable. A lot of times the reason why marketing feels uncomfortable or we get a little cringe about it is because it feels salesy, it feels self promotional. And especially as believers, you are your God led business owner. It could feel prideful, especially if you are the brand or the brand is, um, centered around you. It can feel very prideful and look at me. And showy. But here's the thing. If you are a God led business owner with an incredible skill or an amazing service, it's prideful for you to not bring your service into the marketplace. It's prideful for you to not make your service visible. Visibility goes beyond just being good at something and it's positioning you to be known for it. So when marketing is done right, it isn't just about being salesy or seeking attention. What it really is about, it's about connection. It's about connecting with the people who really need your service. So here's an example. If you were an amazing marriage counselor that's specific and focused around healing after betrayal, it would be a, uh, disservice to the people that God intends on you to help by not being visible. Because here's the thing is there could be a husband or a wife who has just experienced betrayal in their marriage. And you know, they, they want to make it work out, they want to heal, they desperately need your service. And you're here relying on referrals. You know, the referral and the individual who might talk about your business, that, uh, that conversation may not even reach the person in need. And so you may not even get an opportunity to provide help to the client that you are meant to help. So here's the shift that I want you to start to make in your mind, is that visibility is a good thing when done right. Visibility is connecting you and your service, your business, to the people who need that service. And so yes, while we, we want visibility, we want visibility with strategy. The last episode, we talked about the importance of laying down a strong foundation when it comes to marketing. So when we're talking disability and making your services, making your skillset known to the world, what I don't want you to do is to just run full speed with this idea of just showing up and start to show up everywhere. Now I learned this the hard way working with a team. We got some bad consulting advice to just dominate the city, show up at all of these different events, do all of this marketing, and we lost thousands of dollars. It was so much time, so much energy that we put into being visible and we got next to nothing with all these efforts. It, it was entering into a rat race of visibility and a lead scheme, which is the direction that a lot of agencies consulting Advice will have you go, just spend $5,000 on your Google Ads, spend $5,000 on Facebook ads, show up at all of these events. You could be losing thousands of dollars, wasting so much time being visible. And yes, you're visible, but you could be missing connecting with the right clients and the right people that you want to serve. And so that's why I outlined for you last week kind of the foundation that needs to be laid before we step into visibility. Yes, we need to be visible, but I want you to do the homework last week. If you didn't listen to the episode last week, go back and listen. What we need to do before being visible is we need to get clear on our messaging. We need to get super specific and clear on who our ideal client is and really outline who are different, what our differentiators are. How am I different? How is my service different than another coach's services? Like, what's unique about me? And every single business has unique differentiators. There's not one business that's different. Because when, when I look at businesses and I've coached and worked with, uh, several entrepreneurs, your business is a reflection of you and your values and who you are as a person. And that shows up in so many different ways as business owners that you don't even realize. And so, before we wrap up today's episode, thinking about being visible and being visible with strategy, here are two things that I want you to sit down and kind of think of. So the first thing is, is if your business could reach more people, what kind of impact would that have on the people that you want to serve? If more people were aware of the skill and the service your business provides, how does that shift the community around you and change or impact their lives? And the second part of that question is, what kind of impact does that have on you as the business owner? If you get to serve more of the people in your business that you hope to serve, what kind of impact does that have on you on your growth, on your family, on, um, what you can do for the kingdom and what God's placed on your heart? I really want you to think about that because that will give you a little bit more excitement and I think confidence when it comes to being visible. Now, the second question I want you to write out and I want you to do the homework around is if you're currently marketing in your business and it feels self promotional or it feels salesy, I want you to think about how can you, moving forward, start to reposition your marketing to being salesy well, from being salesy to actually connecting with the people you want to serve, I want you to think of things like, what kind of encouragement does your ideal client need? Or what are the things that. What's the ways that you can educate them on why they need your service? Because that's a connection point. Sometimes we're not even aware, uh, that there is a service that we need. And so the education piece helps us kind of have that aha moment. This business or this product, this service is actually what I need because I'm going through that. And the third thing that we can do when we're thinking of repositioning our messaging and our marketing visibility is how can you make them feel seen through your marketing? Like I said, marketing is all about connection. It's not pointing the finger at you and gloating. It's not about being salesy or talking about major discounts. It's really about making your ideal client feel seen, which is that connection point that draws them into your service. So I hope that this episode was great and useful for you. I hope that you can have a different lens when we think of visibility and that marketing will feel less icky to you. But know that you're not alone. There are several business owners who feel like this when it comes to marketing their business. And it's just a hurdle that we need to get over. And once we get over that, it really, you'll really start to see momentum in your marketing efforts. And I hope that you'll tune in next week, because next week we're going to dive into the three types of marketing campaigns or marketing strategies that every business owner needs to have when they are building their business. So I look forward to connecting with you guys next week. Have a wonderful day.