226: If you don't have this, it is hard to "win" in business (Support Queen) | Laetitia Andrac, Lee-Anne Prytherch and Lucy Starbuck

You don't just need social media to sell and run a successful business...

You need a little more than that!

You need the "royal flush" in business. This looks like having your "ducks in a row". We have put together a panel-style podcast for this episode of The Content Queen Podcast.

Learn more than just content and marketing. Learn what your business needs to be sustainable.

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah, @essential.shift, @lucystarbuck.co and mindfulmanagementco_ ⁠⁠

✨ ⁠⁠LEARN ABOUT THE I AM/WE ARE CONTENT QUEEN CAMPAIGN⁠⁠✨⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

  • The ONE thing you need to start with to build your foundations

  • Expert thoughts from a business strategist

  • Expert thoughts from a sales, operations and systems leader

  • Expert thoughts from a profit and finance coach

  • Expert thoughts from a content marketer

  • The 4 things you can do as soon as the episode finishes to get your business "in shape"

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Laetitia Andrac is an author, speaker,  award-winning entrepreneur, and a mother of two children. As an energetics & strategy business mentor (aka a ‘business doula’ as she carved this name for her work), she helps women leaders & entrepreneurs in creating and growing a soul-aligned business, career & life without burning out.

Lee-Anne Prytherch, the founder of Mindful Management Co - An Online Business Management Agency transforming visionary entrepreneurs into unstoppable forces. With 14 years of experience in business development, sales, and leading teams in the travel technology and commercial logistics sectors, Lee-Anne brings a wealth of wisdom to ambitious CEOs looking to take their businesses to the next level. She manages daily operations, coordinates projects, leads teams, and gives you more time to focus on your strengths. 

Lucy is a Virtual CFO and business profit coach. She is a qualified accountant on a mission to empower business owners to feel joyful & confident with their numbers to grow profitable & sustainable businesses.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 226 and I've welcomed three other guests on this podcast to talk all about the missing element in business. It's going to help your marketing, your systems, your sales, all the things. And this is a must listen to episode. Welcome to the content queen podcast. I'm your host, Mariah, entrepreneur, social media.

Storyteller, digital nomad, creator of content bootcamp and founder of content queen. I'm here to teach you how to share your unique story, create content and market your business with strategy through the channels that work for you.  Each week I'll deliver a story to help you connect to a powerful strategy around marketing, business, and content creation.

I'll also be joined by amazing sales and entrepreneurs who are here to share their own journey along with actual steps to help you take your business to a whole new level through amazing storytelling. Powerful aligned marketing and content strategy. Let's do it. Hello gang. And yes, as I said,  we are up to  the fourth queen in the I am we are content queen campaign.

So if you've been listening along, we've gone through the queen B the repurposing queen, the one that's going to help you spread your digital footprint, lay all those eggs and be seen by more people across more channels, it's really about. building and expanding on what you've got.  Then we had the strategic queen, the queen of chess.

And that was really about laying the foundations of your content strategy, your marketing, and really ensuring that you  are working towards your goal and your vision in your business  through your content and your marketing. Then, uh, last week we had the queen The band queen, and this is all about storytelling, uniqueness.

And I talked about how to market like a journalist and, and really, um, be that storyteller for your business. And that queen energy is really about, you know, in their industry, in what they were creating was very different to what people were seeing and that helped them stand out. Now this week is the last queen.

It is the queen of cards. So in. cards you have the royal suite and you've got your king, your jack, the ace, um, and you've got queen and tens and you know, then you've got all the other cards.  Basically when you're playing poker,  the, you don't win with just the queen card or just the king card. You win by having the royal flush.

So, or, you know, if you've got all the suits, all the cards in a row, um, your ducks lined up, as they say, then. You know, you've got the winning hand to win the game. So basically this is about understanding that not, it's not just about creating content on social media. That's going to build your business.

It is about understanding all the foundations of business.  So I have three guests who are Specialized in their own field to come and bring everything together and share the importance of business strategy and share how then each element works together after you've got your business strategy. So I've got a business strategist, I've got a CFO and a financial expert.

I've got me talking about the marketing, the content and a systems operations sales  expert. I'm Guru has a bad word, but have bad rap now.  So I'm going to introduce those guests and jump straight into the episode because  yeah, there's four of us all talking. So, um, it's actually not a long interview as you'd expect, considering there was four of us in total, but to get through the bios is going to take me a little bit.

