May 3, 2019
Welcome to the 15th muse on the Introvert Biz Growth podcast, the show where I talk to introverts who grow their business and make a difference.
I’m Sarah Santacroce, your host.
It’s time for another muse episode, unedited, raw content. No intro music. No bells and whistles.
I share these muses to make you think, to inspire you, to break the rules and to invite you to be part of the Gentle Business Revolution.
I know I missed a week, but I’m back!
I want to talk about ‘Taking things slow’. I was on a podcast interview yesterday called ‘Hack Your Online Business’. Chrys, the host was lovely but I could tell she was a bit surprised by my approach of slowing down the sale but just went with me intuition that it was ok to share my way. I was mainly talking about relationship building on LinkedIn, explaining that there really are no short cuts and that it takes time to get someone’s trust.
But today I want to talk about taking things slow from the perspective of business building, not lead generation.
As you know I’m launching another beta round of my new AFM program starting Monday, May 6th. After January’s program ended I felt like I wasn’t done learning this new approach. I needed to do it again.
So I went into promo mode to announce the 2nd round. It felt good to promote it and I was happy with the response to my One Page Marketing Plan workshop. I had over 70 people sign up. The workshop was free and people told me they got a ton of value out of it. So much value that I didn’t even get one sale. First I was devastated. Remember the episode about rejection. Yes, I felt like packing it up, no one was interested in yet another marketing program! I was done being vulnerable, doing things differently, getting on a Zoom workshop where people were too shy to take themselves off mute to talk to me.
It took me quite honestly a few days to get out of that funk. And then I reminded myself that this is my life’s work, and that I have time. And that it takes time to bring forth change. And that it was normal that after just 1 workshop people were not ready to commit to a 500 dollar program.
And I went back to doing. Coming up with a plan to send out some more videos and emails, personalized emails to specific people I’d like to have on this 2nd beta round.
And thinking about the big picture as well. If I want this to go big because I think I can have a small impact on how we do marketing online, then I need to think about how to increase awareness. So I’ll be hosting 1 free workshop on a specific topic each month, with nothing immediate to sell, but to tell people that I’ll be officially launching AFM in September. And maybe they won’t be ready then either, and that’s ok, but it will feel less like I’m giving the workshops in an energy of ‘emergency’.
I’m sharing this to show that it’s not easy to take things slow. Because our society rewards immediate gains. And if we don’t get those we feel like we failed.
But going forward I know that the only way to build a sustainable business is by taking things slow. Slowing down the process when launching a new program. Taking the time to invest in relationships. Talking to people without the intention to sell them anything immediate.
This is what I’m thinking about these days as I’m preparing for the 2nd beta round of AFM.
There’s still time to join us. We’re a group of 9 heart-centered entrepreneurs from all over the world (literally: Bosnia, US, Cambodia, England, Malaysia and Spain).
We start next Monday, May 6th and you can find out all the details and sign up information at www.anxietyfreemarketing.com
And if you’re listening to this podcast after May 6th you can still visit www.anxietyfreemarketing.com because I will turn this into an online program with video content that gives you access to attend one of the live courses in either January or September.
So visit anxietyfreemarketing.com now or send me an email to sarah@sarahsantacroce.com for more info.
Thanks for listening.