So let me go through the bios, who these amazing women are, and then we'll jump into the episodes. The first guest is Laetitia Andrac, who is an author, speaker and award winning  And a mother of two as an energetics and strategy business mentor, or as she likes to be known a business doula,  she helps women leaders and entrepreneurs in creating and growing a soul aligned business career and life without burning out.

She does this with the power of strategy and intuition. So.  That's our first guest. The second guest is Leanne Prythe, she was the founder of mindful marketing co and online business management agency, transforming visionary entrepreneurs into unstoppable forces with 14 years of experience in business development, sales, and leading teams in the travel technology and commercial logistics sectors.

Leanne brings a wealth of wisdom to ambitious CEOs looking to create the business to their next level. She manages daily operations, coordinates projects, leads teams, and gives you more time to focus on your strengths.  And lastly, we have Lucy Starbuck, who is a virtual CFO and business profit coach.

She's a qualified accountant on a mission to empower business owners to feel joy and confident with their numbers and to grow a profitable and sustainable business. So they quickly introduced themselves, but I wanted to give you the actual interview. Full experience of who these amazing women are and why they're here to chat to you about business.

So let's dive in. Well, I have four, a foursome podcast interview, which has never been seen before on the content queen podcast.  But I'm excited to introduce the guests today. And basically what we're going to explain to you all is how in a deck of cards, if you're playing poker, the strongest hand is the Royal flush and Queen being content is only or marketing one element of your business and having it all work together.

Is what we want to create, you know, quote unquote business success or what success looks like for you. So I've got some amazing guests that are going to introduce themselves to you and answer some questions, kind of a panel discussion type of vibe on this episode. Very special for you all. So firstly, I would love for you all to share who you are and what you do.

And I will start with Laetitia.  Hello, I am Laetitia Andrac. I am the founder and CEO of Essential Shift Consulting. I offer services for business owner who are ready to scale without burning out. So helping them define their strategy, but not just focusing on those strategy as data driven, but also tuning in with their own intuition as they do that.

Amazing. Leanne.  So beautiful. Laetitia. This is great. So exciting to be here. So I'm Leanne Prytherch. I'm the founder and owner of Mindful Management Co. So I'm an online business manager. I essentially help impact driven female entrepreneurs, um, really take their business, I think, to the next level by streamlining operations, working with sales strategies, coordinating projects, daily ops, leading teams, if they have any, and really giving them essentially more time to do what they're good at.

Hmm. Yeah, we all need a Leanne in our lives. And Lucy, I realized there's three L's and an M here. So I noticed that too. I'm the third L. I'm Lucy Starbuck. I am the founder of my self titled business, Lucy Starbuck. I'm a virtual CFO and business profit coach. So my mission is to empower  Um, many, many female entrepreneurs to have profitable, sustainable businesses that allow them to make the impact they set out to make, um, when they first started their business.

I love it. And if you're listening to the first time, I'm Mariah, founder of Content Queen, a content marketing agency for entrepreneurs and small business owners. So basically, as you have sort of worked out, we're all in very different industries. We are not in the same. We are not all marketers. We have. a range of skill sets to share with you today.

So basically I want to go through every element because to me, we are the Royal Flush. Look at us here. We are going to win you that game of poker all together. Um, so working together, we need all these elements in our business for success. And I'm doing the air quotes because success looks different for everyone.

And we don't need to go into that today. Um, but first I want to ask you, Laetitia, about these foundations because I think how I see it is sort of the business, the strategy is the foundation of what we need to get started. So I want you to just share a little bit more about what are these foundations, what is business strategy and why we need to start there.

Yes. Thank you for asking Maria. And when you start your business, basically you can have the best process in place, the best marketing strategy, the best financial advice. But if you don't have  clear strategy of where you're going, what are you selling? What is your unique value proposition? How are you going to go to market?

The marketing, the processes and, and the operations and the finance won't work for you. You need us together to work as a cohort. And that's why I love to use the example of big corporation or startup where there is a pizza to share. And you start first with a strategy. Where are we going? Why are we doing this thing?

What success looks like for us? What is our mission, our vision?  And then we have another piece. For the marketing team and another piece for the operation team and another piece for the finance team. We work together as a whole, aligning backwards from this strategy. And that's why I see a lot of business owners who start the other way around.

They start with one pillar and they're like, Oh my gosh, It's all wobbly. Yes, it's all wobbly, because you need all of those to come together, because if you don't have a table, which is a strategy, and then you don't have those, uh, pillar under the table to hold the table, everything collapses. So that's my take on it.

That's a good analogy.  That was a beautiful analogy. And I see this a lot being, I think, people come to content social media marketing first before they have the strategy. So I definitely see that, um, happening a lot. And we just assume, oh, you know, if we're just on social media, we can get going. But actually, I have a journal of all my business strategy before I even created a social media account.

So I think a lot of the times we just. We want to hit the ground running, but sometimes, you know, we need to take a step back and, and take a breath. So I really want to talk to you, Luce and Leanne about, you know, the next step, which I guess is, you know, putting the systems of sales and the finance in place.

So I want to hear, you know, what that next step looks like from both of you, but then working with clients yourself, what does that look like when they have those foundations set up, when they know where they're heading, when they've got their vision, their mission, their values, their sort of understand their unique, um, Value proposition and they have offerings that they can sell.

So Leanne, I'd love to take, get your take on that next step, you know, setting up the systems and sales. What does that look like? And then what's it like working with clients that have that already set up? Yeah, so I think it's,  well, it's incredibly powerful because it allows me essentially to hit the ground running really, and I can then, I guess, focused efforts on execution and really optimizing what they've already got into place.

But it just gives me that, like Laetitia mentioned, that overall strategy. It gives you those. It gives you the overarching goal and then you can kind of break it down into, you know, quarterly goals, so to speak, that will essentially reach that overarching strategy. So, um, I can obviously then identify areas for improvement and really implement efficient project, uh, processes to, I guess, drive those results that they want to achieve.

So it's like having a really clear blueprint, I guess. Um, without, I'm trying not to use that word blueprint, but it is really, it's a bit of a roadmap, right? That can guide my actions and ensure, I guess, that we're all aligned, right? So  look, it helps immensely. So.  Yeah. And I guess it just, you know, allows you to do your work rather than having to take, you know, ask the questions, okay, what about this?

What about that? And then that business owner is trying to feed information into you that they kind of are doing on the spot because they don't really have the answers. So if someone was to work with you, Leanne, like, what does that look like from having that strategy? What would you then be able to do with that?

I know you said you'd be able to and, and take on those projects, but. What's some things that you've worked on? And I know you do sales strategy as well, and we can talk about how they work together, marketing and sales, because that's a big thing too. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, like with sort of how it's implemented, I mean, obviously it's tailored project by project, but I think.

Essentially like looking at course development, you know, building out sales pages, like building out course portals, membership portals, um, opt in pages. So really going through a bit of a launch strategy first and foremost, planning out, mapping out what we're going to do, how we're going to do it, execute it.

I usually like, I try and go through some SOPs, right? At the beginning and just see kind of what that three month plan is. I mean, like Lucy and I, we work together and Laetitia and I work together too. So  it's great to have the whole team here, but, um, yeah, so really mapping out, I guess, essentially what we, what we need to achieve and where we need to achieve it and really execute from there.

So starting with the plan. Great. Working into page building, um, really streamlining funnels, right? Making sure all the automation set up correctly, ensuring that the ops and backend can run really seamlessly. So then when we sell. It's optimized for, you know, the sort of customer to have that really unique experience to allow them to flow through your funnel seamlessly.

So that's essentially kind of. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And when all those operations are working and you don't have to worry about it, it does make life so much easier when you know, it's all done. It definitely does. Definitely.  And what about you, Luz?  Um, so when a client effectively has their shit together and, sorry, can I swear on this podcast?

Yeah, absolutely. Go for it. Okay, great, wonderful. Um, because I've seen it so much when they don't, right? And so when you know where you're going and what you're aiming to achieve, like from a financial perspective, and finance is such a broad topic, so I'll just look at this from maybe, how you create your profit plan, how you plan to make profit and more profit going, um,  going into the future.

It's so, um, if there's no strategy, it can kind of become carnage. You'd be like, Oh, I want to go after this revenue stream. And I want to go after that revenue stream, or I need to invest in this. And you're, you're kind of like, you don't know what you want. And so one of the things I love about strategy is that actually you're narrowing down exactly what you.

what you want to achieve and how you're going to achieve it. And so sometimes people don't necessarily like to narrow down a strategy because it makes it, it's quite scary. You gotta be quite brave. But it just means that when we put a profit plan together, you can actually, um, build it in line with the strategy.

So when someone's like, oh, I need to actually, um, forecast spending X, Y, and Z, you're like, well, tell me how that gets you to your strategy. And actually, for the most part, you find that they don't need to actually invest that money. So then that is profit increase.  Cause you're clear on your strategy and you are committed to it.

And this is the other thing that. Laetitia probably sees quite a lot of people put a strategy and then freak out if it doesn't work immediately and want to change it. But a strategy is only a strategy when it's been in place for a while and it's proven to work or not work. And if it actually doesn't work, you can pivot, but if you're running it for a month and then you freak out, which we all do, because you know, we're all trying to generate profit and whatnot.

And we want that validation.  It's that's what I see when it comes from a finance perspective. If people haven't got their strategy clear, they throw money at the problem. And when they're throwing money at the problem, they're throwing profit down the drain. And so, um, it's, it's so, so powerful and I've worked in massive businesses without a clear strategy.

And it's such a waste of time because. The employees are wasting their time, honestly. And, um, you're spending money on something that is not actually driving that return on investment that every dollar, especially in a small business, is designed to do. It has to return something. Hmm. Ooh, I love that. I love everything she shared.

And it's so true that you unfortunately have some big business that don't have strategy.  And that's why then they rely on strategy consultants that are external and so on. There is so much power as a small business to reclaim that. having a strategy and then this strategy being implemented through marketing, which will go through Maria, like from a marketing perspective, how does that look like?

But you know, you feed that strategy to all the different pillar and then your business is basically sustainable.  That's a big one. Maria, what does it look like in terms of marketing for you? Yeah. So it's sort of, um, very much the same as what Lou said. Like if,  well, you have people that want to launch 101 different things at once because they want to make money.

Um, and then they rely really heavily on the marketing to bring in new leads. convert existing leads, all the things. So it kind of becomes sales, which marketing is not, it's very much the top of the funnel. Um, you know, whilst we see sales come through every different channel, but it's because the website is optimized for sales.

It's because there is a sales strategy in place. And I think we can be, um, Yeah. It's sort of misled on social media a lot. I know I made a hundred thousand dollars this month on social media, but they have a sales strategy and marketing is just one element. But every time we think social media, we think marketing, but actually social media is both marketing and sales.

So, um, yeah, what I see a lot is when there's no strategy, there's like, Oh, this week we're going to talk about this. And this week we're going to talk about that. And I need to sell this. I need to sell that because there's no clear path in what they actually want to do. And it makes it, and then of course.

without the right, um, strategy, even your branding can be all mixed and mashed and no one knows, you know, what colors you use or what even your brand name is. Sometimes, you know, there can be all these things that sort of don't align to what you want and your values, especially like you could then go into that sort of bro marketing sort of way of marketing, because you haven't aligned yourself with your values and you're just kind of chasing more money or chasing the next sale or chasing the next client.

When in fact, you know, all of us here. can make very smart choices because we know what we want. We can say no to things. So we can say no to clients that come to us that maybe aren't aligned. We can, um, say no to opportunities that we might have to pay for, or we might have to, you know, um,  Sell our soul to, you know, all it, because we know what we want to do.

We know where we want to be. And then it also allows, which Laetitia talks a lot is for us to connect to our intuition and, you know, our vision and really what we want. And then that's how we create a business that we kind of like, or we love, you know, we don't just do it because. Someone on social media is doing the same thing and we think we want that life.

So I totally agree, um, with everything that was mentioned. And I think it's just so cool to see it all work together. Right. And I love that analogy of the pizza and it's kind of made me a little bit hungry, but it's so true. And even like, I see it a lot in corporate where sales and marketing don't often talk together.

Um, but actually in fact, it's probably everyone not really talking and the finance people are like, where's the money and the systems and the ops and the sales are like, where's the money and the marketing people are like, it's top of funnel. And then, uh, the CEO or, you know, the board are like, what's going on?

Why is the business not working how we want it to? So it's, you know, it's not just small business, it's big business and we need to.  You know, bring it all together. And it kind of just answered the question. So, um, does anyone want anything to add on? I know Lucy sort of, um, wanted to add something about how this kind of all works together.

There's another couple of things as well, just on like my experience in corporate as well, the silos can be so dangerous. Right. And you see sales work very separately to marketing and then finance just sitting there in the little bubble being like, stop spending money. Like what, why is this not happening?

You know, whereas no one's quite. brought in on the strategy and that's when everyone should be moving in the same direction.  But the other thing I think, and I'm definitely keen to hear actually all three of your thoughts on this one, is that sometimes the word strategy, as it comes, as it applies to small business, feels corporate y.

And it feels like, oh, but mine's just a small business. Like, it's just me having fun and, you know, trying to make some money for me. I don't need a strategy. And so sometimes it's like, I'm good. I'll just start my business and off we go. And I don't need a strategy. That's probably a bit too advanced for me.

I'm good. Um, so I think that's probably an interesting thing to address just in terms of like, I think we've basically done it, I think, but I just want to call out the elephant in the room.  A business of any size, whether you have just started out now, you've spent 10 getting something or, and made no money, or you are relatively established, you must have a strategy.

And that could be really, really simple, a sentence that is really simple, but without that to your, like, to your point, you're going to be going around and chasing every sale or chasing just every dollar.  That might not be aligned, and I just don't think that's why we all start businesses these days. We want to create an aligned business, which comes from a strategy.

Thank you for saying that, Liz. And you know, the analogy that works really well when I explain to small business why do they need a strategy and why it is essential is using the river analogy. So you need the river bank for the river not to dry or to be flooded.  So the strategy will design the riverbank for you and then within the river, you have the sales flowing through, you have the money flowing through, and you're, you know, making sure that you open the gate in the right way in terms of what you invest in and what you retain.

But all of that is guided by the strategy. You have the content strategies that is flowing through. But a lot of people, they are building their business without those guardrails, without this riverbank,  and they're like, what's happening? I've tried. This tactic because I'm usually calling out people telling you this is a strategy when actually it is a tactic and strategy and tactic are very different.

And now a lot of people are using the word strategy for tactic and a strategy, it takes time to see the result. A tactic, it's like you do a story every 24 hours and you get better views, which this is a tactic. This is not a fucking strategy. So that's where I get very annoyed by this. But I will stay strong  in the fact that we need strategy and then what it looks like.

And we have a lot of clients that I work with and they work with Maria. They work with Leanne. They work with Lucy. So many examples.  Why is that? First of all, i'm a very good funnel and referral, but it's also because I love you dearly And I know the work you do is fucking amazing and I trust you but it's also because once they have the strategy We know what they need It's like, okay, now we need to put all the operation and system in place.

You need to hire people. So go and speak to Leanne. Now you need to make sure you're, you know, tracking your profit. You're investing in the right way. Go and work with Luce. Now you need to have a content strategy and being very intentional with the content you're putting out there. Go with Mariah.  And this is the problem is nowadays.

Not many people are doing business in this way. They're just thinking about their own profit or bottom line. They're like, okay, so how can I extract the most money out of this person rather than having their best interest in, in their heart, which is what I have. And for me, I don't care. I'm just referring people when they're done with their strategies, the strategies is done, they know how to be a sacred CEO.

They need to move on and focus on operation, sales, marketing, or finance. That's my take on it.  And, uh, we always need someone to review a strategy down the line. So I always come back at some point.  That's like a cycle.  I am, I am part of the cycle.  You are.  Yeah, I was just going to say as well, it's, it's, I mean, the strategy is the pinnacle, right?

It provides that vision like Laetitia and Lucy were saying. It's the direction. If I work with someone that doesn't have that can make it really tricky. I can kind of help them Navigate a little bit, but it's like that saying that you probably hear a lot of people, you throw in the spaghetti in the wall and you see what sticks.

So that's why you need people like Laetitia, right? It's the direction, it's the vision, and then the efficient operations ensures that kind of  seamless execution. And then your marketing amplifies the message, right? So. And, you know, helping to attract the right, ideal client, right. That we've, we've worked out along the way.

And the, the sales comes into place as well, where you're really able to, I guess.  Uh, align with your audience, but you're, you're, you're not essentially selling, you're sharing, right? You're sharing your service because it's all about impact. Right? So that's where your revenue growth is coming from too. So your marketing isn't the one that's just bringing in the money.

It's yes. Like you said, it's top of funnel, but you're still working. You know, you're, you're communicating, you're talking, you're sharing with your ideal clients all the time. So, um, I think it's always like that continuous cycle, right? With each element. It really does. It supports each other. It re it reinforces each other as well.

Like kind of that, you know, virtuous loop to propel your business forward. So, and I think you need it. Like, like Lucy was saying, you see big businesses, like I've worked in big corporations where all the teams sit separately, right? The market is over here. The sales is over here. The, you know, finances over here that nobody's talking to each other.

Right. And it's, it can, it just ends up, it can be like a bloody schmozzle. You know, whereas I find like when you're, when we're working together or when you work in smaller businesses, you can really kind of have that beautiful alignment. I guess. Corporate, you start having this kind of breaking down the barrier with agile ways of working.

So I was a general manager in Telstra in the last few years we were, you know, implementing agile at scale. And I have to say in my last few projects, We were working on agile ways of working, which was enabling for the marketing team or representative to have a seat at the table, the finance, the ops, the product, the strategy.

So we were all sharing this kind of ways of working. So there is.  You know, I want to be optimistic as well for those who are still in corporate. It is possible, but you need to embrace agile ways of working. On that point as well, um, smaller teams are more agile and being your expert in your area, working with other experts in their areas is where it unlocks.

But again, without that clear, like North star, like direction, the strategy, it's, um, I can give you an example because Leanne and I work together. I. I'm pretty clear now, eventually, on what my strategy is and who, um, but even then, and even then, right, it's a lot of work to, to execute the strategy. Now imagine.

There was no strategy. So my strategy is quite clearly, like I have three different programs and we just launched them like consecutively. Happy days, really straightforward. And one of my, my ideas at the start of the calendar year was I'm going to keep this fricking thing simple. And I'm just going to boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

We're going to do it. It's still a lot of work and you have to hold firm because sometimes, and Leanne can testify this, it's like, I've got an idea. Let's do this. Let's do that. And she'd be like, Lucy, can you just. No,  just hold firm. We're going to execute the strategy. I'm like, okay. And then I carry on.  It takes like courage to stick with the strategies.

That's why people like freak out quite a lot. But can you imagine if actually the Anna said, yeah, let's go for it. The complexity that goes into your business and an already quite complex, small business that actually runs quite straightforward strategy, complexity costs fucking money. It. add stress to your business, and then you don't actually know what worked.

What is a strategy that works? If you're just pivoting, you execute it once, then pivot, execute.  It's not a strategy, you don't know what's going on. So it's so much uncertainty, so much loss of money and time, and, and you'll probably get end up burnout, right? So even the most simple of strategies, take time to execute and, and, So if you're adding more in at the last minute, it, that takes even more time, cost loads of money, and you still don't get the evidence as to what is the strategy to actually works for your business.

So get clear and then stick to it for like six months. And that will give you enough evidence to determine, um, if it actually works or if it doesn't, if you need to pivot, for example,  I've been there, you get tempted, you go running after the shiny objects. Off the back of what Lou said is an example of, um, having a content or any kind of strategy and knowing where you want to go  was, um,  when we were, when I was in Europe and, uh, threads came out and every client was like, what do we do?

Do we jump on threads? Do we do this? And I said, What is our strategy? What is our plan? Where do we want to go? Is it aligned? Is our audience in? We're able to answer all these questions very quickly and make a decision. Was it part of my workload? Was it just going to be something? And now look at it, it's no one bloody uses it.

So, you know, imagine if we'd have gone all, all in, you know, say for example, you Laetitia, you were like, Mariah, don't do this anymore. Just go in on threads. Let's, and then, and now it's nothing. And then we would have lost like three months of work from another channel. So that's where, like, even any kind of, you know, strategy works together to make those really quick decisions.

And as Lucy said, you know, those things that come in that go, maybe we should try this, maybe we should try that. But, um, you know, having people That helps you, um, bring it together is really important. But one thing you mentioned, Luz, the thing is important to highlight is that burnout when you don't have a plan and each, you know, say you've got your strategy and then you've got each, um, department, which what Laetitia talks about a lot is like, then you're avoiding being burnt out because you know, okay, I know what my sales are.

plan is aligned with my marketing plan. I know what my spend my profit goals are. Um, I know where I have to be, then I can just I work out who I need to outsource to or who I need to support me on that journey. Maybe I have to do it on my own. And with a strategy, it does save you a lot more time, um, because you know what you're doing when, like when you actually know what needs to go out on social media, what, Um, what is the process when you have to create a sales funnel?

What, um, when you go into a zero exactly, you know, what you're looking for and what you need to do and how it aligns to your overall goal. And when you know, all of the things that make up your business, it saves you so much time. Like I can't even begin to imagine how many hours my clients have saved from just having strategy.

In their business. And once you have the business strategy, you can have all the strategies that make up our deck of cards, our Royal flush. And then we can go bam winner over here. I have everything that I need. So  I want to wrap up because we could just talk for hours. Let's be honest. Um, But I want to everyone to share like one quick thing or one action.

I know nothing is ever quick or a question, something for them to ponder off the back of this episode. I think it's pretty clear that the first thing is the strategy and then after that all the departments can work together. Uh, our quote unquote success of our business does not come down to one platform on social media or content.

It does, you know, it, it comes down to all of these elements. So, uh, Laetitia, you go, what's the one thing that someone could do off the back of this episode to just, you know, think about their business a little bit more holistically. Yeah. Why are you running your business? Why? What is it that you're going after?

Are you recreating a nine to five? Are you looking for impact? What impact are you looking to have? Like, why? Going back to your why and asking yourself five times, why, why, why, why, why? And connecting back to that vision and then fitting that into the beautiful hands of Maria, Leanne and Lucy for them to help you  execute that with their own strategy in their own space.

Why?  Love it. Leanne. Love that. I think for me it's simplify. Think about people, I guess often with what I do, people try to overcomplicate  it. So I think look at what you're doing and think about how you could simplify things. All you want to do is build your email list, how you can do that, you know, so really simplify what you're doing, right.

Simplify, simplify, simplify, because when you've got the strategy, like what Tissier says, when you've got the vision, you can look at breaking down those little goals.  Right. And look at, okay, how can I achieve them, but really simplify it. I think people try to over complicate things too often. And that's when they're throwing the spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks type thing comes in.

So,  yeah, I think often it's like taking a step back and looking like Lucy mentioned, you know, I said to her, no, the overall vision, right, we want to amplify her message, right. She won't mind me sharing that.  How we do that is through her programs, right? She was like, Oh, but I want to do this. I want to do that.

I want to do it. No. I said, no, Lucy, no, no, no, we're not doing that now. She's like, I listened to this podcast. I've got this idea. I said, no, no, not doing it. So I was like, no, Lucy, we need to simplify it. And she'll vouch for that. I mean, she just mentioned it, right. I really want to do this though, but no, you, you, you, you stick in the mud.

That's it. I'm like, no, not going to happen.  Sometimes you do you, cause you get excited. You want to do all the fucking things like, I want to do this. I've got this idea. I want to do that. But then implementing it is a completely different story, right? It's it's, it can be much harder than what's going on in your brain.

Right? So simplify deep breaths,  deep breaths. We all need a few of those  and loose.  Um, I think just calling out the elephant in the room, um, of we all are here to make money and we need money as a basic safety mechanism. And, you know, we're all, we, we, we cannot operate as our highest self without having safety baselines as the, um, the foundation of everything.

So yet why, why did we start our business, et cetera? Like, you know, We could have the best intentions of why we started our business, but if it doesn't generate cash for us to live on, enough cash for us to live on, then we're going to panic. And we're, we're going to go off our strategy because we're going to be like, Oh my God, I need cash now.

And I need this and I need that. So if you're in the early stages of business or really whatever stage you're at.  This is where the plan comes into place. And actually, when do you think you will start generating a profit? And it is okay for your business to be loss making. And it, you know, I was talking to someone whose business was loss making for three years.

Right. And that doesn't mean you haven't drawn any money from it. But you're, are you going to be a millionaire? Probably not. So actually, do you have to put some of your own money into the business? First of all, where is that coming from? And how are you going to get to a place where you can start to generate an income from your business?

And also we need to get to a place where we have,  and this number varies, but three to six months of expenses behind us. At all times so that we can feel that safety so that we can get confident in executing our strategy. Right. So if something really bad happens, we know we're good for three months and that doesn't sound cool.

It doesn't sound sexy, but trust me, that feels really sexy when you are in a bad spot and you still got to execute against your strategy. So,  um, that is my good, probably three little tips there, but yeah, um, it's, it's.  Got to get her head out of the sand. That's just the realistic way. And once you're there, it feels fucking good.

Mmm. Safety is sexy. Safety is sexy! Yeah, it's a Rook Chakra. Without the safety, you can't do anything. And you know the six months And I think that this runway and cashflow  is actually what saved a lot of businesses, because this is when a business may die and you're, you've all witnessed me sharing openly with you through either me being your mentor or you helping me in my business is I have the six months cashflow.

The six months cashflow is actually helping me a lot in some of the strategic decisions that I am making for next financial year.  Otherwise I would not be in that position. Making those decisions from a place of, well, the opposite, not from a place of lack or fear, like from a place of confidence, from a, yeah, from a place of abundance is what's going to allow you to achieve the things that you want to achieve and the things that you set out to achieve.

Doing it from a place of fear means you're going to take on, you know, work that you don't want to do. And then you may as well just go and have a job. Like, honestly, like you've got to be able to work with the people and do the kind of work that you want to do. It's why you started the business, I presume.

Hmm. Yeah. And Mariana, what is your parting thought? Oh, sorry. Yes. Oh no, I was just going to say, it's this girl math, you know, it's sort of sometimes like, I hate that girl math, uh, trend. I don't know. I just don't like it. Only because it's like, it's actually show, you know, Oh, let's just be a bit oblivious to our finances and buy that really expensive handbag and just hope we get another client tomorrow.

Like, I think, you know, having some kind of plan in place allows us to buy that handbag if that's what you want. But I think, you know, it's just, we can't just be ignorant to it. And just hope it works out and just hope that, you know, manifestation of the universe will give it to us because it just doesn't work like that.

But, um, my parting words are to drown out the noise that we see on social media and the consistent advice and learn to do what makes you feel good. If someone is telling you, if you're not on Tik TOK, your business isn't going to function. That's not true. I see people that have very successful businesses and their main, um, platform is Facebook, you know, like it just like, or Facebook and email.

I mean, my parting words would be get a bloody email list. Um, but,  you know, it's all about finding what works for you and what you enjoy. And if you are on social media and you're seeing all this advice, Oh, I should try this, should try that. Just get out of the platform. Like just don't consume until you're in a place where you're ready to try something new or you're ready to innovate.

You don't always have to be innovating all the time on these content channels. If you just show up authentically, enjoy it, have energy, it's going to work. And when you have the strategy to back it, of course, you know, it's, Definitely going to work, but just to have that sort of mindset of, I don't need to do what everyone tells me on social media is a really, you know, when I started drowning out the noise and made decisions for myself and what I like to do in my content, I was super creative.

Trust your own creativity is my parting words, but, um, thank you ladies for joining me, um, and for sharing your wisdom and for bringing together the card deck. So I'm not just talking, oh, hit the mic, get excited. So I'm not just talking about the queen in the card deck. I really wanted people to talk about the other elements of business.

So thank you so much.  It's been very fun. Thank you for having us.  Yeah. Thanks for having us, Mariah. It was great. Okay.  The key message really is around those foundations, and I've got a really good visual going up on social media tonight to sort of help you grasp what that looks like.  Take away the key steps at the end of this episode.

Think about your business strategy. Reach out to anyone Can help you on this journey. And if it's any of them, the link is in the show notes, any of the women on the show,  but really what I wanted to emphasize is yes, it isn't just posting content on social media. It isn't just one element that's going to make you long term sustainable business owner.

It is making sure you have the foundations with the business strategy, and then you continue moving forward in the other departments of your business. Whilst you might not have a team running those departments, that is you. So just trying to navigate that, um, and work through that to ensure that  yes, you can create the business that is aligned to you.

So I hope you enjoyed that episode. Reach out to any of the amazing women if you have any questions and remember be a content queen or king and develop your strategy, develop your story, helps develop your business. Also making sure you have a business strategy. Thank you so much for joining me today and please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends.

You can do this by adding it to your Insta stories and tagging me at contentqueenmariah  and making sure you tag any of the amazing women on the show today.  Or you can just tell them about it. Tell your friends, tell everyone. If you rate and review on whatever platform, it does help me get these amazing guests on.

To share my message, share the content, and just continue to deliver amazing content to you.  Follow us on Insta or TikTok and let me know any topics you want me to talk about. I'm planning out the next month. So I'd love to hear from you as this campaign comes to an end. So join us next week for the last episode of the campaign and I will see you soon.

Bye. 

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment